India promotes 'goodwill' naval exercises
By Sudha Ramachandran
BANGALORE - A month from now, the Bay of Bengal will come alive to one of the
biggest naval exercises to be held in these waters when the navies of India,
the United States, Australia, Singapore and Japan conduct a five-day joint
exercise. The event is sure to create more than mere ripples in the region.
Code-named "Malabar 07", the multi-nation naval exercise that will take place
from September 4-9 will see the participation of two destroyers from Japan, a
frigate from Singapore, and a frigate and a tanker from Australia. However, it
will be the US and Indian
navies that will hold center stage.
The US Navy will be represented by 13 warships, including its nuclear-powered
aircraft carrier USS Nimitz, which stirred controversy in India last month when
it dropped anchor at Chennai for a few days, and USS Kitty Hawk, as well as the
nuclear submarine USS Chicago, two Ticonderoga-class guided-missile cruisers,
and six Arleigh Burke-class guided-missile destroyers.
The Indian Navy will be represented by seven warships, including its aircraft
carrier, INS Viraat. Besides, the Indian Air Force's deep-penetration Jaguar
strike aircraft, the Indian Navy's Sea Harrier jets, and the Sea King
helicopters from INS Viraat will be part of the action.
While the Indian Navy has been exercising with its counterparts from Singapore
and the US for more than a decade, it was only this April that for the first
time the navies of India, Japan and the US participated in a joint exercise in
the Pacific Ocean, off the Boso Peninsula in central Japan. Although the Indian
and Australian navies have held joint exercises before, this is the first time
they will be part of one of this magnitude.
The upcoming exercise in the Bay of Bengal is the 13th in the ongoing US-India
Malabar series of naval exercises. It has been "extended" to include other
countries, Indian officials have said. This is the first time a Malabar naval
exercise is being conducted on India's eastern seaboard.
"The purpose of the Bay of Bengal exercise is to develop naval interoperability
among the participating fleets," said Lawrence Prabhakar, associate professor
at the Madras Christian College and visiting fellow at the Singapore-based S
Rajaratnam School of International Studies. The exercises will include
offensive and defensive missions, surface and submarine warfare, maritime
interdiction, and operations to counter piracy and terrorist acts at sea.
The exercise will be held between Visakhapatnam, headquarters of India's
Eastern Naval Command, and the Andaman and Nicobar Islands - not far from the
strategic Strait of Malacca. Drawing attention to the significance of the site
of the exercise, Prabhakar told Asia Times Online that the Bay of Bengal lies
at the confluence of seas with the Indian Ocean on one side and Southeast Asian
waters on the other. "It is at the tapering end of waters through which oil
traffic coming out of the Strait of Hormuz pass before entering the Strait of
Malacca."
The Strait of Malacca connects the Indian Ocean to the South China Sea. This
narrow waterway is crucial to maritime trade - it is one of the busiest ocean
highways in the world. Its traffic density is projected to increase from 94,000
ships in 2004 to 141,000 in 2020. A quarter of the world's oil shipments pass
through this waterway every day. Half of China's imported oil and 95% of the
oil shipped to Japan, South Korea and Taiwan pass through the strait.
Although China is not a Bay of Bengal littoral, it has systematically
cultivated naval ties with Bangladesh and Myanmar to attain access to these
waters. Its presence in the Bay of Bengal and the Indian Ocean has been growing
thanks to such ties - a matter of grave concern to such countries as India.
The joint naval exercise in the Bay of Bengal sends out a message to the
Chinese navy "that its future presence will not go unchallenged in the Indian
Ocean", said Prabhakar.
The
upcoming Bay
of Bengal naval exercise is seen by some as an extension of the activities of
the recently launched Quadrilateral Initiative (also known as "Quad" or the
"axis of democracy"). After all, the exercise involves all four members
of the Quad - India, Japan, the US and Australia - plus Singapore.
The navies of India, the US, Japan and Australia had formed a core group to
provide relief to Indonesia during the 2004 tsunami disaster. That experience,
the four Asia-Pacific democracies have argued, underscored the immense
potential that lay in the four working together.
But China is not impressed by these claims. Beijing feels there is more than
just disaster management in this informal quadrangular exchange. It believes
that the Quadrilateral Initiative is an Asian version of the North Atlantic
Treaty Organization, an alliance to contain a rising China.
Beijing, which expressed annoyance during the India-US-Japan naval exercise off
the Japanese coast in April, went a step further a month later and issued
demarches seeking explanations from Canberra, New Delhi, Tokyo and Washington
on the purpose of the exercises during their meeting on the sidelines of the
ASEAN (Association of Southeast Asian Nations) Regional Forum (ARF) meeting at
Manila in May.
The Quad's members have gone to great lengths
to dispel speculation that their alliance is seeking to contain a rising China.
After the Manila meet, for instance, where the Quad was inaugurated, all
four members stressed that the meeting was not directed against China but
limited to discussing a few issues of common concern.
Earlier, Japan had described the grouping as an "arc of prosperity and
freedom", while India clarified that the initiative has "no security
implication". During his visit to New Delhi last month, Australian Defense
Minister Brendan Nelson stressed that Canberra was in favor of limiting the
initiative to trade and culture.
After the April trilateral naval exercise, Tokyo sought to calm Beijing's
ruffled feathers by claiming that the war games were not directed at any third
country but were a goodwill exercise, while New Delhi pointed out that its navy
was exercising with the Chinese as well. Indeed, within days of the
US-India-Japan naval exercise, two destroyers of Indian Navy joined Chinese
warships of the People's Liberation Army Navy's North Sea Fleet for a bilateral
exercise.
The naval exercise in the Bay of Bengal involving the Quad plus
Singapore is bound to cause ripples far bigger than those that followed the
April exercise.
Last week, Chinese Foreign Minister Yang Jiechi is said to have conveyed
to Indian Foreign Minister Pranab Mukherjee Beijing's concerns over
the Quad. Interestingly, Yang is said to have brought up the
issue when Mukherjee broached the question of China extending support to
India's case for permanent membership in the United Nations Security Council.
With New Delhi looking to win China's support in the Nuclear Suppliers Group so
that restrictions on nuclear trade with India might be removed, India will
certainly not want to run the risk of raising Beijing's hackles. And then there
is the border question that India is anxious to settle.
India stands to gain little from irking China at this juncture, a retired
Indian diplomat said: "It will therefore not want to be seen to be ganging up
against China."
Fortunately for India, all of the Quad's other members too have interests in
China they would not want to jeopardize at this point. So they will be with
India on the tightrope walk.
Sudha Ramachandran is an independent journalist/researcher based in
Bangalore.
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