New Delhi: Sounding a note of caution on Chinese activities, defence and strategic experts on August 3 said that China’s posturing in the Indian Ocean will disturb stability and peace in the region.
Former Commandant of National Defence College, Vice Admiral Pradeep Kaushiva (Retd.), said that China is seeking to trump geography and reduce Malacca Dilemma via China-Pakistan Economic Corridor connecting Xinjiang to Arabian Sea through Pakistan and via China-Myanmar Economic Corridor connecting Kunming to Bay of Bengal through Myanmar.
China is also establishing naval bases in Djibouti and Gwadar to support increasing People’s Liberation Army Navy’s (PLA Navy) near permanent presence in the region besides investing in security elsewhere in the Indian Ocean Littoral through infrastructure development and transfers of military hardware. All this also enables positioning of specialists, labourers equipment and security paraphernalia, he said while speaking at a webinar organised by Bhubaneswar-based non-profit organisation Tillotoma Foundation.
“The Indian Ocean is thus poised to experience turbulence. Taking also into account the revisionist China’s aggressive posturing in South China Sea, the Indo-Pacific sea space as a whole is becoming increasingly unstable,” Vice-Admiral Kaushiva said.
He said, “There is an urgent need for the original Quad members – viz. the US, Japan, Australia and India to draw up the blue print for a free, open and inclusive Indo-Pacific Maritime Security Framework and invite maritime stake holders to join including France, European Union, Indonesia etc. Formalisation of a credible proposal will enable the fence-sitter nations to factor in the complex realities between China’s declared intentions and demonstrated action, to assess whether they have more to gain by joining or less to lose by not joining”.
“Such a framework should, by definition, be also open for China to join. If it does, its acceptance of Charter will make the world an infinitely safer place. If, on the other hand, it does not thereby repudiating the Charter, at least the bogus assurance of ‘peaceful rise’, would be given a formal burial,” he added.
In November 2017, the four countries gave shape to the “Quad” or Quadrilateral coalition to develop a new strategy to keep the critical sea routes in the Indo-Pacific free of any influence.
David Brewster of Australian National University (ANU) said that China’s approach to the Indian Ocean is political and strategic.
Brewster is a Senior Research Fellow with the National Security College at the ANU, where he specialises in South Asian and Indian Ocean strategic affairs.
He said, “There has been a significant deterioration in the relationship between Australia and China in the last six months as our country hailed the need for an independent inquiry into the COVID crisis”.
Subsequently, Beijing had imposed sanctions against Australia, he said.
However, China needs Australian resources like iron ore for which the balance of trade was not in China’s favour, Brewster said.
He said that there are growing concerns about China’s influence in the Indian Ocean and it is time to make Quad a credible grouping.
According to him, the COVID crisis will substantially change the economics of Belt and Road Initiative (BRI).
Jayanath Colombage, additional secretary to the President and former commander of Sri Lankan Navy, said that his country is not happy about what is taking place in the Indian Ocean.
He said that the Hambantota port, in which China has 85 per cent stake, is a Sri Lankan Port and not a Chinese one.
“We will not allow anyone to use a single inch of our land for military purposes which might pose a security threat to India,” he added.
