CourcyInt
Towards an India-China naval challenge - 23 June 2007
SPECIAL BULLETIN
TO: All Strategic Intelligence Forum members
FROM: JKC de Courcy, Chairman, Strategic Intelligence Forum
DATE: 23 June 2007
SUBJECT: Towards an India-China naval challenge
We watch closely the proceedings of the US-China Economic and Security Review Commission, mostly because of the insights they provide into evolving US attitudes and reactions to China's rise. The hearings on 14-15 June concerned the implications for the US of China's growing energy consumption.
Of exceptional interest was the 14 June testimony of Professor James Holmes of the US Naval War College who highlighted the probability of an intensifying contest for maritime supremacy in the Indian Ocean between China and India.
In his summary, Professor Holmes argues: "In all likelihood, an increasingly sea-power minded China will neither shelter passively in coastal waters nor throw itself into competition with the United States in the Pacific Ocean. Rather, Beijing will direct its energies toward South and Southeast Asia, where supplies of oil, natural gas, and other commodities critical to China's economic development must pass."
A number of Chinese analysts and strategists are quoted to support this proposition, with a 17 August 2005 editorial in Ming Pao providing a succinct summary of this element in Chinese strategic thinking. The editorial argued that "whichever country controls the Indian Ocean controls East Asia".
There are two major concerns. First, as Holmes argues, China must first "secure the East, Yellow, and South China seas to its satisfaction", which must entail resolving the Taiwan issue in its favour as a prerequisite. This point needs little elaboration.
Secondly, Chinese naval ambitions in the Indian Ocean must come up against rival Indian ambitions, with India having the advantage of operating closer to home. Holmes argues that while China-India relations have seen steady improvement since the late 1990s, any Chinese attempt to control events in the vicinity of India "would doubtless meet with Indian countermeasures".
Holmes points out: "Like China, India discerns real, compelling interests in the Indian Ocean." He adds, correctly and alarmingly: "Strategists in New Delhi phrase their arguments in intensely geopolitical terms - jarringly so for Westerners accustomed to the notion that economic globalisation has rendered armed conflict passé."
The problem is compounded by an element within Chinese strategic thinking that fears the implications of India's "Look East Policy". The Chinese scholar Hou Songlin argues that while India is for the time being content to focus on economic cooperation, it will in due course expand its eastern-oriented strategy into political and security spheres. He says that Indian-Asean cooperation is aimed ultimately at enabling India to fulfil its "grand strategy to control the Indian Ocean, particularly the Malacca Strait".
Although still a long way from securing its eastern maritime front, China is already (in the words of Holmes) "gradually laying the foundations of a strategic maritime infrastructure that would enhance both its economic prospects and its military access to the Indian Ocean". It is doing this, amongst other means, by developing close ties and basing rights with Myanmar and Pakistan.
As Holmes says: "Beijing could leverage its informal strategic alliances with Myanmar and Pakistan...to counterbalance US power, check India's rise, and monitor maritime activities carried on by these maritime competitors."
We agree in almost all respects with this analysis. It is clear that neither China nor India are content with the United States retaining its monopoly over the supply of "the international public good of free navigation" (as other testimony to the hearings described it), which the US has enjoyed for six decades.
Holmes recognizes this and clearly harbours long-term fears for what this might mean for Sino-Indian relations. His answer? The establishment of the habit of cooperation now, while China is still vulnerable, particularly in areas such as disaster relief, maritime domain awareness, counter-terrorism, and counter-proliferation, which, he believes, "could lay the groundwork for a more durable partnership in maritime Asia, alleviating the concerns about sea-lane security that could prod China in a more ominous direction". As Holmes concludes: "Considering the stakes, it would be worth the effort US and Indian leaders would expand in negotiating such a partnership."
END
The proceedings of the 14-15 June hearings on "China’s Energy Consumption and Opportunities for US-China Cooperation to Address the Effects of China’s Energy Use" can be accessed at the following link: