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The Indian Ocean Region
India, China Compete in the Indian Ocean
Gavin Rabinowitz,
Associated Press, 6 June 2008
Christopher Bodeen
contributed to this report from Beijing.
"For
decades the world relied on the powerful U.S. Navy to protect
this vital sea
lane. But as India and China gain economic heft, they are moving to expand their
control of the waterway, sparking a new - and potentially dangerous - rivalry
between Asia's emerging giants...Encouraging India's role as a counter to China, the U.S. has stepped up
exercises with the Indian navy and last year sold it an American warship for the
first time, the 17,000-ton amphibious transport dock USS Trenton. American
defense contractors — shut out from the lucrative Indian market during the long
Cold War — have been offering India's military everything from advanced fighter
jets to anti-ship missiles...Meanwhile, Sri Lankans — who have looked warily for centuries at vast India to
the north — welcome the Chinese investment in their country."
Comment by
tamilnation.org
Though it is understandable that the
Associated Press writers express the view that for
decades 'the world relied on the powerful U.S. Navy to protect
this vital sea
lane' the question will arise in many minds: which world was it that relied
on the powerful U.S. Navy to protect the vital sea lanes of the Indian
Ocean? For instance, before the
rise of India and China as economic powers, did that 'world' include for
instance the then Soviet Union? And if we go back even further, did that
world include the British Empire (at a time when Britannia ruled the
waves)? The truth is that the US was and is not an altruistic
disinterested protector of the sea lanes of the Indian Ocean. The truth
is that the US recognised the force of something that
US
Rear Admiral Alfred Thayer Mahan said in the 1890s -
"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."
US
Rear Admiral Alfred Thayer Mahan quoted by
Cdr. P K Ghosh in Maritime
Security Challenges in South Asia and the Indian Ocean,
18 January 2004
[see also The Indian Ocean Region: A Story Told with Pictures
and
String of Pearls:Meeting the Challenge of China’s Rising Power
Across the Asian Littoral - Lt.Col. Christopher J. Pehrson, July, 2006
]
HAMBANTOTA, Sri Lanka: This battered harbor town on Sri Lanka's southern tip,
with its scrawny men selling even scrawnier fish, seems an unlikely focus for an
emerging international competition over energy supply routes that fuel much of
the global economy.
An impoverished place still recovering from the devastation of the 2004 Indian
Ocean tsunami, Hambantota has a desolate air, a sense of nowhereness, punctuated
by the realization that looking south over the expanse of ocean, the next
landfall is Antarctica.
But just over the horizon runs one of the world's great trade arteries, the
shipping lanes where thousands of vessels carry oil from the Middle East and raw
materials to Asia, returning with television sets, toys and sneakers for
European consumers.
These tankers provide 80 percent of China's oil and 65 percent of India's — fuel
desperately needed for the two countries' rapidly growing economies. Japan, too,
is almost totally dependent on energy supplies shipped through the Indian Ocean.
Any disruption - from terrorism, piracy, natural disaster or war - could have
devastating effects on these countries and, in an increasingly interdependent
world, send ripples across the globe. When an unidentified ship attacked a
Japanese oil tanker traveling through the Indian Ocean from South Korea to Saudi
Arabia in April, the news sent oil prices to record highs.
For decades the world relied on the powerful U.S. Navy to protect this vital sea
lane. But as India and China gain economic heft, they are moving to expand their
control of the waterway, sparking a new - and potentially dangerous - rivalry
between Asia's emerging giants.
China has given massive aid to Indian Ocean nations, signing friendship pacts,
building ports in Pakistan and Bangladesh as well as Sri Lanka, and reportedly
setting up a listening post on one of Myanmar's islands near the strategic
Strait of Malacca.
Now, India is trying to parry China's moves. It beat out China for a port
project in Myanmar. And, flush with cash from its expanding economy, India is
beefing up its military, with the expansion seemingly aimed at China. Washington
and, to a lesser extent, Tokyo are encouraging India's role as a counterweight
to growing Chinese power.
Among China's latest moves is the billion dollar port its engineers are building
in Sri Lanka, an island country just off India's southern coast.
The Chinese insist the Hambantota port is a purely commercial move, and by all
appearances, it is. But some in India see ominous designs behind the project,
while others in countries surrounding India like the idea. A 2004 Pentagon
report called Beijing's effort to expand its presence in the region China's
"string of pearls."
No one wants war, and relations between the two nations are now at their closest
since a brief 1962 border war in which China quickly routed Indian forces. Last
year, trade between India and China grew to US$37 billion (€24.8 billion) and
their two armies conducted their first-ever joint military exercise.
Still, the Indians worry about China's growing influence.
"Each pearl in the string is a link in a chain of the Chinese maritime
presence," India's navy chief, Adm. Sureesh Mehta, said in a speech in January,
expressing concern that naval forces operating out of ports established by the
Chinese could "take control over the world energy jugular."
"It is a pincer movement," said Rahul Bedi, a South Asia analyst with
London-based Jane's Defense Weekly. "That, together with the slap India got in
1962, keeps them awake at night."
B. Raman, a hawkish, retired Indian intelligence official, expressed the fears
of some Indians over the Chinese-built ports, saying he believes they'll be used
as naval bases to control the area.
"We cannot take them at face value. We cannot assume their intentions are
benign," said Raman.
But Zhao Gancheng, a South Asia expert at the Chinese government-backed Shanghai
Institute for International Studies, says ports like Hambantota are strictly
commercial ventures. And Sri Lanka says the new port will be a windfall for its
impoverished southern region.
With Sri Lanka's proximity to the shipping lane already making it a hub for
transshipping containers between Europe and Asia, the new port will boost the
country's annual cargo handling capacity from 6 million containers to some 23
million, said Priyath Wickrama, deputy director of the Sri Lankan Ports
Authority.
Wickrama said a new facility was needed since the main port in the capital
Colombo has no room to expand and Trincomalee port in the Northeast is caught in
the middle of Sri Lanka's civil war. Hambantota also will have factories onsite
producing cement and fertilizer for export, he said.
Meanwhile, India is clearly gearing its military expansion toward China rather
than its longtime foe, and India has set up listening stations in Mozambique and
Madagascar, in part to monitor Chinese movements, Bedi noted. It also has an air
base in Kazakhstan and a space monitoring post in Mongolia — both China's
neighbors.
India has announced plans to have a fleet of aircraft carriers and nuclear
submarines at sea in the next decade and recently tested nuclear-capable
missiles that put China's major cities well in range. It is also reopening air
force bases near the Chinese border.
Encouraging India's role as a counter to China, the U.S. has stepped up
exercises with the Indian navy and last year sold it an American warship for the
first time, the 17,000-ton amphibious transport dock USS Trenton. American
defense contractors — shut out from the lucrative Indian market during the long
Cold War — have been offering India's military everything from advanced fighter
jets to anti-ship missiles.
"It is in our interest to develop this relationship," U.S. Defense Secretary
Robert Gates said during a visit to New Delhi in February. "Just as it is in the
Indians' interest."
Officially, China says it's not worried about India's military buildup or its
closer ties with the U.S. However, foreign analysts believe China is deeply
concerned by the possibility of a U.S.-Indian military alliance.
Ian Storey of the Institute of Southeast Asian Studies in Singapore said China
sent strong diplomatic messages expressing opposition to a massive naval
exercise India held last year with the U.S., Japan, Singapore and Australia. And
Bedi, the Jane's analyst, added "those exercises rattled the Chinese."
India's 2007 defense budget was about US$21.7 billion (€14.1 billion), up 7.8
percent from 2006. China said its 2008 military budget would jump 17.6 percent
to some US$59 billion (€38.3 billion), following a similar increase last year.
The U.S. estimates China's actual defense spending may be much higher.
Like India, China is focusing heavily on its navy, building an increasingly
sophisticated submarine fleet that could eventually be one of the world's
largest.
While analysts believe China's military buildup is mostly focused on preventing
U.S. intervention in any conflict with Taiwan, India is still likely to persist
in efforts to catch up as China expands its influence in what is essentially
India's backyard. Meanwhile, Sri Lankans — who have looked warily for centuries
at vast India to the north — welcome the Chinese investment in their country.
"Our lives are going to change," said 62-year-old Jayasena Senanayake, who has
seen business grow at his roadside food stall since construction began on the
nearby port. "What China is doing for us is very good." |
