Could New Delhi's growing naval force change the balance of power in the Pacific?
BY DHRUVA JAISHANKAR | DECEMBER 6, 2012
Is the Indian Navy about to start mixing it up with China on the high seas? For years, as the Chinese have modernized their naval fleet, Indian strategists have worried about what that might mean for India's political and economic interests. A recent book by C. Raja Mohan, one of India's most influential strategic thinkers, explores the prospect of Sino-Indian competition spilling from the Himalayas to the Indian and Pacific Oceans, risking a struggle for maritime influence in the region among the United States, China, and India.
So it was all the more interesting, when, at a press conference Monday, India's top admiral appeared to suggest that his navy would defend Indo-Vietnamese oil exploration efforts in the South China Sea against Chinese aggression. An Indian state-owned oil company, ONGC Videsh, has been involved in deepwater explorations with Vietnam in the South China Sea since 2006, despite Chinese claims of sovereignty over that area.
But the reality of Admiral D.K. Joshi's statement was far less sensational. Rather than signalling a deployment, he merely reinforced the longstanding Indian position that China's naval modernization concerned India, and that like other maritime powers, India was preparing for worst-case scenarios. It wasn't even a signal to clear the decks, let alone a shot across the bow.
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's growing interests, resources, and technological capabilities will likely lead it to increased naval activity east of the Strait of Malacca, the critical junction of the Pacific and Indian Oceans through which 40 percent of the world's trade and most of East Asia's oil imports flow. 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.
Perhaps more importantly, India is able to work with other regional navies. 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.
None of this means that India is looking to pick a fight with China in the South China Sea, particularly as India has no territorial stakes there. Other facets of the Sino-Indian relationship -- the fragile boundary talks over disputed Himalayan territory and bilateral trade of more than $70 billion and growing -- are of far greater importance to New Delhi. At the same time, renouncing claims to its assets in Vietnam in response to perceived Chinese pressure could embarrass the Indian government, both domestically and internationally. When confronted with pressure from Beijing -- as during the Dalai Lama's 2009 visit to the disputed border town of Tawang or periods when China has refused to issue visas in some Indian passports -- New Delhi's response has generally been to stick to its guns.
India evidently needs to do a better job of managing its message. Its National Security Advisor Shivshankar Menon, who was in Beijing for border negotiations when Joshi made his statement, countered that the Indian media had "manufactured" the story. 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 steadily growing naval capabilities and its deepening commercial engagements in the Pacific Rim means that it now has the ability to provide security in the region to ensure open and secure sea lines of communication. For many countries invested in the region -- not least the United States -- that is welcome. For China too, this presents another opportunity for improving cooperation with New Delhi, but that would require it to accept India's ability to play the role of a Pacific power.
Dhruva Jaishankar is a transatlantic fellow with the Asia Program of the German Marshall Fund of the United States. Follow him on Twitter at @d_jaishankar.
http://www.foreignpolicy.com/articles/2012/12/06/indias_ocean?print=yes&hidecomments=yes&page=full
India’s South China Sea Gambit By Zachary Keck
December 5, 2012
India more forcefully asserted itself into the South China Sea dispute on Monday, with a senior naval officer saying New Delhi is prepared to deploy ships to the disputed waters should its oil exploration interests come under threat.
Indian Navy Chief Admiral D.K Joshi said that his country stands ready to intervene in disputes in the South China Sea if Indian state-run Oil and Natural Gas Corp’s (ONGC) joint oil exploration venture with Vietnam came under threat.
"Not that we expect to be in those waters very frequently, but when the requirement is there for situations where the country's interests are involved, for example ONGC Videsh, we will be required to go there and we are prepared for that," Joshi told reporters.
The admiral went on to say that the Indian Navy has been holding exercises to prepare for such contingencies.
His comments came in response to Vietnam accusing two Chinese fishing boats of cutting the cables of a Vietnam vessel doing seismic oil exploration in the South China Sea on Friday. Vietnam has increased its own naval patrols in the disputed waters in response to the perceived threat.
Last summer ONGC agreed to a Vietnam proposal to jointly develop oil in an area of the South China Sea that China also claims, and one that Beijing had said it planned to auction off exploration rights to.
In response to the Indo-Vietnamese joint ventures, an editorial in China’s official Global Times stated,“It’s clear that such cooperation between Indian and Vietnamese companies in the South China Sea is motivated more by politics than economic interests.”
The editorial went on to argue, “New Delhi wants to further complicate the issue and seeks to pin down China in the area so it could gain dominance in affairs across the region.”
Also of note, in July 2011 an Indian naval vessel making a port call in Vietnam was contacted on an open radio frequency by someone identifying themselves as the "Chinese Navy" stating that "you are entering Chinese waters."
China has taken India's latest comments in stride, exercising uncharacteristic restraint. When asked about Admiral Joshi's comments this week, a spokesperson for China's Foreign Ministry said, "China opposes unilateral oil and gas development in disputed waters of the South China Sea. We hope that concerned countries respect China's position and rights, and respect efforts made through bilateral talks to resolve disputes."
Joshi’s comments came as India and China began two day of negotiations over their disputed land borders, which led to a brief but bloody war in 1962. Tensions were already running high ahead of the talks after Beijing issued new passports that included a map showing the disputed territory with India as part of China. In response, the Indian embassy had printed its own visas showing the territory as falling within the Indian state. Vietnam, the Philippines, and Taiwan also objected to the new passports, and the United States has pledged to raise the passport issue with China.
Tensions in the South China Sea between China and its Southeast Asian neighbors had also been rising in the weeks leading up to Friday’s incident with Vietnam’s oil exploration vessel. ASEAN and China failed to make any progress on the South China Sea standoff at the recent ASEAN and East Asia Summits in Cambodia, and many ASEAN nations and its general secretary were irked by new regulations China issued which appear to give Chinese maritime border patrol authorities the right to board and search foreign ships in some of the disputed waters.
It’s unlikely that the Indian Navy will become a formidable force within the South China Sea in the near to medium term. The country, after all, is far more concerned with maintaining its primacy over China in the Indian Ocean amid the People Liberation Army-Navy’s (PLAN) continued build-up and modernization. Furthermore, in the not too distant future New Delhi may have to deploy more of its naval forces to its Western front to protect the transit of its oil imports from the Middle East and parts of Africa should the U.S. reduce its own presence in the Persian Gulf as Washington achieves greater energy self-sufficiency in the decades ahead.
Nonetheless, Joshi’s comments reflect a budding naval rivalry between India and China that some experts, like C. Raja Mohan, have been warning about it. India has long spoke of exercising greater influence in East and Southeastern Asia as part of its “Look East” policy, which is almost certainly to include strengthening ties to Chinese neighbors like ASEAN nations and Japan that are also increasingly concerned by Chinese assertiveness. This is almost certain to play into China’s historic and modern fears of strategic encirclement.
Zachary Keck is assistant editor of The Diplomat. You can find him on Twitter: @ZacharyKeck.
http://thediplomat.com/indian-decade/2012/12/05/indias-south-china-sea-gambit/
