While Prime Minister Modi’s ongoing visit to island-nations in the Indian Ocean will boost relations with these countries, New Delhi must take its defence cooperation with the US forward to effectively meet Chinese challenges
With Prime Minister Narendra Modi having embarked on a three-nation tour of Seychelles, Mauritius and Sri lanka, the External Affairs Ministry in its media briefings argued that as India is a “net provider of security” in the Indian Ocean, and that defence and security will get prominence in these bilateral relations. The officials have explained how India’s new defence and maritime vision backed by gifts of surveillance equipment and naval boats to littoral-friendly neighbours will best China’s Maritime Silk Route initiative.
While all this is fine, the irresistible urge of officials to compare India with China is worrying for three reasons: First, China is a daunting military power with the best shipbuilding industry in Asia, and has deep pockets. China’s 2015 defence budget is $144 billion as compared with India’s $44 billion. Even if India hopes for a catch-up, crowing about it in advance is not good statecraft. Second, China does national perspective planning, while India appears content with knee-jerk responses. China’s activist foreign policy on display since 2008 has its roots in Deng Xiaoping’s 1978 four modernisation programmes (agriculture, defence, science & technology and industry). India started its ‘Make in India’ programme and had the ‘Act East’ policy less than a year ago. They will require ample course corrections before they deliver results.
And third, it is counter-productive to provoke China by unnecessarily invoking reference to it when there is a border dispute which is legally and militarily heavily in Beijing’s favour. The disputed border is India’s Achilles Heel and the least Delhi can do is be honest about it so that the people do not get surprises like the April 2013 Depsang intrusion and September 2014 Chumar stand-off.
For this reason, what the Chinese Foreign Minister recently said in Beijing ahead of the 18th round of boundary talks by Special Representatives and Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s scheduled visit to China in May assumes significance. Referring to the border dispute, Mr Wang Yi said that “the dispute has been contained”. Explained, this means that the dispute is nowhere near resolution and India will have to do a lot more (including fewer provocations) for the border to remain incident-free.
Given this, India should end the charade of Special Representative talks, whose utility was over in December 2010, when China announced that its border with India was 2,000km as against the 3,488km claimed by India. It is impossible to reconcile a difference of 1,488km territory for peace. For this reason, starting with the 16th round of SR talks in January 2012, the focus decisively shifted from border resolution to Confidence Building Measures, with the agreement on establishment of a ‘Working Mechanism for Consultation and Coordination’ of the border issue.
The problem is that the CBMs will not work in ladakh where China has declared it does not have a border with India. The military-line (line of Actual Control) which has existed there since the aftermath of the 1962 war is, by Chinese interpretation, now on Pakistani soil. Hence, Chinese activities on the economic (and military) corridor that it is creating across Karakoram (ladakh) and Pakistan Occupied Kashmir is not on disputed territory (between India and China), as according to it, is the case with India infrastructure building in Arunachal Pradesh (which China says is disputed). So the more India uplifts Arunachal, the more Chinese will threaten ladakh (with ally Pakistan). The way to ease Chinese pressure on the disputed border will not be easy; a well-crafted and silently worked strategy should help India manage China.
An element of this strategy should be an assessment of the United States’ re-balancing strategy for Asia-Pacific and Indian Ocean. Given its limited assets and archaic shipbuilding industry, India, by itself, cannot become ‘a net provider of security’ in the Indian Ocean. It needs to partner with the US Navy, which, at least, till the middle of this century, will remain the most powerful navy in the world.
With probably this in mind, the US Pacific fleet commander (tipped to become the C-in-C Pacific Command) Admiral Harry Harris recently made two observations to this writer. “India is the centre of gravity in the Indian Ocean”, and “We are looking at interoperability as the endgame (of India-US naval exercises). This is not necessarily for combat environment, but for the highest level of military warfare, so that we (India and the US) are able to operate together, if required.” The two statements by the topmost US commander in Asia are an acknowledgement of India’s location and size advantage, and the US’s offer to partner with India for peace and stability in what India considers its backyard or its area of concern.
If this were to happen, India could get plenty of assistance from the US in surveillance, or what is called Maritime Domain Awareness. India has plans to place a series of satellites for military purposes in space, which unfortunately will be vulnerable to Chinese proven Anti-Satellite capability. The US could help India in securing its space assets from Chinese assaults. Similarly, the Indian Navy’s P8-I aircraft, which bear a similarity to the US Navy’s P8 Intelligence, Surveillance and Reconnaissance aircraft could help one another. Admiral Harris, who has ample experience operating the P-3 aircraft, said that P-8 were an advanced version bearing similarities with the Indian P-8I.
This, of course, is the tip of the iceberg. A close partnership with the US could help India get US technology under the Defence Technology Transfer Initiative for both its maritime and land border needs. The DTTI, established in 2012, is a part of the Obama Administration’s re-balancing strategy meant to ease technology transfer to India through defence co-research and co-development. The roots of the DTTI go back to 1984 when India had first sought US high technology. The issue got a push under the Next-Steps-in-Strategy-Partnership agreement during the Vajpayee Government when a lot of spade work was done by the two sides. However, the last 10 years under the Manmohan Singh Government slowed defence technology talks.
How will DTTI and better interoperability between the India and US navies help ward off Chinese aggressive naval diplomacy in the Indian OceanIJ Indian officials accept that the 2005 agreement (of which civil-nuclear energy was a part) between India and the US spurred China to move on the disputed border talks and sign the 2005 ‘political parameters and guiding principles’ China cannot be comfortable with growing relations between India and the US. This is what India should do to acquire high-end defence technology and to ward off increasing Chinese pressure. A stand-alone Modi visit to the Indian Ocean region will not help much.