President Mohamed Muizzu took workplace within the Maldives in November 2023. Muizzu is a pro-China, anti-India president who has promoted an “India Out” coverage, calling for the withdrawal of Indian troops who had been stationed within the Maldives. He additionally allowed a Chinese navy analysis vessel (which the Indian media referred to as a “spy ship”) to make a port name in February 2024, and in March obtained a Chinese navy delegation and signed a memorandum of understanding (MoU). These developments mark one other step ahead in China’s rising presence within the Indian Ocean area.

China has turn into fairly lively within the Indian Ocean in latest occasions. It is assumed to have dispatched plenty of analysis vessels to the area for nautical charting to allow the deployment of Chinese submarines and to gather details about India’s experiments together with the check of multi-warhead ballistic missiles. The Chinese navy delegation that visited the Maldives additionally referred to as on Sri Lanka and Nepal, concluding agreements on navy cooperation with every of them.

China’s strikes into the Indian Ocean area are a part of a development that has been steadily gathering momentum because the 2000s. To date, Beijing has deployed three approaches. The first is infrastructure development. China’s infrastructure development tends to contain loans prolonged at excessive charges. The World Bank and the Japan-led Asian Development Bank usually supply rates of interest of 0.25–3 %, whereas China lends at 6–8 %. As a consequence, it’s fairly widespread for debtors to finish up with giant quantities of debt that can’t be repaid, forcing transfers of infrastructure management to China.

China can also be selling arms exports to India’s neighbors. It provides submarines to Bangladesh and Pakistan and frigates to Sri Lanka. Weapons are precision devices, however as a result of they’re utilized in harsh environments, they’re fragile and require restore and the provision of elements. Naturally, in case you use Chinese-made weapons, you’ll turn into depending on the provision of elements from China.

Meanwhile, China is deploying its personal navy to the Indian Ocean. In 2008, it dispatched warships to take care of piracy off the coast of Somalia and it has since been actively deployed to the Indian Ocean. In specific, China has despatched submarines, that are a menace that may assault different nations’ sea lanes. China is planning to deploy extra naval vessels centering on the bottom it has inbuilt Djibouti.

Why Is China Expanding into the Indian Ocean?

Looking on the positions the place China is constructing infrastructure, it isn’t laborious to grasp Beijing’s curiosity within the Indian Ocean. China is constructing infrastructure alongside the routes that feed sources to its Pacific coast cities, Shanghai and Hong Kong, which it regards as exceedingly vital. Looking on the areas of port development within the Indian Ocean, we will see they’re alongside routes just like the Middle East–Indian Ocean–Pakistan–Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region, Middle East–Indian Ocean–Myanmar–China, Middle East–Indian Ocean–Malaysia (Indian Ocean facet–throughout the Malay Peninsula–South China Sea facet of Malaysia)–Cambodia–China. As a lot as attainable, China needs to keep away from transporting power sources from the Middle East by the Malacca Straits, the place the United States and India can deploy their naval energy. To that finish, the Chinese are creating a number of various routes. However, many of those various routes go by the Indian Ocean. For this cause, China appears to suppose that it must take its personal measures to ensure safety within the Indian Ocean.

However, this isn’t the one cause for China’s rising presence within the Indian Ocean. Looking at previous patterns, it’s evident that Beijing seeks to benefit from energy vacuums. The South China Sea is an efficient instance. In the Nineteen Fifties, China occupied half of the Paracel Islands when French troops withdrew. In the Nineteen Seventies, when U.S. troops withdrew, it occupied the opposite half. In the Nineteen Eighties, because the Soviet troop presence in Vietnam dwindled, China captured six areas on the Spratly Islands. In the Nineties, when U.S. troops left the Philippines, it occupied Mischief Reef. In different phrases, each time the navy stability adjustments and an influence vacuum is created, China tends to advance its positions, like water flowing into a niche.

The Indian Ocean was experiencing simply this sort of energy vacuum after the Cold War. The Soviet Union was gone, the United States didn’t connect nice significance to the area, and India was nonetheless creating. In response, China stepped up its growth.

How ought to the Quad reply to China? To counter China’s advances, it is very important keep away from creating an influence vacuum. However, Japan and the United States can’t afford to ship many ships to the Indian Ocean. China has constructed and deployed 148 new warships previously decade alone. That virtually equals the full variety of ships within the Japan Maritime Self-Defense Force. In complete, the People’s Liberation Army Navy already has extra ships than the U.S. Navy.

This is the place India is available in. The Indian Navy is increasing quickly. Currently, it has about 140 ships, however that is anticipated to be 170–175 ships by 2035. It can also be very lively. In a latest case of Yemen’s Houthis attacking vessels navigating within the Red Sea, India dispatched greater than 10 vessels to rescue ships at numerous areas. For Japan and the United States, cooperation with India presents new hope.

Until now, the Indian navy has had solely weak anti-submarine capabilities. As China continues to deploy submarines, Japan, the United States, and Australia might want to work collectively to reinforce India’s anti-submarine capabilities and create an anti-submarine info sharing system that can be utilized in actual time throughout the QUAD.

NAGAO Satoru is a Fellow (Non-Resident) on the Hudson Institute.