Interest rises in India's call on Beijing's 'backwater' issue

The potentially huge amounts of oil and gas under the South China Sea (SCS) may have earned it the moniker of the ‘Second Persian Gulf’, but the ongoing struggle in one of the world’s second-busiest sea lane is not just about resources.

The SCS dispute may also come to stand for the dramatic rise of China’s military power and its implication for a region long used to the presence and influence of the United States and its blue-water navy.

“The dispute has the potential of becoming symbolic of China's strategic role in the Asia-Pacific and therefore the focal point of strategic competition, just as Berlin became a symbol and focal point of strategic competition during the Cold War. Unless there is a significant change in China's strategic posture it is difficult to seeing it backing off its territorial claims very soon,” said David Brewster of the Australian National University.

While the 10-member Association of South East Asian Nations (Asean) has tried to resolve the issue, China has remained steadfast that any process of resolution must be bilateral in nature, not multilateral.Not only does this put many of the Asean states on a weaker footing, compared to the relative strength derived out of collective bargaining, but after almost a decade of negotiations, there has been precious little progress in the implementation of measure mentioned in the “Declaration on the Conduct of Parties in the South China Sea” of 2002.

India’s influence

Within this, reports of a confrontation between an Indian amphibious warfare vessel, INS Airavat, and a Chinese warship off the coast of Vietnam in the latter half of July have questioned India’s strategic role in Southeast Asia’s maritime manoeuvrings.

“India has an influential voice in international fora and should speak up for peace and stability in the region,” said Rodolfo Severino, a former secretary general of Asean. “India is a Pacific power and is limited only by its capacity.”

Some, like Brewster, see this as the beginning of India’s entry into the regional dispute: “It seems that the Indian navy has to some extent now inserted itself into the equation in the South China Sea. But it should be remembered that India's naval presence in the region will be much more symbolic than substantive for some years to come - certainly compared with the United States, Japan and other regional powers.”

“However symbolism can be important. Vietnam could see India as a convenient way of diversifying its strategic options by drawing India into its dispute with China,” he added.

Three Indian navy ships — INS Delhi, INS Kirch and INS Airavat — and an Indian Coast Guard vessel have visited Vietnam this year, diplomatic sources said, in line with the usual two or three annual visits that are made by the Indian navy to these waters. “Indian ships have been making port calls in the South China Sea for a long time”, said SD Muni of the Institute of South Asian Studies. “It is only now that China is building up its navy and has raked up the territorial issue”.

Limitations, prospects

While India’s defence relations with the region have been growing steadily in recent years, moving beyond the traditional partnerships with countries like Singapore, its reach will be limited by the capacity that it possesses.

“India's naval capacity is much more limited than other major powers in the Asia Pacific, and will be for years to come. However, a greater Indian security presence in the region is being actively encouraged by the United States, Japan and many other Asia Pacific states. This will potentially give India the ability to leverage its role in the region, although to maximise this opportunity it would need to be prepared to work in cooperation with the United States and its allies to a much greater extent than it has done in the past,” said Brewster.

Muni, too, argued that India will not be able to “meet the deep pockets and capabilities” of other major regional powers, though projects such as the strengthening of the naval base in the Andaman and Nicobar Islands will provide “huge outreach capacity into the Bay of Bengal and the South China Sea”.

Nonetheless, India “should expect many more such incidents” going forward, Muni added.

From the point of view of Asean, which India has sought to engage with more deeply in recent years, Delhi’s increasing strategic involvement in the region may bring more weight to a multilateral push for resolving the dispute.

Still, the ramifications of India’s growing influence in the China’s maritime backyard remain unclear. The elephant and the dragon have rarely met in these waters, though the curious case of the INS Airavat, named after Lord Indra’s fabled pachyderm, may signal an inauspicious start.

Also read: Southeast Asia’s bubbling maritime dispute at https://www.business-standard.com/india/news/southeast-asias-bubbling-maritime-dispute/448590/