Indian
Ocean is where global struggles will play out in the twenty-first century. It
is a “new great game” in the making.
Indian
Ocean is the new theatre of ‘Great Power’ politics of the twenty-first century.
With a tactical geopolitical landscape, the Indian Ocean- third largest
waterway in the world surpassing the Atlantic and
Pacific Oceans as the world’s largest and most strategically significant
maritime trade for global economy and security. The Indian Ocean Region
(IOR) is surrounded by Africa, Asia and Australia
serves as a maritime highway linking transcontinental human and economic
relationships. In this context, the strategic importance of Indian Ocean
can be best assessed in the prophetic words of maritime strategist Rear Admiral
Alfred Thayer Mahan, who famously stated: “Whoever
attains maritime supremacy in the Indian Ocean would be a prominent player on
the international scene. Whoever controls the Indian Ocean dominates Asia. This
Ocean is the key to the seven seas in the twenty-first century, the destiny of
the world will be decided in these waters.”
It
is these prophetic words that forms the new pivot to the changing strategic dynamics
in the Indian Ocean which Robert D. Kaplan envisaged as the ‘Centre Stage for
the 21st Century’ whereby in the spiralling rivalry of a rising
China and India, ‘Indian Ocean is where global struggles will play out in the
twenty-first century’- a “new great game” in the making.With a gradual decline
in U.S. dominance, thepower struggle seem to have taken its initial roots,
whereby both China and India are looking the “Mahanian way” in redirecting
their gaze from the continent to the seas. In this view, the IndianOcean is the
new limit to China-India’s complex power politics- where both are determined to
make it their nautical backyard. This strategic objective has added a maritime
dimension to their geopolitical rivalry.
Indian Ocean: The Centre of Claim
Since the Indian Ocean has become the pivotal region in the economic and
geopolitical configuration between the two rising Asian giants, thereby, making
it the new security dilemma between the two competitors. This dilemma is
created by the ‘defensive moves’ taken by one which is seen to reduce the
security of the other. Keeping this
context, thereby, to understand the spiraling of tensions, it becomes
imperative to assess the stakes that are involved for the two global actors.
What makes Indian Ocean a duel ground between China and India is
the fact that it is ‘home to important SLCOs (Sea Lanes of Communications) and
maritime choke points’ such as the Straits of Hormuz, Babel-Mandeb
Strait, Straits of Malacca, Lombok and the Sunda
Straits- which form the vital routes for trade and energy (oil and gas)
supplies. Together these carry over 50 per cent of the world’s container
traffic and over 80 per cent of the world’s seaborne oil trade travels through
this maritime corridor of the Indian Ocean. In this case, any disruption to the
sea lines calls for severe security implications for the littoral states, which
hinders their economic development. Thereby, to avoid any inherent risks of
energy imports and transport bottlenecks, both China and India have adopted
strategies such as- pursuing equity stakes in overseas upstream energy
projects, building overland or underwater pipelines, investing in pariah states
such as Iran, Myanmar, Sudan and others and by establishing Strategic Petroleum
Reserves (SPRs).
In this view, the strategic interest of both China and India to play an
active and dominant role in the Indian Ocean is mainly driven by two factors.
First is to procure and secure energy. The
sudden rise of India and China as global economic powers has significantly
increased their energy needs and their dependence on the Gulf for oil supplies. Since both China and India are heavy energy importers, Indian Ocean acts
as the key route for international trade and energy (oil and gas) imports
through the sea lanes. For China, 80 per cent of petroleum imports pass through
the Indian Ocean into the Straits of Malacca, and for India, 75 per cent of its
oil imports originates from the Persian Gulf and passes through the Straits of
Hormuz. In this wrestle for energy security, Beijing’s ‘Malacca dilemma’is
matched with New Delhi’s ‘Hormuz Dilemma’. Thus, this quest for energy security
has heightened the direct stakes of both the rising powers in maintaining the security
and stability of the Indian Ocean region.
Secondly, the ambition for great power status in
the Indian Ocean, in order to become a dominant player to project power and
gain freedom of navigation in the crucial waters of the Indian Ocean. In this case,
India’s dominant position in the Indian Ocean by virtue of its geographic
location and, given its potential to be a great power together with its
aspirations runs antagonistic to a rising China’s quest to gain strategic and
hegemonic space in an off-shore region. In this great power rivalry,
both India and China are engaged in the game of balancing and counter-balancing
by means of engaging with each other’s peripheries. Both the powers are
pursuing a policy of creating its own web of relationships with the littoral
states both bilaterally and multilaterally-by
investing in their economies, building ports and infrastructure, providing
weaponry, and acquiring energy resources. For example,India is engaging through the ‘Look East Policy’- by economic and strategic
engagement with mostly Myanmar, Vietnam and ASEAN. While China is building its
ties through the ‘String of Pearls’, an ‘encirclement strategy’-of which
Myanmar, Pakistan and SAARC are seen to be the most important platforms of exercising
China’s Indian Ocean policy.
Increasing Military Muscle
With these motivations, both China and India are
involved in flexing their military muscle in the Indian Ocean, which is
reflective of their unequivocal desire to improve their ability to combat any
kind of perceived threat to their critical sea lanes- which directly pose a
challenge to their economic development.Therefore,
China and India’s share a common national security strategy which aims to forge
a link to the Indian Ocean in order to have an unimpeded market access, more
direct energy supply lines, and the option of bypassing the dangerous
bottlenecks at the sea lanes. To achieve this national interest, both the countries have adopted various strategic Indian Ocean policies.
In this view, China’s footprints in the
Indian Ocean are visible in its surging naval activities by both and soft power
tactics to increase its influence. Of which, the most recent activity (January
2014), is observed in the forays of the PLA Navy through the Lombok Strait near
Indonesia into the Western Pacific- a navy drill conducted by a three-ship
Chinese navy squadron, where the largest amphibious Chinese landing ship – Changbaishan - along with two destroyers
- Wuhan and Haikou. This military activity of China is seen as its expansion
into the waters in the eastern Indian Ocean, with an ability to operate in the
off-shores bases. Chinese Navy’s field activities also include its
participation in the joint anti-piracy patrols off the coast of Somalia in 2011
and its ship to ship replenishment exercise in Eastern Indian Ocean in December
2013. While China has deployed three Jin-class (Type 094) nuclear-powered
ballistic missile submarines (SSBNs) in active service as of 2007 and is also
reported of deploying attack submarines. China has built naval outposts and
China-friendly ports, such as- Sittwe and Coco Island in Myanmar, to Gwadar in
Pakistan, Chittagong in Bangladesh, Hambantota in Sri Lanka and in Seychelles.
Besides these strategic policies, Chinese President Xi Jinping in 2013 have
proposed to build a ‘Maritime Silk Road’ to boost
maritime connectivity with Southeast Asian and Indian Ocean littoral countries.
Similarly, India is
expanding its established maritime presence through developing its own network
of bases, such as, the Indian naval station, INS Baaz, at the mouth of the
Malacca Strait and an envisaged Chabahar port in Iran, which is situated
adjacent to the Hormuz Strait. Apart from this, India has also stealthily
spanned its interests in the Indian Ocean Rim- connecting with the islands of
Mauritius, Maldives, Seychelles and Madagascar and the rim states of South
Africa, Tanzania and Mozambique. India has also beefed up its naval presence by
positioning INS Chakra, a nuclear-powered attack submarine (SSN) leased from
Russia in active service and the Arihant-class SSBN in the Indian Ocean.And
most importantly, the launch of India’s first indigenous aircraft carrier Vikrant
in 2013 is seen as India’s “ambition to dominate the Indian Ocean” and
heralding a greater Indian presence in the Pacific. India’s naval activities
are reflective in its multilateral naval exercises (MILAN) with Indian Ocean
states such as the Seychelles, Mauritius and the Maldives, along with bilateral
naval exercises with Myanmar and Sri Lanka. India has invested some US$5
million for defence-related projects in the Seychelles, and has installed radar
surveillance in the atolls of the Maldives.
In
an overall assessment, it can thus, be rightly stated that China and India,with
their competitive aspirations are going to shape the contours of twenty-first
century global politics which is to be played in the Indian Ocean. Here, the
new security dilemma between the two rising Asian powers is based on
championing the sea power capabilities in order to control the Indian Ocean
which is destined to decide the fate of Asia. Therefore, both China and India are
looking the ‘Mahanian way’ in the Indian Ocean- the new ‘great game’ of the
twenty-first century.
(Amrita Jash is
a doctoral candidate at the Centre for East Asian Studies (Chinese Division),
School of International Studies, Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi-India.)
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