Indian Ocean Developments

[LETHALFORCE]

2 simple things no by Chinese to 12.5 billion refinery,-future of port remains uncertain, how do you know USA did not do this?? do you have a link??

 

[Koji]

Give me the quote that you claimed that if China did not cough up 12 billion, it's leaving first.

 

[SammyCheung]

I suspect with greater US presence in Pakistan these days, China is giving up on Gwadar. Still, China can continue to have ports in Sri Lanka, Bangladesh and Myanmar. (Myanmar is the country with closest strategic relationship to China.) In the future, maybe Singapore!

China's goal in the Indian Ocean is simply to protect shipping from pirates and protect Malacca strait from being choked by Indian navy. Indian navy is a medium power that is a serious challenge in its home turf.

Of course, nobody intends to challenge the USN in the Indian Ocean. That is impossible.

 

[LETHALFORCE]

dream on, in singapore another good one sammy LOL

 

[Fighter]

I suspect with greater US presence in Pakistan these days, China is giving up on Gwadar. Still, China can continue to have ports in Sri Lanka, Bangladesh and Myanmar. (Myanmar is the country with closest strategic relationship to China.) In the future, maybe Singapore!

China's goal in the Indian Ocean is simply to protect shipping from pirates and protect Malacca strait from being choked by Indian navy. Indian navy is a medium power that is a serious challenge in its home turf.

Of course, nobody intends to challenge the USN in the Indian Ocean. That is impossible.

China is always welcome in Gwadar.

 

[Ray]

60% of the world trade passes through the Indian Ocean. Therefore, any country can control the Indian Ocean will have a major say in international politics as also, in the event of a war, choke any belligerent country and deny it its good and more importantly, oil.

The Bab el Mandeb, Straits of Hormuz and the Straits of Malacca are the major choke points.

It is too altruistic to imagine that China’s interest is for ‘peaceful purposes’ or for that matter any other country that has some naval presence in the IOR (Indian Ocean Rim). If it were for peaceful purposes, then China would not have the Strategy of a String of Pearls.

Gwadar is a very important asset for China’s Strategy of the String of Pearls. It dominates the Straits of Hormuz, but India is closer to this choke point at Chahbahar which is building for Iran! It may be mentioned that Oman has close ties with India. Notwithstanding, Gwadar, apart from being beneficial to Pakistan is also important for China since Gwadar allows China to monitor activities and electronic traffic in the Middle East, mainly that of the US. The Gwadar port is also the terminal for oil for China through the overland route is aims to construct along the KKH to Xinjiang. This is a lifeline for China if any nation successful blockades the Straits of Malacca.

The ports in Bangladesh or Sri Lanka will only have berthing facilities and not bases. Both these countries are aware that it is not in their interest to upset India and in fact, there is no need for India to upset them either! The US are also seeking berthing facilities in Sri Lanka.

Today’s news indicates that India is building a naval base at Gan in the Maldives to help Maldives patrol their turf.
Navy Eyes Maldives

While the US has its deficit to worry and China is a major player there, the US has to make conciliatory noise. Yet, to believe that the US will give way to China to surpass her and become a superpower or have influence in the IOR is a pipedream.

The nuclear deal with India, End User, High tech arms sale is all a part of the Machiavellian game of playing one against the other since it is in the interest of the US to keep the two largest growing economies in check and retard their growth by upping the ante in the IOR and areas where India and China have differences.

Singapore will never be within the Chinese sphere of influence if one understands the Singaporean psyche!

One has to also observe the Indian overtures in Myanmar. The Coco Island is also the ‘listening post’ for Indian missile launches from the Orissa coast.

 

[Officer of Engineers]

Good God, People, do you NOT read what the article stated?

The Americans welcome a Chinese stabilization presence, not a hostile presence. In short, what the Americans want and got from the Chinese is the Freedom of the Seas and that is being defended by the PLAN. Yeah, it's 3 ships but it's 3 ships the Americans ... or Indians ... don't have to deploy.

You all don't get it. Not everything got to do with India, even in India's backyard. The issue here is the Freedom of the Seas and the Chinese Task Force, along with the Indian Navy, is defending that exact same context.

Like it or not ... and I know many of you don't ... within context of Adm Keating's statements, both India and China are on the same side on this issue. Both are defending the Freedoms of the Sea.

 

[kuku]

The numbers will go up once the submarine bases and naval bases in Pakistan, Bangladesh, and Sri Lanka become fully operational.

ba ha ha ha, submrine bases in Pakistan, Bangladesh and Sri Lanka.

What your jerking off on imagination now.

Hey Koji, you forgot to include Atlantis.

 

[MMuthu]

China is always welcome in Gwadar.

Who are you to welcome them?

 

[A.V.]

A tiny pearl of an island with a former World War II airbase in the Maldives is now the Indian Navy’s strategic object of desire.

Defence minister A.K. Antony’s visit to the Maldives with a high-level team for three days starting tomorrow will not name Gan, or Addu Atoll, where the coral island is located, just south of the equator.

But the navy wants a permanent presence in Gan for its surveillance aircraft, along with a presence of its ships and other aircraft in both Male, the capital of the Maldives, and Hanimadhoo, in the Haa Dhalu Atoll in the island country’s north, which is barely 20 nautical miles (37km) south of the Indian islands of Minicoy.

As India and China seek to expand their influence in the Indian Ocean region, territories barely marked on maps are popping up like beacons in the vast blue. Gan, in Addu Atoll, is the latest.

The Indian delegation is likely to propose building or renovating a hospital in the Maldives. Antony is accompanied by, among others, the director general of the Armed Forces Medical Services, Lieutenant General N.K. Parmar.

Navy officials agreed that Gan was of “great strategic importance” but were reluctant to describe their idea of a presence there as a “naval base”.

“It is important for us to station assets there. That does not mean taking it over. In fact, we have flown our aircraft from there. We want to station there now,” a senior official said.

India does not expect this to happen overnight. Antony is expected to begin an essay in persuasion, with goodies thrown in, and a review of mutual benefits at the discussions tomorrow.

This is how New Delhi hopes to sell the idea of a listening post in Gan, or Addu, to Male: You have concerns over your environmentally fragile exclusive economic zone and about patrolling and policing your far-flung islands, some of which are uninhabited. And we, the Indian Navy, are the “regional stabilising force” in the Indian Ocean.

Indian officials will make the point that the navy is, in any case, patrolling waters a mere 15 nautical miles from the Maldives.

The group of coral islands that make up the Maldives is about 600km from its north to south.

The Maldives does not have a navy. India will offer to patrol and keep an eye over its territories. For India, the benefit: it gets a listening post that will monitor movement of Chinese vessels as they sail to and from Africa. More than 60 per cent of Chinese oil imports are assessed to be sourced from Africa.

New Delhi’s military establishment is wary of China’s “string of pearls” strategy — the phrase used to describe the pockets of influence that Beijing wants to dot around India, starting with the port of Gwadar in Pakistan to the port of Hambantota, which China is developing in the southern tip of Sri Lanka, to Myanmarese and Bangladeshi ports in the Bay of Bengal.

India has over the years tried to develop military bases overseas without great success. Its first has been in Farkhor and Ayni. Ayni is about 10km south of Dushanbe, the capital of Tajikistan, which borders Afghanistan on its north.

Pakistan and China find an Indian military presence in Farkhor, also in Tajikistan, threatening.

An Indian military presence in Gan — formerly the RAF Gan, so named after the British navy built it for its fleet air arm and then handed it over to the Royal Air Force — means an extension of reach for its navy. The Indian Navy sees its area of responsibility in the ocean covering the space between the Persian Gulf and the Malacca Straits.

Antony will also be accompanied by defence secretary Pradeep Kumar, director-general of the coast guard, Vice Admiral Anil Chopra, and deputy chief of navy staff, Vice Admiral D.K. Joshi.

Antony is scheduled to meet Maldives’ President Mohammed Nasheed shortly after landing. In the back-to-back meetings tomorrow, the delegation will talk to officials and ministers in Male and to the Maldives National Defence Force.

A defence ministry release today said Antony “will also attend the closing session of the India-Maldives Friendship function besides paying a visit to the Indira Gandhi Memorial Hospital, the most visible symbol of Indo-Maldives cooperation and friendship.”

India was the first to recognise Maldives after its independence in 1965. In 1988 India’s military launched Operation Cactus to foil a coup attempt in Male. In April 2006, India gifted a fast-attack craft, the INS Tillanchang, to the Maldives.

if this deal comes through how this the dynamics change, because seeing the indian interest they are more than willing to consider it as something big in the future

 

[mattster]

Its about time

Its about time these guys got their act together.

India it seems lacks deep brain-power when its comes to strategic issues.

The Chinese entry into Sri Lanka was solely because India hesitated to support Sri Lanka in her time of need against the murderous sick suicide-bombing LTTE.

Indian politicians should have had the guts to fully support and arm Sri Lanka's army against LTTE since LTTE had assasinated Rajiv. What greater excuse do you need ?? But instead they were afraid of upsetting some Tamil groups in TN and missed a golden chance to consolidate a crucial relationship. Now the Chinese are building a major naval base right under our own noses in Sri-lanka !! This is what I call "Colossal Incompetence"

How much brain-power does it take to realize that every small neighbouring country in the Indian ocean is going to play India against China for its own benefit.

It doesnt matter if it is Maldives, Sri-Lanka, Nepal or Myanmar......they will all go under the influence of China and become Chinese proxies, if India lets the relationship go stale.

The combination of disruptive coalition politics, and the weak anemic strategic decision-making capability at the Center has made India a soft target.

Its weak-kneed policy-making and inability of the political parties to coalesce and build consensus around critical security issues, has rendered India to be somewhat impotent.

The Chinese on the other hand have a very aggressive policy of engaging anyone who they can leverage for their own strategic objectives. They have no morals when it comes to foreign policy.

India can still play catch-up since most Asean countries including Japan, Australia,Vietnam and Taiwan are very wary about the rise of China, and Chinese domination of the Indian Ocean. Right now, they are depending on the US Navy to guarantee their security. As US influence wanes, this group of countries will eventually have a common concern about Chinese regional hegemony.

This group of countries would then find themselves being "natural allies".
The US is not going to be able to secure them for the next 50 years, and so they will have to coorperate to tackle the Dragon.

 

[Officer of Engineers]

You're worried about a 3 ship task force and one of them is replenishment ship.

 

[Payeng]

Article from the two threads that I have posted months back where I found no spectators.

India Bids to Rule the Waves: From the Bay of Bengal to the Malacca Strait

Redrawing India’s Geostrategic Maps with China and the United States

 

[LETHALFORCE]

India plans naval base on Maldives to contain Chinese influence - Telegraph

India plans naval base on Maldives to contain Chinese influence



By Dean Nelson, South Asia Editor
Published: 2:30PM BST 20 Aug 2009


India is planning to establish a naval base and listening post in the Maldives, the tropical holiday islands in the Indian Ocean, in an attempt to contain growing Chinese influence in the region.
Its naval chiefs and military strategists have become increasingly alarmed by China's expansion in South Asia where it has established a series of bases in neighbouring countries.
It is currently developing a deep water harbour for its expanding fleet of nuclear submarines in Gwadar, Pakistan, and is developing ports in Sri Lanka and Bangladesh. Indian strategists have described its growing number of ports as a "string of pearls" around its neck.
Officials are now in talks with their counterparts in the Maldives to boost security for the tiny island, which has been targeted by drug smugglers, terrorists and pirates, and also to develop a new vantage point to protect its own coastal waters.
Under the plan, India wants to develop a former Royal Air Force base on the islands, and integrate the Maldives into its own coastguard system.
The Indian defence minister, A.K. Anthony, visited the islands to discuss the deployment of surveillance aircraft and ships.
The Maldivian government has found it impossible to police its own waters. It has more than a 1,000 tiny islands, only 200 of which are inhabited, with just under 400 miles separating the northernmost island from its most southerly.
"India wants to reinforce and expand its perimeter defence and an active surveillance from a naval base will contribute to that important strategic objective," said Dr Anupam Srivastava, director of the Asia Programme at the University of Georgia's Centre for International Trade and Security.

 

[Sabir]

 

[shotgunner]

They have a market capitalization that Indian companies cannot hope to enjoy. The Japanese, SK companies control a large stake in American and European markets along with their own. And they did wonders in the 60s and 70s. Now, the growth in Japan and SK has saturated. That's why their high exchange rates. They reached heir highest point and are now going down. In another 50 years, there will be very few companies left which will compete with India and China.

For a country like India, the exchange rate matters a lot since any investment they need to make in foreign shores will be significantly less as compared to the amount invested domestically. That's the reason you don't see huge investments by Indian companies, save a few like TATA, compared to what Japanese and SK companies can make.

All our companies make all their money in India. The profits from offshore companies is marginal compared to the revenue generated in the country.

Well explained on relationship between exchange rate and market caps of companies, amazing

Look at the context before jumping the gun. Compare China's industrial output to Sweden and Israel. Someone was comparing China's industrial output to India's industrial output as reason to compare military capabilities.

Wow. A professional comedian.

Looks like your post needs to be sent to the joke thread.

Thanks very much, you are not bad comedian too. Your "exchange rate" thesis, your "Sweden, Isreal" analysis would shine in the joke thread.

Enough to irk the Chinese too. China News: Indian Ocean Naval Symposium | China Digital Times (CDT)

US "not allowed" in IONS, that's enough to irk the Chinese too? Good logic.

 

[John]

looking at the maps the Chinese have surrounded us, well we need another base in nicobar and Maldives definitely. Now that we have laid a claim for our continental shelf, 648 km of our waters will be well defended which will make sure Chinese visits to Burma wont go un-noticed. lets try Malaysia or Indonesia, aren't they the countries looking to buy brahmos? we need a base in one of those nations.

We need to bring US closer and get permission to base a few MKI at Diego Garcia as well. they would love to train with our MKI and we would love to train with everything they got over there.

 

[Sabir]

Most of the strategic points in the map is within reach of IAF.

 

[shaheen]

Few years back there was news that China was trying to build a neval base or submmarine base in Marao is land of Maldives. Any update on that?

 

[Yusuf]

India has already pocketed Maldives. No Chinese base will come up there. The US will also put pressure as Maldives is close to Diego Garcia.
So far all the pearls the Chinese have stringed are non military in nature. It is a move to ensure supplies in times of war including oil.