In his address to the Joint Session of the US Congress, Prime Minister Narendra Modi vehemently argued that it important to build an Indo-Pacific region where “all nations, small and large, are free and fearless in their choices, where progress is not suffocated by impossible burdens of debt, where connectivity is not leveraged for strategic purposes, where all nations are lifted by the high tide of shared prosperity”.

By all counts Prime Minister Modi, in a not too subtle reference, was alluding to the Chinese Belt Road Initiative (BRI) that has penetrated all the continents. It has come to roost in India’s entire neighbourhood including the land locked Afghanistan where China is now establishing a toehold by holding talks with the Taliban to widen the geographical spread of the China Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC).

China considers harnessing the seas and the oceans as essential for the full realization of its maritime power potential in the 21st century. After building robust maritime infrastructure at home and honing requisite skills, it has expanded horizons and incrementally built infrastructure overseas and labelled it as Maritime Silk Road (MSR).

As of December 2022, nearly 150 countries and 32 international organisations have signed 200 cooperation documents to participate in the BRI and the related projects. By the end of 2022, Chinese firms had acquired ownership and/or operational stakes in 95 ports in 53 countries. Currently, Chinese companies (State and private) operate “terminals in nearly one hundred commercial ports across the world in particular at one or more terminals at 36 of the world’s top 100 container ports”. Significantly, the interlinking of ports with road and rail connectivity infrastructure has led to the integration of the regional economies with the rest of the world.

In this context, Gwadar port in Pakistan, Hambantota in Sri Lanka, the Sonadia port in Bangladesh, develop an industrial park near Jask port in Iran and interest in developing the Kra Canal in Thailand are significant contributions to the MSR.

Notwithstanding such a wide Asian footprint and acceptance, the MSR has come under severe criticism as some of the projects are based on ‘lend (money) and lease (infrastructure)’ agreements. This strategy has been labeled as ‘creditor imperialism’ and ‘debt-trap diplomacy’ amid fears that host counties may partially lose sovereignty and control of area where infrastructure is being developed. The latter is best represented by the Hambantota Port in Sri Lanka which is under lease to the Chinese for 99 years.  

The Chinese influence also finds reference in the 23 June 2023 Joint Statement by Prime Minister Narendra Modi and President Joseph R. Biden, Jr. wherein both leaders recalled the Quad led Indo-Pacific Partnership for Maritime Domain Awareness (IPPMDA) launched during the Quad Leaders’ Summit at Tokyo in May 2023. It enables sharing maritime domain data across the Indian Ocean, Southeast Asia, and the Pacific regions. Though not stated in specific terms, the IPPMDA is targeted primarily at China which has been flexing muscle in the Indo Pacific region and maintained a near continuous naval presence in the Indian Ocean. It merits attention that the Chinese Navy is supported by captive bases-facilities in Djibouti and Gwadar in Pakistan.

On its part, China considers the QUAD as an Asian NATO. It has also pointed that “the NATO’s continued eastward foray into the Asia-Pacific and interference in regional affairs will inevitably undermine regional peace and stability and stoke camp confrontation” and cautioned the regional countries to maintain “high vigilance”. Furthermore, it has accused the US of undermining China’s “peaceful rise” and its desire to play a global role under the Global Security Initiative (GSI) that promotes “security for all in the world” similar to the Indian Security and Growth for All (SAGAR).

Prime Minister Modi and President Biden have also committed to “continue working in partnership with regional platforms such as the Indian Ocean Rim Association, Indo-Pacific Oceans Initiative, and ASEAN to achieve shared aspirations and address shared challenges in the Indo-Pacific Region”.

Over the past few decades, Indian military leadership and strategic community has expressed concern about the growing Chinese foothold in the Indian Ocean, a space in which India has “firmly catapulted itself from being a ‘net security provider’ to ‘preferred security partner”. The Indian Navy has emerged as the first responder to a number of asymmetric threats and challenges including natural disasters requiring search and rescue (SAR) and humanitarian assistance and disaster relief (HADR).

The Chinese presence in the Indian Ocean has now been flagged by the Indian Prime Minister and by bringing up the issue in the US, India has, in a subtle way, called for, if not equal, but enhanced US focus in the Indian Ocean vis-à-vis the western Pacific i.e. South China Sea-Taiwan Strait. In that context both sides have decided to hold the inaugural India-US Indian Ocean Dialogue in 2023.

Dr Vijay Sakhuja is Associated with Kalinga International Foundation, New Delhi.