India may play an increasingly vital role in countering China’s push to dominate key portions of the Indian Ocean, a move encouraged by the United States.
Four critical waterways, including the Suez Canal, the Bab el Mandeb, the Strait of Hormuz, and the Strait of Malacca tie into the Indian Ocean. According to the Asia Times, Zhang Wei, researcher of the PLA Navy Academic Institute, said “More Chinese ships are crossing the Indian Ocean as it has become a major pipeline for trade for China.”
Beijing has used its rapidly growing naval power to assert major claims to Pacific region waterways. It alleges that it owns four-fifths of the South China Sea, a vital area through which about 70% of the world’s maritime commerce passes. It powerful navy, which will become the world’s largest by 2020, gives it the firepower to back the claim.
Earlier this year, The White House announced “India is indispensable to promoting peace, prosperity and stability…We call on all parties to avoid the threat or use of force and pursue resolution of territorial and maritime disputes through all peaceful means, in accordance with universally recognized principles of international law, including the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea…Over the next five years, we will strengthen our regional dialogues, invest in making trilateral consultations with third countries in the region more robust, deepen regional integration, strengthen regional forums, explore additional multilateral opportunities for engagement, and pursue areas where we can build capacity in the region that bolster long-term peace and prosperity for all.”
Admiral Harris, quoted in India Strategic while in New Delhi to discuss Indo-US naval cooperation with India’s Naval Chief Admiral Dhowan, observed that cooperation between India, US and other major powers like Japan and Australia was imperative for peace and stability in the Asia Pacific. He noted that India plays a pivotal role in the U.S. naval strategy.
Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi has provided a more activist Indian outlook on regional defense issues. Author C. Raja Mohan notes that Modi believes “India was punching below its weight and we (India) should now “improve our weight and punch proportionately.”
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Other nations have encouraged India to step up its defense activities. Bloomberg News reports that Singapore “wants India to play a bigger role in the South China Sea as China hastens land reclamation in the disputed waters that carry some of the world’s busiest shipping lanes… [Singapore Minister For Defense Ng Eng Hen] stated in March that “We hope that their presence and participation will increase — that really adds up to engagement and confidence building and mutual understanding,” Ng said, referring to Asia’s third-biggest economy. “India is a big country and it’s an influential country.”
“India’s involvement in the region could give Southeast Asian nations a further buffer against China as that country seeks to enforce its claims to the majority of the South China Sea and push back against decades of U.S. military dominance in the Pacific. China is also looking to build a maritime trade route linking a network of ports through the Indian Ocean with Europe via the Suez Canal, a prospect that has unnerved India.”
The Philippines, which has endured China’s incursion into its Exclusive Economic Zone, and Vietnam both encourage an enhanced role for India. Vietnam’s Cam Ranh Bay is also a potential site for foreign naval vessels, particularly those of the United States, to base ships to discourage China’s adventurism. Currently, Russian naval vessels dock there.
According to the National Interest “India now appears to be picking up the pace. Under the Modi government, New Delhi has turned the ‘Look East Policy’ into the ‘Act East Policy’, made direct comments on the need to resolve the [South China Sea dispute] signed a joint strategic vision with the U.S. for the Asia–Pacific and the Indian Ocean region and is in talks with key regional countries to increase security collaboration, especially in the maritime domain.”
The military rating source Global Firepower indicates that India has a powerful navy, consisting of 202 ships, including two aircraft carriers, 15 frigates, 9 destroyers, 25 corvettes, 15 submarines, 46 coastal defense craft, and 7 mine warfare vessels.