Opinion Sea change

But India’s political classes and defence planners can ignore this important milestone in the evolution of Chinese military power only at great risk to national security. For,the Chinese aircraft carrier heralds a new era in Asia’s maritime environment and an inevitable shift in the regional naval balance of power.

The carrier is a symbol of Chinese expansive maritime aspirations and its arrival as a great power on the world stage. For centuries now,China has been a predominantly land power. Its once active maritime orientation came to a close in the 15th century.

After Mao founded Communist China in 1949,his first task was to unite a nation that was wracked by civil war in the first half of the 20th century and bring the far-flung regions of inner Asia under Beijing’s political sway.

After Deng Xiaoping opened up China in the late 1970s and engineered an economic miracle,Beijing has successfully extended growth and development to frontier regions in western China.

The current generation of communist leaders are determined to make China a global maritime power. Beijing’s new emphasis on the “historic missions” of the Chinese navy is not just about integrating the island of Taiwan with the mainland — the last major task of national unification.

China’s plans to build a fleet of aircraft carriers — at least two are said to be under indigenous development — as part of a strategy of naval modernisation which has three other objectives beyond Taiwan.

One,China wants to break out of the adverse maritime environment that it has faced for so long in the Western Pacific. Unlike India,which enjoys free access to ocean spaces,China is constrained by a series of islands running south from Japan to the Philippines and Taiwan — all allies of the United States — and Washington’s imposing forward naval presence.

Not surprisingly,a rising China wants to push the US navy further away from its near seas. China’s naval modernisation comes at a time when perceptions of the US’s “relative decline” are gaining ground in Asia.

Despite the US’s affirmation that it will remain a “resident” power in Asia,the size of its navy has steadily gone down since the end of the Cold War and has raised concerns about the credibility of its naval strategy in the Western Pacific.

Two,China’s naval advance also comes at a time when its maritime territorial disputes with its Asian neighbours,including Japan,Vietnam and the Philippines,in the East and South China Seas have acquired a new edge since last year.

As the scramble for offshore energy resources in these contested waters complicates the Asian security dynamic,many of China’s neighbours are looking to the United States and other powers,including India,for support.

Three,aircraft carriers are,in essence,about power projection. Beijing’s focus on building aircraft carriers is a natural response to the imperative of securing its emerging interests in the seas far from its homeland.

China’s naval strategy today is no different from that of the US at the turn of the 20th century. After extending its territorial sovereignty to the Pacific coast and becoming the world’s leading industrial power,Washington turned to the high seas.

Similarly,Beijing’s ambitious naval vision is rooted in China’s new position as the world’s second largest economy and a top trading nation. Beijing needs the world’s export markets and resources — energy and other minerals — to sustain and improve the living standards of its people,on which the legitimacy of the Chinese Communist Party rests.

Beijing needs to protect its access to natural resources in far-flung corners of the world and secure the sea lines of communication that deliver them to China’ factories. Beijing’s decision to build a large and powerful navy,then,is irreversible and the logic behind it relentless.

Nearly six decades ago,India was slow to cope with the implications of China’s territorial consolidation in Tibet and inner Asia and paid dearly on its Himalayan borders.

The strategic consequences of China’s economic modernisation and infrastructure development in Xinjiang,Tibet and Yunnan over the last decade-and-a-half once again surprised New Delhi.

Even as it struggles to revitalise connectivity and accelerate development in its northern borderlands,India must now deal with the rise of Chinese naval profile in its southern waters. Is Delhi really prepared to respond effectively to the significant new turn in China’s grand strategy?

China’s rising maritime interest in the Indian Ocean — from building ports and other infrastructure in Pakistan,Sri Lanka and Myanmar to dispatching naval units to counter piracy in the Gulf of Aden — has certainly bestirred Delhi. But as elsewhere,Delhi’s policy response has been slow and unsteady.

While China’s credible projection of power into the Indian Ocean will take some time,India has a short window to get its act together in the Indian Ocean and raise its naval profile in the Pacific Ocean.

This would involve constructing a naval industrial base,building up India’s own power projection capabilities,negotiating solid security partnerships in the Indo-Pacific littoral,and ending the current tentativeness of its naval engagement with other powers like the US.

Equally important is the urgent need to initiate a substantive maritime security dialogue with China,which is all set to become our naval neighbour to the south.

As China and India become trading nations and maritime powers,they have every reason to avoid naval friction and find ways to work with others in contributing to good order in the Asian seas.

The writer is a senior fellow at the Centre for Policy Research,Delhi
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