STRATEGY FOR COASTAL & OFFSHORE SECURITY

India has been engaged into trade since ancient time through its maritime route. There are evidences of Harappan civilization had commercial ties with Mesopotamia and Arabian Gulf  region. Many travellers to India had recognised flourishment of  coastal Indian states on account of  trade in spice, cotton, handicraft and silk via oceanic route in their travelogue.

Access to India via Indian Ocean has been a vital strategic trade route since the early medieval period also, but was substantially exercised by the Europeans in the 16th to 19th century to gain an economic and political foothold within the region. Britishers controlled the entire region by taming the entire ocean through the developing of  the well structured maritime rings. However, after 2nd World War when Britishers withdraw from the Indian Ocean, major power of  the world tried to occupy it but with interventions of  UN, Indian Ocean was declared as the “zone of peace”.

World's third largest water body i.e. Indian Ocean is the only ocean of  the world which is named after the Indian sub-continent. This signifies the geospatial & strategic influence of India over the Indian Ocean. India has a vast coast line of 7517 km in the Indian Ocean. Its large geospatial expansion from Gujarat in the west to West Bengal in the east on main Land & Andaman & Nicobar as an island in east provide it a distinguished advantage in geostrategic terms.

Geopolitically, India projects its major significance in the Indian Ocean because of many inter-related factors evolved which include:

• Wide spectrum of Natural resource base.  Significant marine trading route.
• Ever multiplying security & strategic significance.

Indian Ocean has been proven for its crude oil & natural gas resources. Further the large potential of natural gas on the eastern coast of India and commercial potentialities of tidal energy in the west added strategically significant advantage to India's energy reserves.

The biotic resources as commercially proven category include sea weeds, planktons and pearls; however in the reference to increasing requirement of raw material supplies and diversification, nektonic biotic assets have also been exploited on commercial lines. This has multiplied many folds in the recent past primarily due to deceased harvest of the traditional food fish from the temperate waters. In mineral resources commercially exploitable salt & manganese nodules have been added to the India's resource base.

Geopolitical significance of India because of its maritime position lies in, being on the maritime trade route of the Indian Ocean. Strait of Malacca in the east and Suez canal & Cape of Good Hope in the west as an entry & exit point of this ocean commands more than 70% of the world's seaborne trade in oil transits and more than 50% global container movement through Indian Ocean choke points including Strait of Hormuz, Strait of Bab-el Mandel.

Strategic significance of India also increases because of geographic transitional position in the middle of the inter-connecting Atlantic & Pacific Ocean trade route & its being the only major Naval power to provide the safety & security to the trade in the region.

Strategic & security significance of India's maritime location also increases because of it being a Rimland which have significant technological, economic and military holding capacity. Its possession of  nuclear power & locational advantage of launching ballistic missile adds to its importance toward geopolitical sensitivities. India's engagement with regional & extra regional power in joint naval exercise to contain piracy in the Indian ocean, safety of sea lanes and mutual understating to work on a joint operation in the ocean ensure the trust of most of the Indian Ocean Rim Countries in India's capability & future of its being a global power to maintain peace in the region.

To leverage the potential of  being present on the oceanic trade route, Indian Government has called for the blue economy development, modernization of  its ports, initiative taken for the Sagarmala programme, Industrial parks and logistic parks. This will provide the port led development in the Indian coastal states thus power fuel the Indian economy.

However, India’s has significant concerns of  permanent Chinese expansion into the Indian Ocean have been validated with the $20 billion dollar 'Maritime Silk Road' project announced by Beijing. For New Delhi, this remains a contentious and complex issue of  balancing security engagements with Indo-Pacific neighbours, as well as embracing China economically but simultaneously attempting to restrain their maritime influence, creating a fragile environment in the Indian Ocean. Other challenges include technology capacity build up to leverage on the resource base of Indian Ocean and contain piracy in the Indian Ocean.

Recent efforts of  India of  its naval diplomacy with the Indian Ocean Rim countries and outer world powers

& modernizing its naval fleet would provide a peaceful solution to the ambitions of  India in the Indian Ocean.

In the wake of growing maritime trade (through Sea Line of Communication), increasing maritime security threats (piracy) and vigorous race for marine resources (petroleum, polymetalic nodules, etc), Naval strength and maritime infrastructure has become indispensable not only for securing a strategic advantage in world geopolitics but also to secure county's vital economic lifeline.

In this backdrop , the new Chinese leadership has proposed revival of Maritime Silk Route as a Sea counter  part of  it's OBOR (One Belt One Road i.e. land silk route), which will drastically transform its connectivity with Indian Ocean littoral states and countries of South East Asia. The proposed port cities and maritime infrastructure will become conduit of economic cooperation and will elevate China to a strategic vantage.

Why China needs Maritime Silk Route (MSR)?

• To revive Chinese Economy: When the export led Chinese is facing a phase of slowdown, the land and maritime silk route initiatives will act as lucrative investment destination of  huge Forex reserve , with a positive impact on its trade and economy.
• Strategic advantage : Given the rising significance of South East Asia and Indian Ocean , the Maritime Silk Route will provide a strategic advantage to Chinese by legalizing its presence in important port centres of Indian Ocean (which has become the new great game of global powers).
• Peripheral Diplomacy: Through MSR, China aims to pose a soft and reassuring posture among its neighbourhood, where tensions are rising over China's hegemonic power projection and unilateral appropriation of South China Sea.
• Maritime security & Regional stability: Presence of mammoth Chinese Navy will ensure maritime security (from piracy, etc) along the entire Sea Line of  Communications (SLOC).
• A counter to US pivot towards Asia: MSR will act as a counter balance to US pivot and encircling of China.The economic content will provide a stronger glue to the underlying strategic ambition.

Implications for India

Despite several proposals from Chinese Government, India has successfully skirted out the controversial MSR.

India should sincerely evaluates the advantages and concerns of MSR initiative before taking any decision on it.

Advantages are:

• Huge opportunity for maritime economic cooperation: In the backdrop of slowing Chinese export , India can leverage its low cost labour and raw-material. MSR presents an opportunity to strengthen India's manufacturing base, propagate its 'Make in India' campaign, and generate employment opportunities.
• Port led Development: MSR has the potential to act as a vital supplement to the the proposed "Sagarmala" project if properly integrated with Bangladesh-China-India-Myanmar (BCIM) and other existing regional maritime infrastructure.
• Maritime Security force multiplier: India can partner the superior Chinese Navy to ensure peace security in the Indian Ocean Rim, which is prone to various security threats ranging from piracy to maritime terrorism.(Indian Navy being the sole security provider in the entire region).
• Political Dividend: Enhanced maritime cooperation and increased Chinese investment will lead to China developing greater stake in India, which may lead to greater interdependence and softening of stance in other areas like border dispute.

Concern Areas are :

• Opacity in MSR: Though China has carefully projected MSR as an exclusive commercial venture, it has not yet released the details about the project, making countries (including India) apprehensive about its tacit & tactic military intensions.
• Doubtful credential: China's positioning of an exploration rig in the Vietnam's EEZ, its skirmishes with Philippines over the Scarborough reef, and the aggressive patrols off the Senkaku islands clearly shows Chinese intensions in the Western Pacific are anything but benign. With unsettled issues of sovereignty and sovereign jurisdiction over disputed Islands in the South China Sea and the East Sea, Beijing's expectation of a free-pass to create an entire infrastructure corridor in a contested maritime space, appears seriously doubtful.
• Strategic encircling and string of pearls: India has serious apprehensions that the maritime infrastructure will legitimize Chinese army positioning in the Indian Ocean. The China-Pakistan economic corridor, Gwadar port and growing proximity with India's maritime neighbours can hugely impair India's strategic role in its maritime neighbourhood.
• Indian endorsement of Chinese hegemony: If  India joins the  race of  availing cheap Chinese  Infrastructure fund without ensuring it's detailed long term impact and underlying motive, it will end up endorsing Chinese hegemonic stance and loose the confidence of the regional states as an worthy balancer of growing Chinese dominance.
• Chinese ambition in African Resource: With Chinese eye on emerging African economy and it's huge untapped resource, the MSR may turn a surrogate for giant Chinese SLOC, setting up Chinese logistical hubs in the Indian Ocean. This can bring in stiff competition for India as a natural economic partner of Africa (India enjoys a strategic advantage in Africa owing to its historical and cultural linkages).

Conclusion:

India's appreciation of the MSR must be based on an objective appraisal of these new realities. Even assuming the project delivers on its economic promise, it could well turn out to be detrimental to India's geopolitical interests in the India Ocean Region (IOR). As Beijing becomes more involved in building infrastructure in the Indian Ocean, it will play a larger part in the security and governance of the IOR, which could pose a challenge to India's stature as a 'security provider' in the region and also adversely affecting New Delhi's strategic purchase in its primary area of interest.