POL 319India-US-ChinaThe Indian Ocean

How important is India’s Navy?

Nonetheless, India is far more likely to become a regular naval presence in the Pacific than many previously imagined, due to its rapidly expanding economy, improving military technologies, and growing energy interests. The Indian Navy has historically been the smallest and most poorly-resourced of India's three military services, in keeping with the country's security preoccupations at home and its unresolved land border disputes with Pakistan and China. It has just 60,000 active personnel and a $7 billion annual budget, roughly a quarter of the strength and resources of China's People's Liberation Army Navy. Its long-range capabilities come from a single aircraft carrier, a second-hand amphibious transport dock, 14 German- or Russian-designed diesel-powered submarines, and about 20 destroyers and frigates.

But power is relative, and this seemingly small flotilla today constitutes the largest naval presence in the Indian Ocean after the U.S. Navy. Beyond the United States and China, only Japan, South Korea, and perhaps Taiwan boast even comparable capacities for the region, although their navies are more narrowly focused. But India's navy dwarfs those of other countries embroiled in territorial disputes with Beijing in the South China Sea. The two strongest rival claimants to China, Vietnam and the Philippines, boast just three active frigates between them. The temporary presence of even a small Indian squadron in the Pacific could make a meaningful difference to the region's balance of power.

India is conducting sea trials of an indigenously-designed nuclear-powered submarine, which will significantly increase its navy's operational range. In the next two years, India will induct a second aircraft carrier and modern French submarines into active service, to upgrade its aging fleet. The navy's share of the defense budget has steadily grown from less than 15 percent of India's annual military expenditure in 2000 to 19 percent in 2012, outpacing India's overall defense spending. And the 2009 agreement to purchase P-8 aircraft from the United States, capable of interdicting ships and tracking submarines, signals India's technological ambitions in the high seas.

Beginning with basic exercises in the early 2000s, the Indian Navy's collaboration with the U.S. Pacific Command has evolved into complex war games. In 2004, India tested its ability to respond to regional crises in coordination with the United States, Japan, and Australia by performing humanitarian relief operations in Southeast Asia following the devastating Indian Ocean tsunami. And the Malabar series of naval exercises between India and the United States, which have also involved Japan, Australia, and Singapore, has strengthened the Indian Navy's ability to work closely with partners far from its shores. Contrast this to China: Beyond dustups with Southeast Asian countries, and with Japan over disputed islands -- which only generate further suspicion of Chinese military

intentions -- Beijing is also quick to break off military ties, like it did after Washington sold weapons to Taiwan in 2010.

For its part, China needs to appreciate that its aggressive pursuit of maritime territory compels India to cooperate more closely with Vietnam and the Philippines. Beijing's issuing of passports this November featuring a map showing the fullest extent of its territorial claims was a remarkably clumsy gesture, provoking simultaneous outrage in India, Vietnam, the Philippines, and Taiwan. China may have only itself to blame if these states find greater common cause with one another, and with other regional maritime powers.

India’s Ocean?

Are India’s ambitions for dominance in the India Ocean acceptable to the US while similar ambitions by China in the SCS are not acceptable?

the Indian Navy has clear-enough aspirations for the Indian Ocean which are being supported by the government.

Second, it argues that various successful strategies designed to further these aspirations meanthat India is gaining a sought-after position of some eminence in the Indian Ocean.

One problem is the absence of a clear national security strategy for India. The Indian Navy cannot make up for this weakness alone.

There may indeed not be a National Security Strategy, the National Security Council set up in 1998 remains notional rather than substantive, and integration between the military services remains extremely limited.

Nevertheless, this article argues that there is a significant meaningful degree of lower Service-level naval strategy for the Indian Ocean backed up by the government, in which a degree of consensus is noticeable over India’s aspirations in the Indian Ocean, even though questions remain over the effectiveness and impact of the strategy to realise such aspirations.

India officially recognises what it now calls the ‘strategic imperatives’ of India’s international relations; or the ‘marine imperatives of India foreign policy’.4 In the past decade, successive Prime Ministers across the political divide have pushed for an increased focus on the Indian Ocean.

In 2009, the Prime Minister Manmohan Singh stressed that ‘there can thus be no doubt that the Indian Navy must be the most important maritime power in this region.

India’s Stealth Strategy (pre Modi)

Strategic Actions and Environment

Force Buildup – create a naval force capable of defense and deterrence

Forces capable of supporting diplomatic initiatives

‘reach, multiplied by sustainability’ for Indian forces in the Indian Ocean.

Regional superiority is envisaged; ‘to widen the gap betweenthe capabilities of the Indian Navy and other regional maritime forcesin the IOR [Indian Ocean Region]’.

In a reference to Pakistan, and increasingly China, it stresses ‘a critical need to wean the littoral states of our immediate neighbourhood away from the increasingly pervasive influence of states hostile to Indian interests’.

India wants to keep the Sea Lanes of Communication (SLOCs) open, in order to maintain trade flows. India’s rise in the international system is driven by its economic rise, which needs ever bigger imports of energy to keep it going

Prevent jihadist infiltration

Naval competition with Pakistan

Emerging Chinese presence in the India Ocean

There is a palpable Indian sense of emerging ‘encirclement’ by China through the appearance of the Chinese Navy in the Indian Ocean and through worries for India offacilities being set up for China in the Indian Ocean via proxy allies likePakistan, sympathetic states like Myanmar, and vulnerable island stateslike the Seychelles.

China is not readily acquiescing in any Indian sphereof influence in the Indian Ocean.

With regard to China, India seeks to maintain (and not lose) its privileged diplomatic-security links with Indian Ocean states and it seeks to maintain clear military superiority over the Chinese Navy in the Indian Ocean Region. As Raja Menon put it; ‘just because we cannot [globally] compete with China does not mean we do not defend our interests in the Indian Ocean where wewant naval supremacy’

Specific Tactical Actions linked to strategy

first, increasing its naval spending.

Second, strengthening its infrastructure presence – bases on the Indian mainland and islands it controls

Third, increasing its naval capabilities to build its own forces and reduce purchases from abroad.

Fast new modern warships are entering into service with the Indian Navy in increasing numbers, and are tailor made for Indian Ocean maritime diplomacy as well as potential conflict.

India’s indigenously developed aircraft carrier, INS Vikrant, was floated out of dock in December 2011, and is due for entry into service in 2017. This will finally give the Navy the three aircraft carrier capability it has long sought, and will enable deployments further south into the further reaches of the Indian Ocean. A larger indigenously designed aircraft carrier, INS Vishal, is envisaged, to then replace INS Viraat.

Admittedly, something of a race is emerging with China’s own future aircraft-carrier building programme, but such Chinese aircraft carrier assets are likely to bedeployed into the West Pacific and South China Sea rather than the Indian Ocean.

Expand the naval air force capabilities, both long range and connected to aircraft carriers.

Fourth, active maritime diplomacy, including increase deployments of these naval assets around the Indian Ocean.

India’s training of naval officers of other countries, sending its own naval officers (from Chief of Naval Staff downwards) on routine trips to these countries, and regularexchanges at the officer’s level.

varied cooperative examples which include transfer of military equipment (Maldives, Seychelles, and Mauritius), manning of military installations (Maldives), the hydrological explorations carried out on behalf of Indian Ocean micro-island states, patrolling of sensitive straits with local agreement (Mozambique), patrolling of Exclusive Economic Zones (Maldives, Seychelles, Mauritius) and humanitarian assistance provided by the Indian Navy.

The most obvious example of such humanitarian operations was the Indian Navydeployment of 27 warships and over 5,000 personnel to assist theMaldives, Sri Lanka and Indonesia in the aftermath of the 2004 IndianOcean tsunami.

showing the flag throughout the whole region. Such deployments are recognised in India as a highly visible way of reinforcing India’s position in the Indian Ocean

Fifth, exercising in the Indian Ocean; unilaterally or bilaterally, trilaterallyand multilaterally with other actors.

with local smaller states, symbolic rather than substantive operations.

With major powers – UK, France, Russia

The most significant bilateral exercises for India in the Indian Ocean are the ‘Malabar’exercises with the United States, some years conducted in the Arabian Sea and other years in the Bay of Bengal. They send powerful annual political signals and involve particularly substantive units on both sides.

Sixth, keeping open the choke points in and out of the Indian Ocean; in part through its own unilateral deployments, and in part through cooperation with other relevant chokepoint countries.

India’s ‘primary’ area of strategic interest specifically include ‘the choke points leading to and from the Indian Ocean – principally the Strait of Malacca, the Strait ofHormuz, the Strait of Bab-el-Mandeb and the Cape of Good Hope

Strait of Malacca, India’s own position at the Nicobar and Andaman Islands gives it immediate access and potential choke point control of the northern approaches to the Strait. India’s general convergence with the United States both reflected but also was further facilitated by the agreement in 2002 for the Indian Navy to escort American shipping through the Strait enabling US patrol vessels to be redeployed for Indian Ocean-based operations over Iraq and Afghanistan. Equally noticeable has been India’s assuaging of the local Strait states Malaysia, Indonesia and Singapore; including joint exercises and friendly deployments in the Strait area with them. India’s own regular ongoing deployments into the South China Sea, which have been maintained since 2000, also bring India down the Strait.

Strait of Hormuz, India has developed close military links with Oman, which sits directly on the Strait. Since 2003, India has entered into defence agreements with Oman dealing with training, maritime security cooperation and joint exercises.

Strait of Bab-el-Mandeb, the Indian Navy deploys to it as a regular part of its strategic outreach up into the Red Sea and beyond. India keeps a vigilant eye on this strategic choke point. Typical of India’s long-range reconnaissance prowess was the way in February 2006 that a new Chinese destroyer and accompanying oil tankeremerging from the Red Sea via the Bab Al-Mandab Strait were quicklydetected, tracked and photographed by a Tupolev-142M maritimepatrol aircraft, flying out from the Goa naval airbase, a sighting over

1,400 miles away from the Indian mainland.

Cape of Good Hope, India has cultivated military cooperation with the resident power South Africa. This was signalled with their Defence Cooperation Agreement in 2000

India-China-US

The biggest Great Power challenge to India in the Indian Ocean is agrowing Chinese presence.55 In strategic terms China is interested in theIndian Ocean for geoeconomic (energy security) and geopolitical(restraining India) purposes.56 The former brings some convergencewith India; indeed trilateral India-China-Japanese anti-piracy coordinationwas announced for the Gulf of Aden in 2012, even as India andJapan moved closer together on China-centric balancing elsewhere inAsia. Countering China is an important part of India’s strategy.

India’s strategy to minimise and control the Chinese influence in the Indian Ocean regionis to reduce the military gap through ‘internal balancing’ (naval buildup),and countering the Chinese presence through ‘external balancing.

India can use its own geopolitical advantages; in which, as Pant noted, ‘given the immense geographical advantages that Indian enjoys in the Indian Ocean, China will have great difficulty in rivalling India in the Indian Ocean’.59 Despite China’s larger naval spending and naval forces, India can concentrate its forces in the IndianOcean far more than China can, giving India likely continuing regional superiority there over China. China’s emerging so-called ‘string of pearls’ presence in the Indian Ocean potentially encircles India; yet India in turn lies across such extended lines, and is able to cut them fairly easily, given what Iskander Rehman considered as ‘India’senduring tactical advantage’

China is not the biggest Great Power in the Indian Ocean for India to concern itself with. Instead, the power that can still ‘shape’ Indian Ocean events is the United States; given its military presence in Bahrein, Diego Garcia, and Western Australia. However, the US has been accepting a growing Indian role in the Indian Ocean.

India now sees the US military presence as a stabilising factor in an otherwise fragile region. This is a change from the 1980s, when the US arrival in the region, and its setting up at Diego Garcia in particular, was seen by New Delhi as unhelpful and detrimental to Indian interests. Admittedly India’s sensitivity over its own strategic autonomy has stopped it from too close an embrace of the United States,

because ‘China shakes up the maritime balance in the Indian Ocean’ the United States and India are drawing closer together in response, with India in effect softbalancing with Washington against China as part of its wider hedging strategy

The New Government in India and Foreign Policy

Will Modi adopt a Nixon and China approach to India – China relations or will he adopt a Deng Xiaoping strategy in order to win time to build up the India economy?

If China is using the strategic thinking described above for India, how does Modi respond?

The most significant foreign policy challenge for New Delhi in the coming years is going to be dealing with the most important geopolitical event of our time – the rise of China. Despite an obsession among the Indian foreign policy elite with everything Chinese, it is not at all evident if New Delhi has learnt to think strategically about China and all that its rapid ascendance in global hierarchy implies for India.

Modi has indeed travelled to China five times, more than to any other nation and he has been visibly impressed by China’s economic success. Some in China have welcomed Modi as the new Prime Minister. The state-run Global Times has argued that “ties between China and India may come closer under Modi’s leadership.” It goes on to suggest that “the West has adapted to an India with a weak central government in the past decades” and now with Modi in saddle “it is afraid that a strongman like Russian President Vladimir Putin will make India really strong and build the country into a

challenger to the West economically and politically.” Others in China have described Modi as India’s ‘Nixon’ who will take Sino-Indian ties to new heights, even underscoring that “Modi’s governance style and philosophy are very close to Chinese practices.”

Yet Narendra Modi remains a quintessential nationalist looking to raising India’s profile on the global stage. China’s behaviour in recent years has been troubling for India and caution is likely to be the hallmark of Modi’s outreach to China. Addressing an election rally in the state of Arunachal Pradesh which borders China, Modi had underlined that Beijing would have to shed “its expansionist policies and forge bilateral ties with India for the peace, progress and prosperity of both nations.”

Despite his personal grudge against the US, Modi will recognise, if he has not already, that the challenges that India faces with a domestically fragile Pakistan, political uncertainty in Afghanistan, instability around India’s periphery, and an ever more assertive China cannot be managed without a productive US-India relationship. As a pragmatist, Modi cannot ignore the reality that strong ties with the US will play in sustaining his vision of an economically advanced and militarily robust India.

What are the possible implications of a Modi victory for China-India relations?

First of all, Modi’s general stance on foreign policy is important. While there is great partisanship and criticism of domestic politics in India, on foreign policy there is much greater consensus, and there is a tendency not to embarrass the government of the day on external issues or to overturn the policies of the predecessor government. Therefore, Modi is not likely to depart enormously from the general lines of Indian foreign policy over the past several governments including the Vajpayee and Manmohan Singh governments. This will be the case for China-India relations as well.

BJP governments have a somewhat different style and approach. They certainly talk tougher and while they are committed to using diplomacy and negotiations to advance India’s interests, they like to do so from a position of strength – velvet hand in iron glove. In addition, BJP governments are much more likely to walk away from negotiations.

Will Modi be India’s Richard Nixon and from a right-wing position and from a position of political strength in India after winning the elections, will he try to do something more dramatic than merely increasing economic interactions with China and managing the security relationship? This will of course depend on larger geopolitical and political calculations, including the attitude and willingness of Xi Jinping and the Chinese leadership. Over the past decade, Beijing has repeatedly made clear that it does not think that a dramatic breakthrough is achievable with India no the border quarrel. There are signs that Xi Jinping wants to move more quickly, but just how quickly is unclear. Would it be better for Modi to try for a breakthrough earlier rather than later? A lot depends on how his government does domestically. There is a good chance that Modi will be at least a two-term prime minister, with a ten-year stint. After Congress’s disastrous second term,

the Indian electorate may turn decisively to Modi. If he does a reasonable job in his first term, he is likely to get a second. With two terms ahead of him, he may want to leave a breakthrough on China to the second term.

How is China portrayed in the India media?

Of the 148 newspaper reports studied, there were two negative reports for every positive one, with 39% of the articles focusing on border or security issues. A full 45% of the reports were negative, 31% were neutral and 24% were positive. There was scant mention of the significant gains made during the annual India-China Strategic Economic Dialogues or India and China’s growing cooperation on issues like climate change, trade and the oil industry in South Sudan. While all major print publications covered Li Keqiang’s visit, the coverage itself was limited, without analysis of the economic benefits from the eight agreements signed across industries. Opinion pieces were highly critical of the visit, focusing only on the border issue.

Similarly China’s offer to invest $300 billion in India’s infrastructure over the next five years was barely covered by the mainstream media, though the business papers did publish details of the working groups set up to address the growing trade deficit between the two countries. In contrast, the response on the online discussion forums was largely positive with many acknowledging the economic benefits. A minority expressed mistrust, citing Chinese spying, and the poor quality of Chinese technology.

Part of this one-dimensional coverage is due to limited access: just four Indian media houses – three newspapers and a wire agency – have reporters based in Beijing. The rest rely on international wire agencies – and their residual biases – while Indian TV has no presence at all in China. Barring The Hindu reporter, the others rarely travel out of Beijing, as travel and accommodation costs are not reimbursed to correspondents.

Chinese President Xi Jinping said that China and India are strategic partners rather than rivals. “Judging from either bilateral, regional or global perspective, China and India are long-lasting strategic and cooperative partners, rather than rivals,” said Xi. Xi made the remarks at a meeting with Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi ahead of their joint attendance at a summit of BRICS countries, to be held in Brazil. China and India, two largest developing countries and emerging market economies, are striving for national rejuvenation, said Xi, adding that both of them treasure peace and development. As two important poles of the world, China and India share many strategic converging points, said Xi. “If the two countries speak in one voice, the whole world will attentively listen; if the two countries join hand in hand, the whole world will closely watch,” said the Chinese president.