“The country will not have any foreign military personnel in the Maldives,” Muizzu mentioned after being sworn in earlier than chief justice Ahmed Adnan at a televised, open-air ceremony.

“When it comes to our security, I will draw a red line. The Maldives will respect the red lines of other countries too.”

Earlier this week, Muizzu informed AFP that his intention was to not upend the regional steadiness by changing the Indian army with Chinese troops.

Muizzu, a former mayor of the capital Male and a development minister for seven years, had beforehand promised to domesticate “strong ties” with China, a key monetary backer of his nation.

The nation’s eighth president since independence from Britain in 1965, Muizzu was elected in September as a proxy for a pro-China predecessor who’s jailed on corruption expenses.

High-level representatives from each China and India had been in attendance, in addition to from Bangladesh, the Seychelles and Sri Lanka.

Primarily referred to as one of the costly vacation locations in South Asia, with pristine white seashores and secluded resorts, the Maldives has additionally turn out to be a geopolitical hotspot.

Global east-west transport lanes go the nation’s chain of 1,192 tiny coral islands, stretching round 800 kilometres (500 miles) throughout the equator.

China was represented on the ceremony by State Councillor Shen Yiqin as a particular envoy of President Xi Jinping, who visited the Maldives in 2014 when Muizzu’s mentor Abdulla Yameen was president.

Maldivian media had reported for days that India’s President Droupadi Murmu was anticipated to attend, however New Delhi introduced sending Minister of Earth Sciences Kiren Rijiju as an alternative.

“Maldives is too small to be entangled in geopolitical rivalry,” Muizzu mentioned in his interview with AFP.

“I am not very much interested to engage the Maldivian foreign policy in this.”

He informed the Chinese Communist Party a yr in the past that he needed stronger ties with Beijing ought to his Progressive Party win the 2023 elections.

“We look forward to returning to government in 2023, with President Yameen at the helm, to script a further chapter of strong ties between our two countries, both domestically and internationally,” Muizzu mentioned on the time.

Yameen was barred from operating on this yr’s election due to a felony conviction and an 11-year jail time period for corruption. He nominated Muizzu as his proxy.

Muizzu, a British-educated civil engineer, has tried to stroll a steadiness between regional rivals India and China.

“We are going to work together with all the countries, India, China and all other countries as well,” he informed AFP.

Muizzu mentioned he hoped to start negotiations with New Delhi on the withdrawal of Indian personnel deployed to function three plane gifted to the Maldives.

India has historically thought-about the Maldives, a rustic with a inhabitants of about 380,000 Sunni Muslims, to be inside its sphere of affect.

But through the presidency of Yameen, who borrowed closely from China for development tasks, New Delhi anxious about Beijing’s increasing footprint.

India has a historical past of entanglements within the Maldives, together with the deployment of troopers to thwart a 1988 coup try.

But Muizzu additionally faces an excellent better problem: his nation is without doubt one of the nations most threatened by rising sea ranges linked to local weather change.

Eighty % of the Maldives is lower than a metre (three ft) above sea stage.

aj/pjm/leg