dna edit: The great game

Chinese foreign minister Wang Yi’s visit was a marker of Beijing’s enthusiasm at seeing Narendra Modi in 7, Race Course Road. The long-standing border issues were, therefore, acknowledged with a maximum of blandness, the possibility of his statement on stapled visas for people from Arunachal Pradesh raising some hackles aside. But in pointing out the Chinese navy’s push for a greater footprint in the Indian Ocean Region (IOR), the Pentagon’s recent annual report on the Chinese military touches on another issue that could be the main determinant not just of the bilateral equation but of broader geostrategic balances. As Robert Kaplan noted in 2010, it is in “the Greater Indian Ocean region… the interests and influence of India, China and the United States are beginning to overlap and intersect. It is here the 21st century’s global power dynamics will be revealed”. 

The IOR hosts the world’s most important sea lanes of communication (SLOCs) including the major shipping choke points of the Strait of Hormuz, Bab el-Mandeb in the west and the Strait of Malacca in the east — and it is the conduit for the energy flows that function as the Chinese economy’s lifeline. As the report pointed out, China will import almost two-thirds of its oil by next year three-quarters by 2030. As of 2012, 84 per cent of these imports transited the Strait of Malacca. 

Little wonder China is moving to expand its force projection capabilities in the region, as the three-ship Chinese navy squadron’s exercises in the Indian Ocean earlier this year and the navy’s ongoing anti-piracy commitments in the Gulf of Aden show. It currently lacks the logistics and intelligence for establishing a true presence in the IOR, but it is moving to rectify this: building electronic intelligence gathering facilities on islands in the Bay of Bengal, deploying maritime intelligence gathering ships to the Indian Ocean starting 2012, financing and constructing civilian port infrastructure in the IOR such as Gwadar Port in Pakistan and the ports of Colombo and Hambantota in Sri Lanka and engaging with naval diplomacy with countries in the region. 

If Delhi doesn’t course correct as far as defence procurement and revitalising the defence industry go, Beijing will have an edge in naval strength in the mid-term future as well. China’s shipbuilding capacities have advanced at a substantially faster rate; it already has the largest naval force in Asia with 77 principal surface combatants and more than 60 submarines. The INS Sindhurakshak and INS Sindhuratna incidents, meanwhile, along with the long delays in constructing the Scorpene submarines as well as a line of frigates and destroyers, are emblematic of India’s naval force and its depleting fleet strength.

But India’s geographic advantage, a highly regarded naval force, acquisitions such as 12 P-81 antisubmarine warfare aircraft and — perhaps most crucially — a positive equation with other major players such as the US, Japan and Southeast Asian nations that see it as a rightful provider of net security in the IOR all mean that India still holds a stronger hand. It must build on it by accepting and fulfilling the responsibilities of its naval leadership in the region and building on the naval ties it has begun to forge in the region, from holding joint exercises with Japan and the US to hosting multilateral training exercises.

That position of strength will enable it to engage China positively in a flexible, inclusive IOR environment — a positive counterweight to the land border where both leaderships trudge along time-worn ruts.