Tilting or balancing: Decoding Muizzu’s foreign policy
Tilting or balancing: Decoding Muizzu’s foreign policy
WRITTEN BY MICHAEL KUGELMAN
1 February 2024
Since taking office in November 2023, Maldives President Mohamed Muizzu has repeatedly signalled his intention to bring his country, which has a deep partnership with India, closer to China. Some observers may view this shift as a full-on embrace of Beijing, but it is more likely about striking a better balance in ties with India and China. Such a policy would advance Male’s interests more successfully than one that formally sides with China and sets relations with India adrift.
Beeline for Beijing
Muizzu has long been perceived as pro-Beijing. His most prominent political ally is Abdulla Yameen, who as president from 2013 to 2018 strengthened the partnership with Beijing. Yameen later launched the “India Out” movement which promised to end India’s military presence in the Maldives. Last year, with Yameen in jail (in 2022, he was sentenced to 11 years of prison on corruption charges that he and his supporters reject as politically motivated), Muizzu took up this cause on the campaign trail. “India Out” taps into the discontent of those Maldivians who resent, and sometimes exaggerate, India’s deep influence in Male. This includes, most famously, an Indian military operation in 1988 that helped quell a coup attempt. Some Indian commentators believe Muizzu and his allies have also benefited from an environment marked by growing levels of Islamist extremism that rejects Hindu-majority India. In 2022, a mob linked to Yameen’s party attacked the International Yoga Day event in Male co-hosted by the Maldivian and Indian governments.
During his first days in office, Muizzu decided not to renew an agreement with New Delhi that entails conducting joint hydrographic surveys. His government is reportedly reviewing dozens of other accords with India. Muizzu broke a longstanding Maldivian tradition when he did not visit India on his first foreign trip as president (though some reports indicate he wanted to visit but did not receive a formal invitation). Instead, he visited Turkey — with which India has shaky relations due to Ankara’s close ties to Pakistan and criticism of India’s position on the disputed Kashmir region.
Ultimately, like any democratic leader, Muizzu will need to walk a tightrope between foreign policy imperatives and domestic political considerations. A balancing policy abroad will also require one at home.
In January 2024, Male became embroiled in an ugly spat with New Delhi after three junior ministers in Muizzu’s government posted insulting messages on social media about Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi. They apparently thought a trip he made to the Indian archipelago of Lakshadweep was meant to discourage Indian tourists from visiting the Maldives. Muizzu suspended the ministers, but he neither fired them nor made public comments on it.
Amid this diplomatic crisis, Muizzu made a five-day visit to Beijing that produced 20 new agreements. Once back home, he delivered a defiant speech that warned that no country — in a clear reference to India — can bully the Maldives. He also laid out plans to reduce the Maldives’ economic reliance on India. India-Maldives trade volume has increased significantly in recent years, with a quadrupling of bilateral trade volume between 2014 and 2022. However, the Maldives has consistently faced a serious trade deficit with India. In 2022 (the most recent year for which full-year data is available), total trade was nearly USD 502 million, but barely USD 6 million of that consisted of Maldives’ exports to India. Then, on 14 January, Male called on all Indian military personnel to leave the Maldives by 15 March. In late January, he authorised a Chinese research vessel — which New Delhi fears will engage in intelligence activities — to dock in the Maldives.
One should not assume, however, that these developments signify that Male is now all-in with Beijing. Here, recent history is instructive.
Origins of a balancing policy
For nearly 50 years after independence, Male was locked into a deep partnership with New Delhi. India backed strongman Maumoon Abdul Gayoom over his 30-year rule, and once even intervened militarily to help him stop a coup attempt. It also enjoyed a close relationship with the country’s first democratically-elected president, Mohamed Nasheed.
Nasheed’s successor, Yameen, took a dramatically different approach, opting to forge an unprecedented new partnership with Beijing. This produced new development projects, a trade agreement, and Male’s decision to become a part of China’s Belt and Road Initiative. While this shift was unsettling for New Delhi, it continued to pursue its partnership with the Maldives, and it did not fear that Male’s scaled-up engagement with Beijing would hurt Maldives-India relations in a big way.
Sure enough, Yameen’s successor, Ibrahim Mohamed Solih, returned to the status quo ante, pursuing an “India First” policy to reinvigorate the partnership with New Delhi. New deals followed with India on infrastructure, cybersecurity, and COVID-19 vaccines. Solih also pulled Male out of its trade deal with Beijing.
However, it would be oversimplistic to simply label Yameen pro-China and Solih pro-India. Yameen continued to pursue cordial ties with New Delhi. During a 2016 trip to India, he inked a new defence deal and reiterated his commitment to a deep partnership. Yameen even declared his support for an “India First” policy that would later be associated with Solih. Meanwhile, Solih courted Beijing, hosting senior Chinese officials and inking new commercial and cultural agreements. Both leaders leaned strongly toward one capital but maintained substantive ties with the other.
Muizzu is likely to pursue a similar balance, which one can think of as a hedging strategy, and he has already telegraphed his desire to keep India close, despite extensive outreach to Beijing. At his inauguration, Muizzu called for trade with both India and China and pledged to “respect our neighbours and other countries”. In an interview, he said India will remain “our close friend”. He met Modi on the 2023 UN climate summit sidelines in December, and a subsequent readout claimed that the two agreed to deepen ties. None of this suggests Muizzu wants to discard New Delhi.
It is also worth noting that honouring the “India Out” promise will not spell the demise of bilateral security cooperation. Current security cooperation is multifaceted and includes sizable contributions of Indian weaponry and technology. The Indian military presence in the Maldives is relatively small — 77 troops — and mostly focused on training and humanitarian activities.
Benefits of balancing
In a very literal sense, the Maldives cannot afford to lose India. It is a small island state with deep economic and environmental fragility: it is projected to face record debt by 2026 and climate change poses an existential threat. The Maldives is heavily dependent on India for tourism revenue (its top economic input), medical care, food imports, and infrastructure. Also, from a geopolitical perspective, the interests of the Maldives — situated in the volatile Indian Ocean and Arabian Sea regions — are not well served by having poor relations with India, its geographically closest neighbour and a key Indian Ocean player.
Additionally, nationalism fuels Muizzu’s “India Out” policy which he projects as a sovereignty and independence issue. However, throwing his country’s full support behind China, to which Male is already heavily indebted, could increase Maldives’ economic dependence. This can strengthen Chinese influence and leverage — possibly to the point where Beijing angles for some form of military presence. This would undermine Muizzu’s nationalism by risking the reemergence of the same sovereignty concerns that he seeks to eliminate through his policies toward India.
Muizzu likely hopes to reduce dependence on India not as a prelude to an ending of ties, but rather as a first step toward ensuring an equal-footed reliance on New Delhi and Beijing. Bringing more balance to these two relationships would enable Male to diversify its sources of assistance, make it less vulnerable to external leverage and pressure, and give it more agency to navigate great power competition. For Muizzu, a hedging policy would serve his country’s interests, and his own politics, well.
The public opinion conundrum
However, Maldivian public sentiment and rhetoric critical of India could complicate efforts to balance ties with Beijing and New Delhi. The current spat with India — triggered by anti-Modi comments in the Maldives and intensified by Indians’ angry responses — amplifies the challenge at hand for Muizzu. Harsh public views toward India in the Maldives could both deprive him of the required political space to continue the partnership with New Delhi and risk driving India away. Similarly, even New Delhi cannot afford to lose the Maldives — a critical partner strategically located near crucial sea lanes in the heart of the Indian Ocean.
Muizzu’s “India Out” policy stoked anti-India protests and, according to a recent EU report, disinformation against India during the presidential campaign. If Muizzu is genuinely committed to maintaining good relations with New Delhi, anti-India sentiment at home could become his Frankenstein’s monster. And yet, he has strong political incentives not to put the genie back in the bottle. India-bashing has made for good politics with “India Out” helping propel him to the presidency. But at the same time, the political opposition has wasted no time in slamming Muizzu for “India Out”. At the end of January, the opposition even announced it may try to bring an impeachment motion against Muizzu — a move prompted in part by its anger about “India Out.”
Parliamentary politics raise the stakes further: Solih’s Maldivian Democratic Party (MDP), the rival of Muizzu’s People’s National Congress (PNC) party, is currently in the majority. But legislative elections are scheduled for 17 March, which is two days after Muizzu’s deadline for all Indian military personnel to depart the country.
Ultimately, like any democratic leader, Muizzu will need to walk a tightrope between foreign policy imperatives and domestic political considerations. A balancing policy abroad will also require one at home.
DISCLAIMER: All views expressed are those of the writer and do not necessarily represent that of the 9DASHLINE.com platform.
Author biography
Michael Kugelman is director of the South Asia Institute at the Wilson Center in Washington, DC. Image credit: Wikimedia Commons/The President’s Office, Maldives.