The People’s Liberation Army’s navy (PLAN) in late March named 5 seabed options within the Indian Ocean area (IOR) after Chinese musical devices, taking the whole variety of names it has given to undersea topographies within the maritime space to 9, in a transfer, which, in line with a PLA officer, is an instance of China’s “soft power”.

The new names given by PLAN have been included in a database maintained in a global register.

While China has earlier declared renaming undersea options in different maritime areas, it’s the first time that the Chinese navy has made public that it has executed so within the IOR.

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“The PLA Navy has completed work on naming five seabed places in the international waters of the Indian Ocean, making a total of nine seabed place names in the international waters of the Indian Ocean,” nationwide broadcaster CCTV’s navy channel reported late March.

“Huapengu (Flowerpot drum) sea knoll, Tang drum sea knoll, fishing drum sea knoll, waist drum seamount… are all names given by the information centre of the (PLA’s) Naval Staff Department to submarine geographical entities in the international waters of the Indian Ocean,” the report added.

A seamount is a big underwater volcanic mountain whereas sea knolls are smaller volcanic mountains.

“Although the correlation between oceanic seabed place names and sovereignty ownership is not very strong, it reflects our national soft power,” Xu Jinde, an engineer at PLAN’s Navy Staff Department of Information, instructed CCTV.

The state media article didn’t share the exact places of the seabed options. It’s additionally not identified the place the remaining 4 options are.

“…these submarine names with elements of China’s unique musical instruments have been included in the international database of undersea names.”

The newest transfer by the PLA navy – the most important on this planet – can be carefully tracked by the Indian navy, which has needed to monitor and monitor the rising presence of Chinese vessels together with submarines and huge, tech-heavy survey ships within the area.

”Also, it has an important position in marine scientific analysis, engineering exploration, scientific analysis and so forth,” engineer Xu stated.

At current, China has 238 undersea place names included within the worldwide listing of undersea names.

“This year, the PLA Navy will use traditional Chinese colours for (more) undersea place names, and if the proposals are approved, ancient Chinese names such as Plum Dye, Rouge and Moon White will be forever marked in the Western Indian Ocean waters,” Xu stated.

PLAN has been actively concerned within the naming of seabed options in worldwide waters since 2014, “…using Chinese national totems, words and phrases from the poetic scriptures and the Chinese lunar calendar months as special names for geographic entities on the seabed, highlighting the profound heritage and distinctive characteristics of Chinese culture.”

At current, the Naval Staff Department’s data centre has 30 names for seabed options, which have been accepted by the International Sub-Committee on Undersea Feature Names (SCUFN) as world undersea geographical names, the CCTV article stated.

Though the names of seabed options within the IOR are within the worldwide waters, China has a historical past of naming undersea options in disputed maritime areas like within the South China Sea (SCS).

In 2018, Chinese authorities launched customary names for 25 islands and reefs in addition to 55 undersea geographic entities within the SCS “…in a move that Chinese experts praised for reaffirming China’s sovereignty in the region”, in line with the state-run Global Times tabloid.

At that point, the Chinese ministries of civil affairs and pure sources launched the names, longitudes and latitudes of those locations.

“After the establishment of the People’s Republic of China in 1949, related authorities released standardised names of 287 islands in the region in April 1983, a move that Chinese experts said indicated China’s improving precision and regulation of the nomenclature and location of islands and reefs in the SCS,” the tabloid reported.

In April, 2020, China named 80 options in disputed areas of the South China Sea area together with 25 islands and reefs, and 55 undersea mountains and ridges.

The PLA has renamed locations thrice in Arunachal Pradesh, which it claims as South Tibet.