The “Mahanian Way”: China moves into the Indian Ocean
The “Mahanian Way”: China moves into the Indian Ocean
WRITTEN BY AMRITA JASH
13 April 2020
Alfred Thayer Mahan’s prophetic words stating: “Whoever attains maritime supremacy in the Indian Ocean would be a prominent player on the international scene. Whoever controls the Indian Ocean dominates Asia”- have become the key aspiration of great powers in the 21st Century.
As Robert Kaplan has pointed out, the Indian Ocean forms the “Centre Stage for the Twenty-first Century” where great power politics will be played out. These assumptions are increasingly becoming a reality in the 21st century great power politics as well-witnessed by the expansion of the region’s security architecture, and the reframing of the Asia-Pacific into the Indo-Pacific.
Most notably, acting as the catalyst as well as a key player, the Indian Ocean has become the new limit that tests China’s great power aspirations against the phenomemon of its own ‘rise’. Although an off-shore player, China’s intentions and actions highlight a strong determination on the part of Beijing to make the Indian Ocean its nautical backyard. Here are the queries that demand attention: What calls for such a strategic shift in Chinese thinking? How is it impacting China’s wider strategic behaviour?
China’s activities in South Asia are grounded in its military strategic guideline, as the 2015 White Paper categorically suggests the PLA Navy will gradually shift its focus from ‘offshore waters defense’ to the combination of ‘offshore waters defense’ and ‘open seas protection’”
What guides China’s strategic thinking on the Indian Ocean Region (IOR) can be understood via a two-fold perspective of its strategic interests. That is: First, China’s primary strategic interests in the IOR are linked to the protection of its vital sea lines of communication (SLOC) across the Indian Ocean. The Indian Ocean is home to key maritime choke points, specifically the Straits of Hormuz; Babel-Mandeb Strait; Straits of Malacca; and the Lombok and Sunda Straits which form the vital routes for trade and energy supplies flowing to East Asia.
Primarily for China, given 80 per cent of its energy transits through this route, the concerns are embedded in its “Malacca Dilemma”, that has increasingly fostered incremental changes in China’s strategic outlook towards the Indian Ocean. What further adds to Beijing’s dilemma are factors such as: increasing piracy off the coast of East Africa, the growing predominance of New Dehli in the Indian Ocean (being largely India’s strategic backyard) and finally, an increased United States military presence in the region. With these high stakes involved, for China the challenge lies in maintaining the maritime security and stability of trade whilst also avoiding any instances of being blockaded or pushed out of the region given the dominant presence of the U.S. and Indian navies in the IOR.
Second, China’s great power ambitions are increasingly being felt predominantly by orchestrated displays of military power, with this projection now occuring beyond its borders and in the maritime domain. Primarily in case of the Indian Ocean, China’s great power aspirations are greater in ambition given that Beijing is geographic resident of South Asia in contrast to India, which has a dominant position in the Indian Ocean by virtue of its geographic location.
For China, the quest lies in creating its strategic and hegemonic space via the deployment of off-shore capabilities in the Indian Ocean Region. Thus we have witnessed with China growing examples of an increased military profile.
Firstly, the People’s Liberation Army Navy’s (PLAN) growing presence via antipiracy deployments in the Western Indian Ocean, docking of PLAN ships and submarines in strategic locale such as Sri Lanka’s ports, and the conducting of live fire drills in the Indian Ocean by PLAN warships reflect a clear intention by Beijing to safeguard its strategic interests in the Indian Ocean, if nessecary through force.
Secondly, China’s strategic foothold in the Indian Ocean via the Horn of Africa with the establishment of its first overseas permanent naval military base in Djibouti. Beijing has claimed repeatedly that the base in Djibouti is a support base meant for supply missions to aid in implementing China’s escorting, peacekeeping, and humanitarian operations in Africa and West Asia.
Finally, China’s Maritime Silk Road (MSR) under the Belt and Road Initiative maps out China’s growing strategic ambitions in the IOR by financing and constructing friendly port installations such as Gwadar in Pakistan, Hambantota in Sri Lanka, Sittwe in Myanmar, and Chittagong in Bangladesh. Via the MSR, China’s interests in boosting maritime connectivity with Southeast Asian and Indian Ocean littoral countries, further clarifies China’s ambitions to grow its economic and trade links and secure its position in the Indian Ocean.
China’s activities in South Asia are grounded in its published military and strategic guidelines, as with the 2015 White Paper which categorically suggests the PLA Navy will gradually shift its focus from ‘offshore waters defense’ to the combination of ‘offshore waters defense’ and ‘open seas protection’”.
This is linked to China’s aspiration towards becoming an expeditionary force which then invariably calls for greater military activity in the Indian Ocean. This shift of focus from “offshore waters defense” to “open seas protection” is a notable doctrinal shift. Justifying further, the 2013 Blue Book calls for the need for ‘change’ given China’s changing “definition of the situation, for which:
“A clear developed strategy in the Indian Ocean Region for China is not only a sign of China’s self-confidence, and also a clear demonstration of China’s strategic interests in the Indian Ocean Region.”
Given the high level of economic and strategic interests at play, Beijing’s actions as they are currently playing out in the Indian Ocean brings into focus the gradual changes in China’s strategic behaviour. First, the increasing footprints in the Indian Ocean is a manifested outcome conditioned by its national strategy of ‘Chinese Dream’ that aims to ‘rejuvenate the great Chinese nation’. Second, it exemplifies the strategic shift from being a continental power to that of becoming a sea-power- equipped with a ‘blue-water navy’.
Third, it outlines the shift in China’s focus from its longstanding Atlantic-Pacific Ocean centric to that of Indian Ocean, which has become the key maritime corridor for global economy and security in the 21st century. Fourth, Indian Ocean is becoming the potent theatre of China’s obtuse military muscle flexing- with incremental shedding of its longhled dormant position to that of becoming an active player in IOR.
China indeed is walking the ‘Mahanian Way’ with the central objective of gaining maritime supremacy in the Indian Ocean. What greatly motivates China is its external status in the IOR, thus, making it difficult for Beijing to directly stake its claims. However, that does not deter China from making its way as it made inroads via IOR littorals such as Myanmar, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, Pakistan and others.
With its increasing ‘off-shore’ military presence, China’s Indian Ocean ambitions showcase its greater power ambitions- suggesting that Chinese activities in the IOR are deemed to grow, if not fade. Wrapped under the Belt and Road Initiative, its intentions will be played out by investing in local states, building ports and infrastructure, military modernisation and acquiring energy resources.
With this, it can be rightly argued that by strictly following the ‘Mahanian’ way China is making its own sphere of influence in the Indian Ocean. This significantly is changing the existing status-quo and most importantly, the security architecture of the Indo-Pacific region.
DISCLAIMER: All views expressed are those of the writer and do not necessarily represent that of the 9DASHLINE.com platform.
Author biography
Amrita Jash is a Research Fellow at the Centre for Land Warfare Studies (CLAWS) New Delhi and was a Visiting Fellow at the Department of Politics and International Studies at University of Cambridge. She holds a PhD in Chinese Studies from Jawaharlal Nehru University. Her research interests are China’s foreign policy, strategic and security issues, Chinese military, China-Japan relations, China-India relations and Indo-Pacific. Image credit: CC BY-NC 4.0/Jeff Laitila/Flickr.