As China blocks Australian coal vessels in the middle of a trade war, India must intervene to rescue our seamen
A humanitarian crisis is brewing in the middle of a China-Australia trade war, which has left stranded stocks as well as sailors on the high seas, and neither country is claiming responsibility for either the return of the cargo ships or allowing even temporary docking rights. China, which has so far procured coal from Australia, has refused the consignment following growing diplomatic hostilities, what with Australia increasingly showing a pro-West tilt and initiating the global fair probe demand for the Wuhan contagion, implicitly holding China responsible for the spread of the COVID virus. Now 400 sailors and two million tonnes of coal are stuck on ships off China’s northeast coast. The shipment is spread across 21 bulk carriers and is valued at around $200 million, so there is a huge economic cost involved. Reports say that 15 of the ships have been waiting since June, stranding the crew on board, who are not allowed to get off, given the existing maritime COVID protocols. Many of the sailors on the Australian vessels are Indian. China says they can turn the vessel around but the seafarers were prevented from doing so by the owners, who didn’t want to readjust a “non-profitable” sailing plan. As the two nations are engaged in diplomatic sabre-rattling, 40 Indian sailors are suffering because travel restrictions in the wake of new pandemic alerts mean that they can’t be offloaded on to another ship passing by the waters. Apart from the complete violation of labour codes and human rights, the blockade has also halted the movement of other ships in the maritime corridor, affecting global supply chains.
In no small part, China is using the crisis to arm-twist both Australia and India. Apart from rallying behind the global probe demand on the Wuhan contagion, what has really angered the Chinese is that both the nations have joined the US and Japan in policing its ambitions in the South China Sea as part of the Quadrilateral Security Dialogue or Quad. This new grouping also formalised its military vigilance and cooperation strategies through a series of recent naval drills. In fact, at one time India was wary of Australia’s role, considering its deep dependence on Chinese markets. After all, China continues to be Australia’s largest trading partner and accounts for 32.6 per cent of its exports. Besides, China has sourced iron ore, coal and gas from Australia because of its geographical proximity and quality, preferring the latter over Brazil. India had never thought that Australia would do anything to jeopardise this mutually beneficial relationship. Also, both India and Australia, being in the neighbourhood, didn’t exactly want to rile up China or risk a hit back by overtly upping the dragon’s anxieties. But the Wuhan contagion and Beijing’s imperialist aggressiveness in the region changed all that. This is significant geopolitically because four of the biggest democracies with stakes in the region are collectively committed to preserving open waters and holding off China’s misadventures to monopolise them. The initiative allows inter-operability among the four partners, which means accessing and using one another’s strengths and bases to pursue their common mission. This makes the Quad formidable. The full-fledged military alliance gives a robustness of entity, one which can now embolden Quad plus the US to coalesce together against China. Except for the US, nobody in the group had directly dared to call out China. With a military-level agreement, there should not be trust issues anymore. And if mutual interests and concerns find congruence, it could over time become what the US calls a NATO-like presence in Asia that could contain China’s expansionist designs. Most significantly, the military alliance could also be strengthened to being an economic coalition; for example setting up a Quad Free Trade Agreement (FTA) to attract investment and set up an alternative supply chain and management network. This is what riles China, which now sees both India and Australia as US stooges in the region. Earlier, it had imposed an 80 per cent tariff on Australian barley and banned beef imports. Ever since, Australia has been looking for allies to divert its exports. One of the results was the Comprehensive Strategic Partnership, to which Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison and Prime Minister Narendra Modi agreed on June 4. One hopes that Modi can prevail upon Morrison to ensure that some rehabilitative measures can be taken since China is testing the new strategic friendship.
