In early September, two Chinese naval ships docked in the Colombo
International Container Terminals (CICT) in which China has invested
$500 million, indicating the possibility of China using its commercial
infrastructure assets in Sri Lanka for military purposes.
Despite
India expressing its concerns to Sri Lanka, another Chinese submarine –
this time a nuclear-propelled one – ‘Changzheng-2’ along with a PLA
Navy (PLAN) escort warship ‘Chang Xing Dao’ docked in Colombo on
November 6, 2014. The growing presence of China in the Indian Ocean is
now unmistakable.
Pakistan has already openly invited China to
construct a naval base at the strategically located port of Gwadar once
again underlines widespread anxiety in India and beyond about Beijing’s
Indian Ocean objectives. Gwadar is a predominantly Chinese-funded
commercial port about 500 km from the Strait of Hormuz and is considered
by many as the most significant of ‘pearl’ in Beijing's ‘string’ of
facilities around the Indian Ocean littoral. Though the Pakistani
request has not been entertained by China, at least for now, Indian
Ocean is fast emerging as the main front in the struggle between China
and India.
The Indian government has been explicitly
acknowledging for the last few years what many have been warning for
almost a decade now: China’s role in the Indian Ocean is growing at a
rate that underlines much more than a normal expansion of capabilities.
Former External Affairs Minister S M Krishna informed the Indian
Parliament in 2011 that “the Government of India has come to realise
that China has been showing more than the normal interest in the Indian
Ocean affairs.”
He went on assert that the government is “closely
monitoring the Chinese intentions.” But monitoring intentions of a
state is a fool’s errand. Intentions cannot be empirically verified and
even if one could determine China’s intentions today, there is no way to
know what they will be in the future. What India should instead focus
on is China’s rapidly rising naval capabilities in and around the Indian
Ocean. Though China may have rebuffed Pakistan’s overtures on Gwadar,
Beijing’s growing influence in Pakistan doesn’t make it any less of a
headache.
For some time now, Indian naval expansion has been
undertaken with an eye on China, but despite some positive developments,
India has nautical miles to go before it can catch up with its powerful
neighbour, which has made some significant advances in the waters
surrounding India.
China’s growing naval capability was on full
display as it paraded its nuclear-powered submarines for the first time
as part of the celebrations to mark the 60th anniversary of the People’s
Liberation Army (PLA) navy in 2009. Gone was the reticence of yore when
China was not ready to even admit that it had such capabilities.
Chinese commanders are now openly talking about the need for nuclear
submarines to safeguard the nation’s interests, and the Chinese navy,
once the weakest of the three services, is now the focus of attention of
the military modernisation programme that is being pursued with utmost
seriousness.
China’s navy is now considered the third largest in
the world, behind only the US and Russia and superior to the Indian navy
in both qualitative and quantitative terms. The PLA navy has
traditionally been a coastal force, and China has had a continental
outlook to security. But with a rise in its economic might since the
1980s, Chinese interests have expanded and acquired a maritime
orientation with intent to project power into the Indian Ocean.
Senior
Chinese officials have now openly acknowledged that China is ready to
launch its first aircraft carrier with tests starting later this year, a
capability that is viewed as being indispensable to protecting Chinese
interests in oceans. China is acquiring naval bases along the crucial
choke-points in the Indian Ocean, not only to serve its economic
interests but also to enhance its strategic presence in the region.
Yet,
China is consolidating power over the South China Sea and the Indian
Ocean with an eye on India - something that comes out clearly in an
oft-cited secret memorandum issued by the PLA General Logistic
Department director: “We can no longer accept the Indian Ocean as only
an ocean of the Indians... We are taking armed conflicts in the region
into account.”
Geographical advantages
Given the immense
geographical advantages that India enjoys in the Indian Ocean, China
will find it challenging to exert as much sway in the Indian Ocean as
India can. But all the steps that China will take to protect and enhance
its interests in the Indian Ocean region will generate apprehensions in
India about Beijing’s real intentions, thereby engendering a classic
security dilemma between the two Asian giants.
Tensions are
inherent in such an evolving strategic relationship as was underlined in
an incident in 2012 when an Indian kilo class submarine and Chinese
warships, on their way to the Gulf of Aden to patrol the pirate-infested
waters, reportedly engaged in rounds of manoeuvring as they tried to
test for weaknesses in each others’ sonar systems. The Chinese media
reported that its warships forced the Indian submarine to the surface,
which was strongly denied by the Indian navy.
“Chinese warships
are deployed in the Indian Ocean Region and we are continuously
monitoring them and see what is their deployment. Along with it, our
aircraft, submarines and warships are always deployed to face any
challenge…IOR is our area of operations and we see what is Chinese
deployment in IOR and how it can create challenges for us and how we can
face them...We are always ready,” the Indian Naval chief Admiral Robin
Dhowan has suggested.
Despite the naval chief’s assertion, it is
not readily evident if the Indian government can effectively manage the
Chinese onslaught in the Indian Ocean in the short to medium term.
