India wades into the South China
Sea By Richard Javad Heydarian
MANILA - India has waded more overtly into
territorial disputes between China and Southeast
Asian nations in the South China Sea, a move that
promises to raise tensions between the New Delhi
and Beijing.
"Not that we expect to be in
those waters [South China Sea] very frequently,
but when the requirement is there for situations
where the country's interests are involved … We
will be required to go there and we are prepared
for that," Indian navy chief Admiral D K Joshi
said last month.
Notwithstanding India's
evolving and complex bilateral relations with
China, and its usual reticence in confronting its
Asian rival, Joshi's statement could
represent a watershed moment in
defining New Delhi's future
position towards China's rising assertiveness in
the South China Sea and signal a more ambitious
Indian naval vision.
After decades of
low-profile diplomacy in the Pacific, where it has
been constantly overshadowed by the likes of the
United States, Australia, China, and Japan, an
increasingly confident India is gradually stepping
up its engagement with the wider region and
flexing its increasingly robust naval muscle in
the process.
India's booming trade with
Southeast Asian countries, paved by New Delhi's
"Look East" policy towards the region in response
to a period of fast economic growth in the 1990s,
has given a refurbished Indian Navy more reasons
to develop an expeditionary outlook and transcend
its traditional areas of operation, principally in
the Indian Ocean.
Against the backdrop of
rising rivalry between the US and China, and
Japan's resurgent foreign policy under a more
hawkish new leadership, India's entry into the
South China Sea drama promises to transform the
Pacific theater into a truly multi-polar strategic
battle for power and influence.
ASEAN-India nexus Increasing
economic and political integration between the
Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) and
India has resulted in three, significant
inter-related trends, namely:
An ASEAN-India economic symbiosis where both
sides have emerged as new centers of economic
growth and dynamism, creating tremendous
potential for large-scale bilateral trade and
institutionalized economic integration.
A mutual strategic recognition first
initiated by India's "Look East" policy in
response to the rising economic importance of
East Asian countries in the 1990s. ASEAN has in
turn progressively raised its estimation of
India as an important strategic dialogue partner
in recent years.
India's broadening interests in the South
China Sea through deepened investments in
hydrocarbon projects in the disputed
territories. New Delhi has consistently
reiterated its commitment to the freedom of
navigation in the area.
The past year
marked a dramatic escalation in the South China
Sea disputes. Under Cambodia's rotational
leadership, ASEAN failed to converge around a
multilateral dispute settlement mechanism to
address the simmering territorial conflicts. The
disputing states, especially China, Vietnam, and
the Philippines, more aggressively pushed their
claims.
The US's "pivot to Asia" policy
has precipitated a gradual but decisive
revitalization of strategic military ties with
regional partners. At the same time, the policy
shift in Washington has added volatility to the
ongoing conflicts by strengthening the hands of
hawks in both China and among the US's Asian
allies.
As a rising Asian power with broad
trade and strategic interests across the globe,
India can not afford to ignore the spiraling
territorial conflicts. While New Delhi is not a
direct party to the conflicts, it is heavily
invested in crucial hydrocarbon projects in one of
the most turbulent areas of the disputed waters,
where Vietnamese and Chinese forces have
occasionally squared off.
Despite vehement
Chinese opposition, Indian companies have plowed
into various exploratory energy projects off the
coast of Vietnam. The Indian state-run Oil &
Natural Gas Company (ONGC) has not only been a
major shareholder in a joint offshore gas project
with TNK Vietnam [1], but it also recently renewed
a two-year joint-exploration project with Petro
Vietnam. [2]
Rising maritime
role Joshi's recent comments should thus be
analyzed in the specific context of China's
increasingly aggressive posture in the immediate
aftermath of Beijing's highly sensitive leadership
transition from Hu Jintao to Xi Jinping in early
November.
Despite earlier hopes of a more
amicable Chinese approach under Xi ahead of the
November 2012 ASEAN Summit in Phnom Penh, Beijing
continued to press its advantage by encouraging
Cambodia to block any unified regional measure on
the maritime disputes.
To consolidate its
domestic leadership, the Xi-led new leadership
also upped the ante by engaging in even more
provocative measures, which not only spooked many
Southeast Asian states, especially claimants
Vietnam and the Philippines, but also arguably
encouraged greater Indian involvement in the
issue.
In November, China published a new
official map including South China Sea features
that clearly fell within Vietnam's Exclusive
Economic Zone (EEZ). Moreover, provincial
authorities in the southern Chinese Island of
Hainan announced new maritime regulations to
search and intercept foreign vessels straddling
Beijing's claimed maritime territories in the
area.
The last straw for India was
Vietnam's allegation that a number of Chinese
paramilitary members harassed the Vietnamese Binh
Minh 2 seismic survey vessel off the coast of
Vietnam, where India's ONGC is currently
operating. [3]
China's subsequent decision
to issue new controversial passports, bearing a
map that lays claim to all its disputed
territories across Asia, also reportedly irked
India.
Joshi's controversial comments
coincided with renewed Sino-India talks over
disputed territories in the Himalayas, which
sparked the 1962 India-China border war that China
won and has ever since embittered bilateral
relations.
In December, against the
backdrop of more Chinese provocations, the
ASEAN-India Summit kicked off with a common goal
of boosting bilateral trade and, more importantly,
fostering maritime security. Judging by the
statements of ASEAN leaders at the meeting, nearly
all sought greater Indian involvement in the
disputes.
"At this time of rising concerns
about maritime issues, the need to maintain a high
level of maritime security and freedom of
navigation offers us [India and the ASEAN]...an
opportunity for enhanced cooperation," Philippines
Vice President Jejomar Binay stated, prodding
further Indian commitment to freedom of navigation
in the South China Sea.
Vietnamese Prime
Minister Nguyen Tan Dung went one step further by
directly soliciting India's support to peacefully
resolve the territorial disputes, based on
agreed-upon regional and international principles.
The summit significantly closed with a decision to
upgrade bilateral relations from a "dialogue
partnership" to "strategic partnership",
underscoring growing common interests vis-a-vis
China.
Both sides also agreed to raise
bilateral trade to as much US$200 billion in the
next decade. The summit's concluding document,
announced as a "common vision", expressed both
sides' interests in ensuring maritime security in
the South China Sea: "We are committed to
strengthening cooperation to ensure maritime
security and freedom of navigation and safety of
sea lanes of communication for unfettered movement
of trade in accordance with international law,
including UNCLOS." [4]
Budding giant
rivalry In light of China's meteoric rise,
fuelling its appetite for energy resources and
coincident rapidly advancing naval capabilities,
India has undergone a strategic soul-searching
over the optimal way to deal with Beijing's
growing muscle.
Unlike China, India is
still heavily embroiled in territorial disputes
with continental neighbors, especially with
Pakistan over Kashmir, and until recently has had
less time to focus on developing its naval
capabilities. That strategic oversight, however,
is now changing rapidly.
After a decade of
robust economic growth, a more confident India is
finding it increasingly difficult to maintain a
low-profile presence in crucial regional and
international spheres. In addition, India's
booming economy has also expanded its global
strategic horizons, with major Indian companies
searching for raw materials, technology and
markets in new territories.
Indian
strategists have thus fixed their gaze on
developing a truly formidable navy to protect
India's emerging global interests, especially the
safe and predictable flow of strategic commodities
from surrounding waters. In the last decade, the
Indian Navy's share of total military expenditures
has increased from 15% to 19%. [5]
In the
coming decade, the navy will be joined by an
armada of new acquisitions, including: two new
aircraft carriers, at least three Kolkata class
destroyers, indigenously-designed nuclear
submarines, a Boeing P-8I Neptune maritime
multi-mission aircraft, and advanced stealth
frigates led by the Sahyadri and Satpura. All told
the acquisitions will place up to a total of 140
warships in India's service. [6]
In the
last decade, the Indian Navy has intensified its
joint-exercises with major naval powers,
especially the US Pacific Command, to enhance its
operational readiness and inter-operability with
allies. Those enhanced ties may have been
motivated in part by past Chinese provocations.
In 2011, Chinese warships reportedly
threatened an Indian Navy vessel patrolling off
the coast of Vietnam. At the time, New Delhi's
response to the incident was subdued. More
recently, top Indian officials have repeatedly
denied that Joshi's comments suggest Indian
"interference" in the South China Sea disputes.
"There are fundamental issues there that
do not require India's intervention," External
Affairs Minister Salman Kurshid stated with
respect to Southeast Asian maritime disputes
during the ASEAN-India Summit. "[These sovereignty
issues] need to be resolved between the countries
concerned".
India has consistently sought
to maintain a cordial working relationship with
China, not least because bilateral trade is
booming, surpassing the $70 billion mark last
year. And while it is still too early to expect
India - known for its tradition of independent
foreign policy - to join a US-led anti-China
bandwagon, New Delhi is clearly beginning to push
back.
Richard Javad
Heydarian is a foreign affairs analyst
focusing on Iran and international security. He is
the author of the upcoming book The Economics
of the Arab Spring: How Globalization Failed the
Arab World, Zed Books, 2013. He can be reached
at jrheydarian@gmail.com
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