SEA power is the totality of a nation’s relationship with the sea. It includes the full range of activities from shipbuilding, fleet ownership, fisheries, exploration, and a robust defence capability. Building a modern navy is the task of generations. China began developing its sea power in all its dimensions soon after it helplessly watched the Kuomintang government safely withdraw across the Taiwan Straits by sea. India was slower in understanding sea power. Perhaps the first jarring lesson was when the USS Enterprise entered the Bay of Bengal in December 1971 to demonstrate US solidarity with Pakistan. India was reminded that it could be threatened from the sea by a powerful navy and gunboat diplomacy had not departed with the colonialists.

China’s maritime outlook was constricted by the army background of its early leadership. The importance of maritime development began to come to the fore as its economy grew and more goods needed to be exported and imported, especially oil. Wealthy and successful Hong Kong was China’s window to the western world, from which it learnt valuable lessons in exploiting economic opportunities.

Statistically, China is nearly three times the size of India, having more than double its coastline at 18,000 km, with 5,000 islands/islets and 110,000 km of inland waterways. Its Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ) is 3.2 sq km, about the same as India’s. But it far exceeds India in the number of ports, shipyards, cargo handling and overall maritime activity.

In 1996 China formulated its ‘Ocean Agenda 21’, which envisaged systematic development and utilization of all its marine assets and resources. This was followed in 1998 by a White Paper titled ‘Development of China’s Marine Programs’. The integrated development of marine industries was assigned highest priority in the Ninth Five Year Plan (1996-2000), with emphasis on enabling policies, shipbuilding, ownership, ports, multi-modal transport connectivity etc. Foreign shipping was encouraged, including in coastal trade within designated regions as per rules. The entire emphasis was on facilitating and encouraging maritime economic activity. Unlike in India, Chinese inland waterways have been maintained and expanded to complement movement of goods to seaports. China is one of the largest fishing nations in the world and this is to be given further impetus. Marine tourism, an aspect completely neglected in India, is also to be encouraged.

China already has one of the largest and fastest growing merchant marines in the world and also one operating the youngest ships, most of them built in its own shipyards. With an economy expected to surpass that of the United States in the next two or three decades, China’s global trade will enlarge considerably and more and more Chinese merchant ships will ply the oceans. A very large number of these will transit the Indian Ocean and call at ports in the region, as in fact they already do. Thus, though Chinese maritime presence in the Indian Ocean region is already a reality, it constitutes no more a threat than the huge numbers of Japanese, Panamanian or Norwegian flag shipping do. International law provides for freedom of navigation on the high seas and right of innocent passage through territorial waters and it is right and proper that this should be so as it is to the benefit of all seafaring nations and free trade on which depends the prosperity of the world.

 

Of greater interest from the Indian security point of view are Chinese naval capabilities. These are impressive by any standards, though not comparable in every respect and feature with those of the advanced navies such as the US, Japanese and several European ones. In some respects such as sensors, weapons, design sophistication and tactical doctrine, it is believed that even the Indian navy has a marginal edge. But what is noteworthy is the wide spectrum of Chinese naval effort, starting with shipbuilding capability itself. China is reported to have as many as 800 shipyards, with worker strength between 9,000 and 12,000.¹ Shanghai alone has more yards building warships than the whole of India, and what will be the world’s largest shipyard is under construction on Changxing Island nearby. China aims to be the world’s largest and lowest cost shipbuilder and exporter.

Though the quality leaves something to be desired and design deficiencies are evident, build time and costs are well below Indian norms. More significantly, almost all the equipment, fittings, sensors and weapons are designed and built in China, suggesting a technological, engineering and industrial width and depth which is yet to be attained in India. Still more impressive is the range of ship design and build capability, ranging from ballistic missile firing to nuclear powered attack submarines, conventional submarines, destroyers, frigates, auxiliaries and specialized vessels for oceanography, intelligence gathering and supporting and monitoring space launches and satellites. When to this is added the ability to produce these vessels in numbers at low cost and in a matter of months rather than years as in Indian shipyards, it becomes possible to discern the emergence of a great, modern, seafaring power over the course of the next quarter century or so.

 

Without attempting a detailed analysis of this stupendous nautical effort, it is easy to see that it is directed towards making China a sea power to be reckoned with in a relatively short time. European nations and the United States rode the industrial revolution to build modern navies, refined them through two world wars and the Cold War and are now enhancing their historical advantage, derived at least in part from past possession of colonies, through alliance systems, technology denial regimes and large research effort.

 

China and India, are trying to make up for lost time and opportunities and attempting to compress into decades the development of a modern maritime capability which took western nations centuries. In the case of China it is in consonance with its self-image as a front rank world power, something inconceivable without a first class, blue water navy capable of sustained out of area operations at considerable distances form base. Could such operations extend to the Indian Ocean region, particularly the Bay of Bengal and the Arabian Sea. More importantly, can they be sustained for any significant length of time without support from proximate bases or port call facilities, and for major operations in wider hostilities against a comparable naval power such as India with its geographic advantage? And with what strategic or tactical objective, even if vaguely in support of the prosecution of a land war which might break out several hundred kilometers to the north in the Himalaya? The only naval element that could possibly serve any coercive purpose and be self-sustaining would be nuclear powered, ballistic missile firing submarines, though the effort would hardly seem necessary against India as similar effect could be achieved from launch sites in several regions in China.

Just as the natural strategic space for India is the Indian Ocean, that for China, in addition to its huge land mass bordering Central Asia, Mongolia and Russia, is the western Pacific. As its ambitions enlarge with economic growth, its maritime power is increasing in keeping with its perceived wider role and may look to displaying its presence in those parts of the Pacific presently outside its range of strategic interest such as the southern Pacific or the South American coastal regions. This is more likely if the Taiwan issue remains unresolved and frustration mounts in China at the impotence of its international political, economic and military power to achieve cherished national ends.

There are disputes pending in the South China Sea between several countries over claims to islands and reefs, called variously, the Spratlys/Nansha Qundao, Mischief/Panganiban and others, in which China is a major factor. The disputes are as much historical as manoeuvring for possible oil finds and EEZ advantages. Any substantial growth of Chinese naval power and flexing of muscles will give voice to dormant fears in southeast Asia and elicit political if not military response and opposition. Japan, still a very capable sea power, will be deeply concerned and is bound to take measures corresponding to the growth of Chinese sea power. Indeed it has been doing so for years on the pretext of guarding against vague threats from North Korea, a convenient fiction for really developing a capability against China, especially as the old Soviet bogey can no longer be invoked to marshal national opinion and divert international attention.

 

In contrast to China, India deprived its maritime sector of policy direction and funds for decades because of the blinkers of a landlocked accountant bureaucracy. Entrepreneurship was stifled in the shipping industry. Ports were allowed to decay and wallow in inefficiencies. Shipbuilding remained stunted due to taxation and labour policies. Coastal shipping was destroyed due to lack of incentives. About one hundred shipping companies together own barely 699 vessels with a gross tonnage of only seven million tonnes, a figure which has scarcely grown over the years. The share of Indian shipping in our own trade also continues to stagnate at below 30%, which should be nearer 50%.²

It has not been entirely a negative picture however. Offshore exploration resulted in Bombay High and other discoveries. Fisheries grew due to initiatives by the coastal states. The National Institute of Oceanography was set up at Goa and two permanent research stations were set-up in Antarctica. Claims were established as a pioneer investor for seabed mining rights under UNCLOS. The Indian Navy continued to design and build complex warships in increasingly confident, public sector shipyards. Small private workshops grew to become competent ship repairers and builders of small vessels. An ancillaries industry came up, along with the growth of engineering capabilities for general applications. And to keep all these activities going, young professionals appeared, emerging in their hundreds out of maritime training institutes to man foreign flag ships from Hong Kong to Norway.

 

The Indian state, with its new mantra of liberalization and globalization has rediscovered the importance of the sea and awakened from its slumber. A National Maritime Development Programme awaits Cabinet approval. Not as imaginative, wide ranging or comprehensive as China’s ‘Ocean Agenda 21’, it envisages an investment of Rs 60, 000 crore in ports by the year 2012 and Rs 40, 000 crore in shipping by 2025. The Sethusamudram seaway project between Sri Lanka and southern India to shorten the distance for smaller vessels between the east and west coasts, is being executed. Ship owners have been freed from the bureaucratic stranglehold of the ministry for acquiring and disposing off ships and are benefiting from tax reforms. The shipping protocol has been renewed with Pakistan and maritime boundary disputes, though not resolved, are being addressed. Coastal shipping is likely to see a revival with private ports being developed, and cruise liners have begun offering holidays around the Indian coastline and islands.

 

More than 30% of world trade is now in the Asia-Pacific region. The Indian Ocean throbs with oil and gas tankers needed to fuel the huge economies of India, Japan, China, South Korea, Hong Kong, Taiwan and ASEAN. Assured supplies at affordable cost are a primary concern as they are highly vulnerable to disruption. No alternate source of energy can replace fossil fuels in the foreseeable future.

Cooperative arrangements for ensuring the safety of oil supplies will require to be pursued. Most tanker traffic from the Gulf to Japan and China passes close to Indian shores and through the Malacca Straits choke point. It is natural for India to be involved in measures to promote regional energy security. The USA and Japan, once chary of allowing India an important role at sea, are now eager to see it assume enhanced responsibility. Sooner or later it will have to do so by developing good understanding and strong economic and political relations with countries of the Indian Ocean region and important non-littoral powers like the USA, China, Japan and other maritime users such as France and Britain.

Sooner rather than later, Africa will also contribute more to Indian Ocean trade, and Indian openings to South America, through South Africa and around the Cape of Good Hope, will see a surge in traffic in the southern Indian Ocean and across the southern Atlantic.

The Malacca Straits are now practically saturated and despite traffic separation schemes, accidents have become more frequent. A major sinking in the shallow and narrow waterway could cause extreme economic disruption to countries on either side of the straits. Old existing proposals like a canal through the Kra Isthmus in Thailand merit consideration. Alternate routes through the Sunda and other Indonesian archipelago straits are longer and navigationally more hazardous. Some experts argue that even passage around Australia would not add unaffordable costs for giant super-tankers and container carriers, and cite the closure of the Suez Canal when shipping adjusted to the Cape of Good Hope route. Be that as it may, competitive economies would be loath to add avoidable costs.

 

Terrorism at sea, and another violent scourge from ancient times, piracy, can also be checked only with the cooperative effort of seafaring nations. Both are violent creeds but their motivation, causes and effects are quite different. The Indian Navy and Coast Guard have achieved notable success in intercepting hijacked merchant vessels and apprehending pirates. The Malacca Straits and adjoining seas are a favoured area for pirate activities. In a positive development, 16 countries, including India, Bangladesh, China, Indonesia, Japan, Malaysia, Singapore, Sri Lanka and Thailand, have signed a regional cooperation agreement to combat piracy. A centre will be set up in Singapore, and the Coast Guard will be the implementing agency for India.

The marine environment worldwide has already become a live issue because of oil spills and proliferation of plastics. A rise in ocean temperatures as a function of global warming has caused ice fields in Antarctica to melt at an unprecedented rate and the prospect of the Arctic Ocean becoming relatively ice-free for year-round navigation has affected relations between Canada and the USA as they stake claims to new territorial waters, or assert freedom of high seas passage. The effect of rise in sea levels on low island territories such as the Maldives, Andaman and Nicobar islands will be devastating, and only a little less so for the heavily populated coastal areas of all littorals.

 

India has long faced military threats, economic pressures and technology denial regimes due to its independent policies and has emerged the stronger for it. Unlike threats to national security from landwards, which always emanate from neighbours, threats from the sea are difficult to predict and prepare for because of the nature, reach, flexibility and mobility of naval forces. Only well analyzed experiences of maritime history evaluated by strategic professionals, can yield the lessons, which can be a guide to raising and maintaining naval forces sufficient to safeguard its interests at sea on a durable basis.

These will have to be financially supported by informed political leadership and a strong economy, without which there is no defence capability. An inimical distant naval power, if it gains access to bases in the Indian Ocean, can rapidly alter the strategic balance against Indian interests, even if it does not have the resources of a superpower. History has shown that nations having substantial interests in the seas need to have capability to protect them against threats which may seem nebulous in tranquil times. Times change, as do national interests. Threat perceptions, therefore, need to be kept up to date.

Naval vessels of many nations, including non-littorals, legitimately sail the Indian Ocean. The US Navy maintains a major base at Diego Garcia, which India has opposed. Ships of European navies deploy for long periods as part of NATO standing force supporting the US-led war in Iraq. A substantial US naval presence in the Indian Ocean is a reality in the foreseeable future, as it has been in the past, and is not necessarily against Indian interests.

 

In the Pacific, Chinese sea power is rising rapidly. It has a large, modernizing navy with a submarine fleet which includes nuclear-propelled and nuclear and ICBM capability.³ Newer and improved warships regularly enter service. Interest is focusing on aircraft carrier capability. China had earlier purchased as scrap, the Australian aircraft carrier ‘Melbourne’ and the Soviet ‘Minsk’. The former Soviet ‘Kuznetsov’ class carrier ‘Varyag’, of 70,000 tonnes and seventy per cent complete when purchased from Ukraine where it was laid up, is believed to have been repainted in Chinese markings. It may be used in a training role until China is ready to fully enter carrier-borne naval aviation.

Whatever the details, Chinese intent to become a major naval power is clear. It will then be ready for a role beyond the western Pacific into the Indian Ocean, if its perceived strategic interests require. It has sought and operates communication facilities in Myanmar and has a deep, secretive and enduring military relationship, including nuclear transfers, with Pakistan. It is also completely financing and building the new port of Gwadar on the Makran coast. There are reports of Pakistan facilitating Chinese access to Central Asian petroleum and gas through pipeline terminating in Gwadar. Whatever the necessity and economic viability of the proposal, a larger Chinese role on the Makran coast, with obvious maritime strategic implications for the region and India especially, seems a strong probability.

China acquiring a base facility in Pakistan would merely require two signatures on a piece of paper if their common interests so dictated. Both countries have fought wars and made common cause against India from time to time. Prudence requires that India take note of and plan for the rise of Chinese sea power, its future role in the Indian Ocean, and the possible alliances it may enter into, which would inevitably influence India’s maritime security assessments.

 

But it is necessary to see things in perspective, not only as part of normal relations and trade between neighbouring countries but also as the natural outward expansion of growing economies and evolving international positions. As India’s economy grows and internal and external political consolidation takes place, it too will similarly seek expansion of relations in all spheres with neighbouring countries as well as reaching out to more distant ones.

What can be China’s objectives in the Indian Ocean region? Apart from expansion of trade and political influence there do not appear to be any new ones which serve additional Chinese interests. Strategic support for Pakistan is already a pillar of Chinese foreign policy and apart from serving its wider objectives is mainly directed against India. Similar efforts elsewhere, for example in Bangladesh, have not succeeded to any major extent and overtures to Myanmar are perhaps seen in exaggerated terms in so far as any immediate threat to Indian strategic interests is concerned.

Myanmar is an independent nation which has lived in self-imposed isolation for several decades, has specific ideas about its nationhood and relations with other nations, has experienced the horrors of the Second World War and Japanese occupation and is unlikely to surrender its independent decision-making to serve Chinese (or Indian) interests unless they accord with its own objectives as a nation. China shares land borders with many countries along the Himalayan arc and whereas it is natural for it to have strategic interests along its length, it does not automatically translate into a strategic interest in the Indian Ocean merely because India occupies a prominent position in it and has unresolved land border issues with China. The dimensions of China’s maritime interests have to be understood in a different context, related to its sea borne trade and its geographic situation as a Pacific nation.

 

A more tangible and menacing reaction to Chinese naval expansion will come from the United States navy, a service with a well honed tradition of strategic anticipation and preparation, especially in the Pacific which it regards as an American lake, and where it first countered the growth of the Japanese navy in the first half of the 20th century. After the defeat of Japan in the Second World War, it sought to restrict the Soviet navy largely to the Sea of Japan and the even more confining Sea of Okhotsk and the frozen north-western shore of the Pacific, beyond the fogbound Aleutian Islands.

The USA grudgingly respects Chinese determination to safeguard its perceived strategic interests, but is not willing to concede them should they not accord with its own wider objectives such as over Taiwan and is prepared to exert its naval power as demonstrated in the Taiwan Straits in March 1996. It is therefore certain that as Chinese naval power grows, the first rumblings will be heard in east and southeast Asia, with the USA a keenly interested observer. Should China assume a more threatening and expansionist posture, it will have to cope first of all with the adverse reactions of its immediate neighbours and provoke a more forceful US naval presence, leading to rise in tension in the western Pacific and focusing Chinese attention more narrowly to the region.

It should be evident that China’s ability to deploy into the Indian Ocean will have to be based on a large and powerful navy which, ipso facto, will give rise to apprehensions in its immediate neighbourhood, and the precautionary responses of those countries and the United States will tend to keep the Chinese navy confined to the western Pacific. This will restrict prolonged out of area operations, especially if no major strategic or tactical objective is involved in those distant seas. A major or permanent Chinese naval presence in the Indian Ocean is therefore unlikely in the near term in the absence of a clear strategic objective and inability to sustain prolonged deployment. The world today is less welcoming to Chinese fleets than in the 15th century when Admiral Zheng He made his voyages.

 

China is already a great economic and military power with ambitions to be influential globally and be treated as the equal of the only super-power, the USA. It is conscious of its past glory as well as humiliations. It understands that its ancient greatness was due in great part to its vast trade, both over land and over the oceans. For all but the last two centuries of European domination, it was the largest economy in the world.

India too was the economic equal of China in centuries past, and the two traded extensively and peacefully with each other. It has recovered from the exploitation of two centuries of colonization, and is embarked on a path of rapid economic growth. It has adjusted to the loss of territory through Partition and the cut-off of its Central Asian land links because of Pakistan. It has negated the sanctions and denial regimes imposed on it during and after the Cold War and absorbed the trauma of conflicts with Pakistan and China. It has asserted its intention and ability to resist nuclear apartheid imposed on it by existing powers. In a quieter and less flamboyant way, it has shown as much strategic resolve as China has, with a much weaker hand.

Unlike in European waters and through European sea powers worldwide, historically maritime conflict has not been a feature of the Indian Ocean region. Rather, the main activity from time immemorial has been cooperative trading by sea. India and China, together with Japan, Taiwan, Korea and the ASEAN economies can surely rekindle their past beneficial associations, and in cooperation with other great trading nations of America, Europe, West Asia and Africa, contribute to world prosperity, stability and peace.

In this context their military, especially maritime power, can evolve in a manner seen to be commensurate with their strategic security needs according to their reasonable perceptions and not prove an obstacle to cooperative engagement for the larger common good.

 

* Extracted from a larger study by the author: ‘Maritime Factors Affecting Security and Economic Relations between India and China’, 2006.

 

Footnotes:

1. William R. Hawkins, American Economic Alert.org, 17 August 2001.

2. The Economic Times, 9 January 2006.

3. For a an authoritative and detailed account of the rise of China’s Strategic Seapower, see the book of that title by J.W. Lewis and Xue Litai, Stanford University Press, USA, 1994.