Shake hands and come out
fighting
Naval drills irk China
Although India and China are expected to become each other’s largest
trading partners, the prospects of an Indian Ocean conflict between them are
also increasing, with an emerging Great Game for influence.
Of important developments taking place during the past year or so, one
of the most recent is Japan’s decision to join India and the United States in
their annual bilateral Malabar Naval exercises. On July 22, Japan
announced its decision to take part in the Malabar drills. Although this is not
for the first time, this particular year certainly comes with some geopolitical
baggage that adds to its significance.
India has largely kept the Malabar exercise restricted to a bilateral
one with the US after China protested against its 2007 edition in the Bay of
Bengal when the exercise was expanded to include the Australian, Japanese and
Singaporean navies. However, this year seems to be an exception, one deeply
rooted in the emerging contest.
The Indian Ocean contest has clearly started to take shape as China makes
inroads among India’s close neighbors and India tries to recover its position
as the dominant maritime power. On the other hand, Japan’s inclusion in this
year’s exercise is part of Tokyo’s own drive against an increasingly assertive
Beijing. Japan was keen to take part in the exercise at a time when it is
already expanding the role of its military. With Japan’s inclusion, this year’s
Malabar Exercise has thus taken on an explicit anti-China disposition which is
going to leave both India and China in a complex geopolitical web.
The apparently smooth India-China relations are, in fact, deeply
troubled. The so-called “smoothness” was largely maintained during Chinese
president’s September 2014 visit to India. As such, left largely unspoken are
the deep worries in India over Chinese maneuvering among the littoral nations,
where New Delhi`s position is being constantly challenged by billions of
dollars in aid from Beijing and gargantuan Chinese construction projects.
Interestingly, the underlying reason(s) for this conflict are not
geo-strategic. They are geo-economic. China, India and Japan are increasingly
coming close to the point of conflict in the India Ocean over the tankers that
move through the Indian Ocean, carrying 80 percent of China`s oil, 65 percent
of India`s and 60 percent of Japan`s.
China’s zigzag strategy, aimed at strengthening its position against its
rivals, was quite visible not during Chinese President Xi Jinping’s visit to
India but in the visits he made just before arriving there. For instance,
before arriving in India, Xi visited two of China’s then-allies, Maldives and
Sri Lanka. In the Maldives, Chinese influence has been increasing steadily. The
source of influence is Chinese investment as part of its “String of Pearls”
strategy, now discarded in favor of the Maritime Silk Road, which includes
Chinese investment in ports such as Colombo in Sri Lanka and Gwadar in
Pakistan. China has built a colossal port in the once-quiet town of Hambantota
although newly elected President Maithripala Sirisena has been backing away
somewhat from the Chinese embrace towards India and the US.
PM Modi
returned just few days before the arrival of the Chinese president from a
highly successful trip to Japan, China`s fiercest rival, bringing home pledges
of billions of dollars in aid and investment along with agreements to
strengthen security and economic ties. During the same few days, the Indian and
Vietnamese presidents issued a joint statement calling for “freedom of
navigation” in the South China and East China seas, a clear jab at Beijing`s
aggressive assertiveness in the region.
The story would, however, remain incomplete
without noting the US’s involvement. Not only does the US keep fanning what
some choose to call the “defining rivalry” of the 21st century between India
and China, but the rivalry itself allows the US to profit economically. This
“defining rivalry” cannot be maintained, certainly not by India alone, without
US-manufactured arms, ammunition and modern weapons systems. Therefore, the US
now and then injects certain “defence agreements” into it.
According to a recent report, the US Defense
Secretary Ashton Carter has been advocating certain agreements with India to
bring US defense companies closer to helping the Indian navy build its own
aircraft carrier and to encourage cooperation on jet engines. In his bid to
exert the US’s influence over the so-called defining rivalry, Carter in an
unprecedented move, made the first-ever visit of an American defense chief to a
major Indian naval base and held high-level meetings in New Delhi last month,
focusing on what the Pentagon calls “maritime security cooperation.”
The US’s strategic disposition with regard to
the India Ocean and its alliance with India in this behalf was quite obvious.
Carter was reported to have declared “defense technical cooperation” with India
a big priority for the United States, as well as “a big priority for the Indian
government.” Secretary Carter’s visit to one of India’s major commands sends an
important signal and demonstrates “the clear convergence between the US
rebalance and India’s approach to ‘Act East,’” said one Indian defense
official.
In other words, Carter’s visit to India was
just another effort of the US to shape the former’s relations with China into a
particular framework and, as such, a potential contribution to the
transformation of India-China competition into conflict. Carter’s advocacy of
greater India-US defense co-operation notwithstanding, the US also strongly
favors permanent expansion of The Malabar exercise.
Robert Scher, the assistant secretary of
defense for the Office For Strategy, Plans and Capability, was reported to have
favored the idea of permanently expanding the exercise to include these
partners instead of doing so on an ad hoc basis. He also said that expanding
the exercise would be one tangible demonstration of Washington and New Delhi
working together on maritime security in the Indian Ocean.
India-China rivalry notwithstanding, it is
quite obvious that it is something that serves the US’s strategic
interests—hence, an ever-increasing emphasis on establishing multilateral
strategic partnerships. For India, the prime motivating factors continues to be
Chinese naval expansion in and around the Indian Ocean.
This competition –as long as it remains
competition –is vital for the economic health of both countries because it
involves huge trade transactions. However, transformation of this competition
into conflict would certainly work against the economic interest of both India
and China if not the world.
Salman Rafi Sheikh is a Pakistan-based academic
No comments:
Post a Comment