Myanmar Ports key to China’s Strategy of Controlling Indian Ocean

By Yan Naing 18 Could 2022

China is closing in on India after establishing ports at Gwadar in Pakistan, Hambantota and Colombo in Sri Lanka and shortly it should have entry to the Indian Ocean from ports in Myanmar. In August 2021, China efficiently trialled a cargo run from Myanmar’s Yangon Port all the best way to China’s Yunnan Province.

China has a protracted historical past of supporting the navy rulers of Myanmar by circumventing sanctions. The stakes are made even larger by the China-Myanmar Financial Hall (CMEC), a portion of the Belt and Highway Initiative that runs from Yunnan Province to the Indian Ocean port of Kyaukphyu in western Myanmar.

The priority is that CMEC will allow China’s navy, the Folks’s Liberation Military Navy (PLAN), to encroach on India within the Bay of Bengal. It’ll additionally enable China’s oil shipments to keep away from the Strait of Malacca, which is patrolled by america (US) Navy’s Seventh Fleet. Whereas the US and India look like at odds over Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, the 2 have a shared curiosity in stopping the PLAN from getting access to the Indian Ocean.

India is caught in a balancing act between its long-term ally Russia and its long-term adversary China. Over the previous few years, america has intensified its alliance with India by way of the Quadrilateral Safety Dialogue (QUAD) and different initiatives. Nonetheless, the Ukraine disaster is placing this budding friendship to the check.

By 2030, the PLAN can have 67 new main floor ships and 12 new nuclear-powered submarines, sufficient to regulate the Indian Ocean, in keeping with US Naval Intelligence. China is rising its navy in order that it could possibly management seas by 2030 and displace the US Navy because the world’s strongest navy by 2049.

There may be concern in New Delhi that China’s threats to India’s maritime area are rising, and that India ought to improve its naval capabilities to counter that. At anyone time, there can now be as many as 125 international vessels within the Indian Ocean, probably the most since World Battle II, in keeping with estimates by India’s navy. Talking throughout his first press convention in December 2021, India’s Chief of Naval Workers Admiral R Hari Kumar stated that the Indian navy may be monitoring as much as three PLAN ships at any given second.

As a way to meet the problem of the PLAN, India must construct up its naval energy. However on the subject of India’s navy funding, the Navy at all times receives solely a fraction of the finances it asks for. On common, India spends 15 per cent of its navy finances on its navy regardless of having solely three branches of the navy, whereas the US, with six branches, spends 30 per cent on the navy. The quantity China spends on the PLAN will not be clear. Nevertheless, China’s whole protection spending of US$252 billion is greater than 3 times the US$72.9 billion India spends on its navy.

Realizing the necessity to deal with that, New Delhi elevated the navy finances by 44.53 per cent this yr. At the moment, the Indian Navy has solely 130 vessels, a lot of that are twenty years previous. So whereas the rise in funding is a welcome transfer in the suitable course, the state of affairs is much from resolved.

Stopping China from gaining management of the Indian Ocean might necessitate the US adopting a brand new Indian Ocean coverage and deepening its involvement with India by way of the QUAD and different initiatives. The US is able to coordinate with New Delhi by supporting the event of India’s financial, political, and navy energy. However Washington must consider whether or not India’s ties to Russia outweigh the assistance that New Delhi can lend the US in countering China. Equally, India must resolve if gaining US assist in opposition to China is price abandoning its relationship with Russia for.

Yan Naing is the pseudonym for a eager observer of China-Myanmar relations.

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