When it comes to the Indian Ocean, New Delhi is hedging its bets against an assertive China. India and France last year signed a strategic pact opening up their naval bases to each other’s warships across the Indian Ocean. This comes two years after a similar deal with the United States and signifies a web of strategic trust to thwart Beijing’s expansion into India’s traditional area of influence.
In recent years, Beijing’s push to contain India has become more frenetic, including signing agreements with Myanmar, Sri Lanka, the Maldives and Pakistan. India’s deal with France is therefore an escalation of New Delhi’s capacity to project power.
It grants the Indian navy access to strategically important French ports, including one in Djibouti, home to China’s single overseas military base and a focal point of strategic competition for the Indian Ocean. The installation can host over 10000 troops and serves as a springboard for Chinese navy operations across the Indian Ocean.
New Delhi has long feared being encircled in what is called China’s “string of pearls”, a network of installations in the Indian Ocean. The vision that global influence hinges on naval supremacy was most clearly articulated in China’s 2015 defence white paper, which demanded that the navy move from “offshore waters defence” to “open seas protection”.
The Chinese navy’s system of alliances is a tactical nightmare for India since they limit its navy’s ability to counter act China’s moves across the Indian Ocean. With Pakistan’s Guwadar port, Beijing has struck a particularly sensitive nerve, a combined Pakistan-China maritime border fuses two of India’s most pressing strategic challenges into one. There are also reports of a Chinese military base planned in nearby Jiwani, and another in Bangladesh. These projects will embed China’s military in India’s backyard, with strategic access to the Bay of Bengal.
But India is not sitting ideally by while China tries to make the Indian Ocean its own. Prime Minister Narendra Modi finalised an agreement for a new base in the Seychelles and negotiated military access to naval facilities at Oman’s port and airfields this year. Pacts allowing deployments from each other’s naval facilities were signed with Singapore in 2017 and with Indonesia in 2018. With expanded bases on the Andaman and Nicobar Islands at the end of the Malacca Strait, India is raising the stakes in the fight over the waters of Southeast Asia.
Albeit belatedly, India has realised that it needs to match China’s assertiveness. India’s “Act East” policy and Washington’s “Free and Open Indo-Pacific” concept are starting points for pushing into China’s traditional waters in return. India might just be able to one-up Beijing and expand its reach into the Pacific. After all, the result of these joint military agreements is that Indian warships now have access to their own “string of pearls”, from Madagascar, via Djibouti, Oman and Seychelles, all the way to Singapore.
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