Countries need to collaborate in maritime domain to achieve growth: Navy chief

The seas, he said, are the lifelines of global trade and prosperity and most nations have a core interest in keeping them free for commerce. “This is one of the primary reasons that concepts such as like-minded partners, free, open and inclusive oceans have gained greater currency in the recent past, concurrent with a growing realisation of the relevance and potential of the oceans,” the navy chief added.

Asserting that resources will “never be unlimited”, he said it will be “virtually impossible for any single nation to counter these challenges and ensure maritime security and stability by itself”.

Later, at the international maritime seminar as part of the exercise, top officials from American, Australian and Japanese navies, and a senior officer from Bangladeshi Navy participated, moderated by the recently appointed first National Maritime Security Coordinator of India, Vice Admiral G Ashok Kumar (retd).

The threat from China to the international rules-based order also came up for discussion.

US Navy’s Pacific Fleet commander Admiral Samuel J Paparo Jr. mentioned the use of “non-military assets for military purposes, exploiting maritime law or the loopholes in the maritime law”.

He said the notion of changing borders by force is an anathema to the order itself. “Freedom of the sea is increasingly threatened across domains such as air, land, sea space, cyber and information to threaten those essential freedoms,” he added.

Chief of Royal Australian Navy Vice Admiral Michael Noonan said that China’s emergence has changed the global dynamics, but it is not the only nation responsible for it.

He talked about China’s “coercive paramilitary activities in the South China Sea”.

“Greyzone activities are being adopted more frequently, integrated into statecraft, and applied in ways that challenge both national sovereignty and international habits of cooperation,” Noonan said, citing China’s use of “maritime militia”.

China’s behaviour in the South China Sea in terms of creating artificial structures and expanding its maritime claims and maritime boundaries is simply not in accordance with maritime law, he pointed out. “Such behavior is illegal,” he said.

Chief of Japanese Maritime Self Defence Force Admiral Hiroshi Yamamura also said that in the recent years “actors who attempt to unilaterally change the status quo by force have emerged based on their own assertions that are incompatible with the existing international order”.

Paparo said that the four maritime democracies (Japan, India, Australia and the US) have common values. “Strategy will follow policy amid growing threats to free and open Indo-Pacific.”

The naval officers also highlighted their concerns about cyber and space domains.