The Oxford Dictionary’s Word of the Year is a word/phrase that has attracted a great deal of interest over the last 12 months (i.e. captured everyone’s attention). If there was a category for Geopolitics then the current Word of the Year would surely be either “INDO-PACIFIC” or the “QUAD”. The QUAD (Quadrilateral) dialogue: a derivative of this INDO-PACIFIC strategy has brought together 4 geographically separate countries in 3 different continents located thousands of miles away from each other.

The striking embodiment of this cooperation happened this year in January at the Raisina Dialogue (an annual multilateral conference in India which focusses on geopolitics and geo-economics) where Navy Admirals from the Navies of all the 4 members of the QUAD participated in an open discussion: Japanese Chief of Joint Staff Admiral Katsutoshi Kawano, Australian Navy chief Vice Admiral Tim Barret, Indian Navy Chief of Naval Staff Sunil Lanba & then US Pacific Command chief Admiral Harry Harris.

Asia lies next to two major oceans in 2 separate directions: Indian Ocean to the south & Pacific Ocean to the east. Until recently both of these oceanic regions were considered separate entities due to the great distance between both of them & the separate set of countries adjoining them which meant little commonality between both of them.

INDIAN OCEAN:

In the Indian Ocean the Indian peninsula stretches out from middle of Asia into the India Ocean close to the SLOC (Sea lines of communication) between Africa/Middle East & the Far East/South East Asia. This advantage of geography puts India in a position to be the leading maritime force in the India Ocean. For China this means that their SLOC (Sea lines of communication) are passing close to the India subcontinent through the India Ocean. This puts China at a strategic disadvantage in times of conflict with India as India could block the movement of traffic to & from China passing through the Indian Ocean.

China’s issues are further compounded by the fact that for its ships to cross over from the South China Sea in the east into the Indian Ocean to the west they have to navigate through either one of the narrow Indonesian straits: Malacca, Sunda or Lombok. This allows an adversary like India to focus their naval assets on these chokepoints to block Chinese vessels from moving freely between the Indian Ocean & South China Sea.

These issues of geography have prompted China to expand their presence into the India Ocean to secure their SLOC from any possible Indian interference. PLAN (People’s Liberation Army Navy) was not present in the Indian Ocean before 2008 & their patrols have steadily increased over the past decade. Beijing has tried to rationalize the presence of PLAN (People’s Liberation Army Navy) vessels in the Indian Ocean Region (referred to as IOR) with the reasoning that PLAN (People’s Liberation Army Navy) was performing anti-piracy patrols near Somalia & the East African coast. However this claim holds no water when one considers the fact that these patrols contain even submarines! Why the Chinese need a submarine to fight against a bunch of lightly armed pirates is anybody’s guess.

One fully knows that smaller ships such as corvettes & frigates would be more than sufficient to handle any rag tag bunch of pirates on the high seas then what is the need for capital ships like advanced destroyers to be present in the IOR (Indian Ocean Region)? Admiral Sunil Lanba, head of the Indian Navy has stated that they are monitoring all the movements of PLAN in the IOR & that “PLAN is here to stay in the Indian Ocean”. Many experts such as Abhijit Singh (a former naval officer & Senior Fellow who heads the Maritime Policy Initiative at Observer Research Foundation) believe that there are gaps in Indian submarine detection capabilities which pose a big challenge to the Indian Navy. These Chinese submarines can’t be detected by satellites (while submerged) & also by many surface fleet vessels of the Indian Navy which lack advanced SONAR capabilities. These PLAN submarines are bound to pose problem to India’s surface fleet if war broke out in future.

2017 saw the opening of China’s first overseas base in Djibouti near the Horn of Africa which gives them a strategic foothold near the Gulf of Aden providing them a base to operate from in the Western India Ocean. In my 3 part series on the “The Great Game” between India & China I had highlighted the Chinese investments into the ports in Gwadar (Pakistan) & Hambantota (Sri Lanka) as part of the One Belt One Road (OBOR) or Belt & Road Initiative (BRI). These infrastructure projects don’t make economic sense but hold strategic value to China as “dual use” facilities. These “dual use” ports would mostly be used for regular commercial traffic but could also be used if necessary to host PLAN naval vessels.

There have been reports (disputed by China) that China may be planning to open a new naval base at Jiwani, very close to Gwadar. In event of conflict with India the PLAN would have to sail a task force from naval bases in China to the IOR while successfully bypassing any possible blockades around the choke points in the Indonesian straits. The task force would need around couple of weeks to reach the IOR from China. However if a naval task force is instead based at one of these “dual use” facilities in the IOR itself, this would now considerably cut down the reaction time giving China some serious leverage in terms of both the speed & quality of its response. This growing presence of PLAN in the IOR is slowly eroding the “home field” advantage of geography that India has enjoyed since independence. While India still remains the dominant player in IOR it has yielded ground to China in its own backyard. Mohan Malik professor at the Asia–Pacific Center for Security Studies has noted that Beijing wants to be a ‘resident power’ in the Indian Ocean which would come at the expense of waning Indian influence.

PACIFIC OCEAN

Since the end of World War II US has enjoyed supremacy in the Pacific Ocean & by extension the Far East & South East Asia. China feels itself hemmed in due to the presence of US treaty allies around itself in the maritime domain: Japan, South Korea, Philippines, Australia and New Zealand. China now considers itself to be a great power & thinks that the time has come for it to regain its lost place among the world’s leading nations. They are now emboldened to proceed to take over areas which are in dispute with its maritime neighbors to strengthen their strategic positon.

The vast majority of these territorial disputes lie in the South China Sea (SCS). South China Sea (SCS) has several tiny islands (majority of which are uninhabited) which are located in between two or more countries in the region. They have never been demarcated due to the sets of disputed claims between two or more neighbors.

Image: Courtesy of asia.nikkei.com

China has claimed all the territory within an arbitrary “9 Dash Line” based on some farfetched historical claims. Zheng He, a legendary 15th century Muslim eunuch explorer led 7 major naval expeditions from China to Southeast Asia, Indian subcontinent & even East Africa. China’s historic claim to the entire South China Sea is based simply on the ‘discovery’ of the islands in SCS by Zheng during his various journeys. A discovery of faraway island can’t entitle one to ownership of that island without the sound logic of having any political or geographical linkages to it.

 China uses what many call “grey zone coercion” which is threaten to take action including combination of military action and/or economic sanctions to intimidate its neighbors to back down in matters of territorial disputes. China has been the instigator in almost all of its disputes with its neighbors & have been steadily “pushing the envelope” in terms of what it can get away with without any pushback. Most of its neighbors neither have military capability to stand up to China nor want to risk wrath of economic sanctions from its biggest trading partner which is China. An example of this was when Spanish energy company Repsol was asked by Vietnam to stop oil exploration in areas contested by China following direct pressure from Beijing.

Even simple fisherman are not spared from the wrath of the Chinese as seen recently by the Chinese Coast Guard stealing fish from boats of Filipino fishermen who they claimed were fishing in Chinese territorial waters. China uses its position as the primary trading partner to vast majority of nations around the world to punish them economically when they don’t toe their line. One could find numerous examples for the same such as reducing salmon imports from Norway after Chinese dissident Liu Xiaobo won the Nobel Peace Prize, new customs requirement to slow down import of Australian wine in protest of series of bills that would strengthen the Australia’s espionage laws against foreign interference from countries like China, closure of Korean group Lotte stores in China over alleged fire safety concerns right after they gave up land to South Korean government to host the THAAD missile system, etc.

The United Nations Convention on Law of the Sea (UNCLOS) says that a country can claim an exclusive economic zone upto 200 miles from its shores. China has willfully ignored any such convention while trying to take over territory in SCS in a brazen land grab. It has actually claimed territory which is much closer to its neighbors than itself which disregards a logical equidistant boundary principle.

Image: Courtesy of southchinasea.org

Philippines took its case to the tribunal at Court of Arbitration at Hague which ruled in its favor saying China has no legal basis to claim the infamous “9 Dash Line” in the South China Sea (SCS). China called the ruling “null & void” without “binding force” & continued to stand by its claim. Most of these islands were uninhabited uptill few years ago when China began to aggressively to move on to them. They brought in ships & heavy equipment to start dredging operations to reclaim land from the sea.

Images: Courtesy of www.inquirer.net

This was to make these islands “artificially’ larger in size to make them capable of hosting permanent structures including outposts, hangars, control towers, harbor facilities, helipads, observation towers, communication towers, runways, etc. to house military personnel & hardware. Alarmed at these events in the SCS (South China Sea) in 2015 Obama asked Chinese President Xi Jinping to not “militarize” these disputed islands which Xi vaguely agreed to do so. However the Chinese continued unabated to further build infrastructure on these islands. A good informative video on the buildup of infrastructure in the South China Sea has been created by YouTube user cybersurg (@benndose). The Asia Maritime Transparency Initiative has an excellent website where one can look at the infrastructure developments by all claimants in the South China Sea.

The fact that this year China has further upped the ante of militarization of these islands can be inferred from a series of alarming news coming from the South China Sea.

• Chinese People’s Liberation Army-Air Force (PLAAF) has landed an H-6K strategic bomber on Woody island (Paracel Islands).
• Chinas has installed radar jamming equipment on Mischief Island (Spratly Islands)
• Deployment of anti-ship cruise missiles and SAM (surface-to-air missile) systems on three of its outposts: Fiery Cross Reef, Subi Reef and Mischief Reef (Spratly Islands)

The Chinese follow a strategy of what is commonly referred to as “salami slicing” which involves a slow but methodical process to gradually take over control of all the disputed areas. This process is described by many experts as China operating just under the threshold of open conflict so as to not invite any military response from either its neighbors or outside powers like US. This militarization of these islands by China is part of a plan to then eventually convert the South China Sea into a Chinese controlled water body where they can deny both sea & air access to others referred to in military/strategic jargon as A2/AD (Anti Access Area Denial). This has led as some experts to rhetorically call the South China Sea as a “Chinese Lake”.

The domination of Chinese in the South China Sea is so complete that Pacific Fleet commander US Admiral Philip Davidson in written testimony to the US Senate Armed Services Committee wrote that “China is now capable of controlling the South China Sea in all scenarios short of war with United States”. He called for US to maintain strong presence in the region & step up advanced weapons development. US Navy regularly conducts FONOP (Freedom of Navigation Operation) in the South China Sea where they sail close to the disputed islands in international waters. This is done to send a message to China that others wouldn’t be deterred from sailing in the SCS despite threats from China. China claims that since these islands belong to them the ships conducting these FONOP (Freedom of Navigation Operation) are breaching Chinese territorial sovereignty. Recently Australia UK, Japan & France have also done such FONOP’s in the South China Sea. China has upped the ante by issuing verbal threats over radio & even doing radar weapons lock on these ships to scare them away from passing through the South China Sea close to their islands. To their credit the naval vessels performing these FONOP haven’t flinched & continued with their operations professionally in face of these provocative measures by the Chinese. This behavior by the China is inherently dangerous as a single miscalculation by either side could very easily result in armed skirmishes. Realizing the challenges in the SCS vis. a vis. China, US has promised to increase the frequency of these FONOP which will surely raise the hackles of the Chinese. The US aircraft carrier USS Carl Vinson (on a FONOP mission) in March of this year made a port call in Vietnam. The first such visit by an US aircraft carrier since the end of the Vietnam War between Vietnam & the US was to send a strong message to China.

Alarmed by the massive amount infrastructure building by China, other countries in the SCS (South China Sea) know that they can’t simply afford to sit back & do nothing. Vietnam & Philippines have recently started a buildup of infrastructure on islands they control in the South China Sea. This can very well lead to a sort of “infrastructure arms race” in the SCS. A complete militarization of SCS will increase in future the probability of armed conflict in this region.

INDO-PACIFIC

The rise of China’s military power including in the maritime domain has been viewed with great alarm not only in neighboring Asian capitals but also in Washington D.C. Similar to the gradual erosion of India’s primacy in the Indian Ocean the US faces the same situation in the Pacific Ocean theatre where it has been the power to reckon in the last 7 decades. The threat of China was on Obama’s mind when he called for the rebalance or pivot to Asia in 2012 to contain China’s rise. This strategy did help to strengthen US cooperation with its security partners & allies but as seen by the broken promise by Xi Jinping of not militarizing the contested islands it didn’t actually change the Chinese behavior on the ground.

The idea of the Indo-Pacific was first brought about by Japanese PM Shinzo Abe in a speech to the Indian parliament in 2007. Abe brought up the idea about the “confluence of two seas” i.e. Indian & Pacific Oceans saying “The Pacific and the Indian Oceans are now bringing about a dynamic coupling as seas of freedom and of prosperity. A broader Asia that broke away geographical boundaries is now beginning to take on a distinct form. Our two countries have the ability -- and the responsibility -- to ensure that it broadens yet further and to nurture and enrich these seas to become seas of clearest transparence.” In an article in Foreign Policy magazine in 2011 then Secretary of State Hillary Clinton made one the first official uses of the term Indo-Pacific. This was followed by Australia in a couple of years when it incorporated Indo-Pacific into its 2013 Defense White Paper. 

In the US the Far East & South East Asia combined with the Western Pacific formed what was referred to commonly as Asia-Pacific which fell under US Pacific Command (PACCOM). The area in the Indian subcontinent including India & it’s immediate neighbors to the east even though as a part of the same PACCOM was thought of as a detached geographical entity separate from the East Asia/South East Asia region.[Pakistan & Afghanistan to the west of India are part of Central Command  known as CENTCOM]. Some people as the former commander of U.S. PACCOM, Admiral Samuel Locklear once even refer to this entire region by a ridiculous & an unwieldy name called “Indo-Asia-Pacific.”

The rise of China has forced US to realize that they need to think of Asia as a single geographic entity which encompasses the area covering both the Indian & Pacific Oceans. The Trump administration including the president himself has discarded the old “Asia-Pacific” & replaced it with the “Indo-Pacific”. This shows both the primacy of India in the IOR (Indian Ocean Region) & the importance it plays in helping to balance against the growing Chinese power. The need for Indian support becomes more acute when coupled with the fact that Trump wants the US to withdraw from overseas deployments as part of his America First Policy. They realize that to counter the Chinese who doesn’t respect rules based order they require India which is a major power in Asia. Former US Secretary of State Rex Tillerson last October had said that China had risen “less responsibly, at times undermining the international rules-based order, even as countries like India operate within a framework that protects other nations’ sovereignty. “Admiral Harry Harris, former commander of the US PACCOM and nominee-to-be US ambassador to South Korea, at the 2018 Raisina Dialogue in New Delhi  called China a “long-term challenge” that is “disrupting the potential for prosperity, openness and inclusivity” in the Indo-Pacific.

By 2025 it is has been forecasted that US, China & India will be the three largest economies by size. In the strategic battle over the top spot between the top 2: US & China, India could very well play the role of “kingmaker”. Due to its non-alignment history India will not go fully with either side but even if it tipped the scales slightly in any one nation’s favor, due to its sheer size it could very well decide the outcome of this battle.

Last year US described the Indo-Pacific as a priority region in its 2017 National Security Strategy (NSS). Former Secretary of State Rex Tillerson has described India & US which are on opposite sides of the Indian & Pacific Oceans as the two anchors of the Indo-Pacific strategy. The Trump administration’s strategy calls for FOIP (“Free & Open INDO-PACIFIC”). As per former U.S. National Security Advisor H.R. McMaster FOIP includes the following core principles:

• Freedom of navigation and overflight
• The rule of law
• Freedom from coercion
• Respect for sovereignty
• Private enterprise and open markets
• Freedom and independence of all nations

QUAD

Dhruva Jaishankar fellow at Brookings India rightly says that the QUAD (Quadrilateral Dialogue) is a “division of labor to secure the Indian & Pacific Oceans” against Chinese belligerence. The idea is to create a coalition of like-minded democracies that obey rules based order to counter the rise of powers which don’t adhere to democratic norms & pose a threat to the sovereignty, security & trade of these like-minded democracies. India does have a US-India-Australia trilateral, a India-Japan-US trilateral plus bilateral engagements with US, India & Japan where co-operation has significantly deepened over the past few years. However the QUAD (Quadrilateral) is unique in a sense where it consists of 4 democracies working together in a single forum: US, India, Japan & Australia. These four nations coincidentally also happen to be the most dominant maritime powers in the Indo-Pacific (other than China).

The origins of the QUAD arose from the devastating 2004 Indian Ocean earthquake and tsunami which killed around quarter of a million people. US Navy in addition with other regional navies such as Australia, India & Japan joined together to support the humanitarian assistance and disaster relief (HADR) efforts after the tsunami. The coordination among the four provided the idea for further cooperation in the maritime domain. They then met formally as part of the Quadrilateral Security Dialogue in May 2007 in Manilla. Later that in year in September 2007 in the Bay of Bengal the navies of the four countries plus Singapore participated in the MALABAR naval exercises. China which saw the exercise as being geared towards them conveyed its displeasure to the four nations about the QUAD. The ruling United Progressive Alliance in India came under criticism from the Left parties (who were providing outside support to the government). The Left parties who were already upset about the growing closeness between the UPA government & US in regards to the India-US civil nuclear deal now protested openly against this exercise. China vociferously complained against the QUAD which they referred to as “Asian NATO” even though there wasn’t any military pact signed among the 4 nations. But the death knell for the QUAD came from Australia where after the election of Kevin Rudd as PM he withdrew Australia from the QUAD to stay in the good graces of the Chinese. With Japanese PM Shinzo Abe’s resignation later that year the QUAD quickly disbanded.

Since the dissolution of QUAD all four nations tried to avoid irritating China too much while hoping that China will mend its ways & become a responsible power in the Indo-Pacific. But all this appeasement of China was for a naught who continued on its merry expansionist ways without caring for international norms or sovereignty of neighboring nations. Many nations had a severe concern that the territorial claims made by China in SCS will severely curtail their freedom of the seas. These four countries felt that a broad coalition was needed to be formed as a bulwark against the rise of a revisionist power like China. The re-election of Shinzo Abe as Japanese PM, resignation of (pro-Chinese) Australian PM Kevin Rudd & coming to power of Narendra Modi who unlike the UPA government was not beholden to older principles of non-alignment helped the QUAD to be reborn in late 2017. Unlike a decade ago when certain political parties in various nations had issues with appearing to be aligning against China, now the threat was big enough to create broad political consensus on being part of the QUAD. The QUAD met again in November 2017 in Manila where the following items were discussed: rules-based order in Asia, freedom of navigation and overflight in the maritime domain, respect for international law, enhancing connectivity, maritime security, the North Korean threat and nonproliferation, and terrorism. The idea was for four countries with similar value system and with considerable military/economic heft to create a regional cooperation dialogue that increases economic and security collaboration to build towards a free, open and inclusive Indo-Pacific. To no one’s surprise after the meeting an irate Chinese foreign minister Wang Yi said that the QUAD was a "headline grabbing" idea which will "dissipate like sea foam".

INDO PACIFIC & QUAD: SOLUTION TO ALL MARITIME ISSUES WITH CHINA?

The QUAD has been thought by some as the panacea to all the maritime issues with China. This is false thinking as even though the four countries generally agree on a broad concept of FOIP (Free & Open Indo Pacific)  they don’t have 100% alignment on the all the under lying items. As seen from comparison of statements after QUAD meeting India didn’t mention freedom of navigation and overflight, respect for international law & maritime security while Japan did reference connectivity. These differences show that getting 100% agreement across all core principles will take some time. The four countries have different challenges of geography, economics, and sovereignty disputes with China & hence what they want from QUAD to counter China varies greatly. There is a concern that over time if these differences among all are not bridged than the QUAD could collapse once again. Another vexing issue is how to deal with the ASEAN (Association of Southeast Asian Nations) members who feel left out from the “big boys club” of QUAD & how to incorporate them into the idea of the FOIP (Free & Open Indo-Pacific).

India which is primarily an IOR power with very little presence in the Pacific is reluctant to conduct FONOP (Freedom of Navigation Operation) in the South China Sea that others have done so far. The vast majority of US interests lie in the Western Pacific with very little presence in Indian Ocean except their base at Diego Garcia. This presence of Indian Navy primarily in the IOR & the US Navy in the Pacific shows the lack of overlap of both across the Indo-Pacific. Former PACOM Command Admiral Harry Harris’s famous said that "it extends from Hollywood to Bollywood” i.e. from Western Coast of US to India. But for India it excludes the crucial Western Indian Ocean where India’s economic & strategic interests lie in Central Asia & East Africa. India’s vision of INDO-PACIFIC stretches all the way from Pacific Ocean to the eastern shores of Africa & doesn’t stop at India like US PACOM boundaries do.

Detractors of the QUAD point out that since this is not a military alliance India shouldn’t spend energy pursuing it further as there is nothing to be gained from it. Unlike Australia & Japan which have defense treaties with US, India doesn’t have any mutual defense treaties with any member of the QUAD. So tomorrow if conflict breaks out between India & China none of other QUAD members would open up another front against China to help out India. However China’s increasing belligerence means a nation like India can’t afford to fight alone against a bigger power like China. Inspite of these various differences among the members of the QUAD a congruence of interests among all has brought everyone together. The creation of this dialogue which currently is in a very nascent stage will take time to grow organically & one has to allow time for it to evolve. One must not abandon it foolishly as some critics want India to do so.

Part 2 of this Article will focus on Recent Developments and the way forward for the QUAD. You can read part 2 here.