Saturday's Quad meeting in Delaware is taking place against the backdrop of China's assertive behaviour in the South China Sea, its sabre-rattling in the Taiwan Strait and increasing footprints in the Pacific and Indian Ocean, asserts Rup Narayan Das.
Prime Minister Narendra D Modi is participating at the Quad leaders' summit being hosted by US President Joe Biden on Saturday, September 21, in Delaware.
The quadrilateral grouping consisting of major maritime nations in the Indo-Pacific -- the United States, Australia, Japan and India -- is taking place against the backdrop of China's assertive behaviour in the South China Sea, its sabre-rattling in the Taiwan Strait and increasing footprints in the Pacific and Indian Ocean which pose serious challenge to freedom of navigation.
India has been bearing the brunt of Chinese belligerence not only on the land frontier, but also in the oceanic dimensions.
Surrounded on its three sides by seas, India is primarily a maritime country.
China views the Quad as an 'Asian NATO' and its orchestration as America's efforts to bring back the Cold War in the Asian theatre.
The conflict in Ukraine has added traction to the spectre of Russia-China duopoly and a fear that China may do a Ukraine in Taiwan.
India, a major power in the Indo-Pacific matrix, calibrates a nuanced approach aware of the imperatives of living with its mighty neighbour and coping with the persistent security dilemma emanating from China and its growing forays in the Indian Ocean.
The Malacca Strait occupies a very critical space in the edifice of the Indo-Pacific and India's 'Act East' policy. It is a choke point of India's maritime connectivity.
It is the shortest transport route between what the British called the Far East' and the Indian Ocean.
The Malacca Strait has served as the main transit route supplying vital goods to fuel the economy of the region. The bulk of crude oil passes through the Strait.
Approximately 60% of the world's maritime trade passes through this choke point which security experts dub the 'Malacca dilemma'.
Like the Suez Canal in the past and the Taiwan Strait at present, the Malacca Strait is fraught with serious implications. No wonder there is great rivalry between China and India.
Although India's major concerns and challenges to its security and territorial integrity emanates from China, its neighbour in the north has firmed up up its footprint in the Indian Ocean Region including in Hambontota in Sri Lanka, Gwadar port in Pakistan, Cocoa island in Myanmar, Chittagong port in Bangladesh and in the Maldives.
This has led to the coinage of the term 'String of Pearls'. Besides the South China Sea, China has also enhanced its footprint in the Western Pacific including in the Solomon Islands with which it signed a security pact in 2022.
Due to China's increasing footprint in the Indian Ocean, India has also deepened its strategic heft in the region to balance China.
There is a convergence of strategic interest between India and the West. India's position in the Malacca Strait causes anxiety in China.
India sits astride a very large number of busy international shipping lanes that criss-cross the Indian Ocean.
More than 90 per cent of India's trade by volume and 70 per cent by value is transported over the seas.
India views that the 21st century as the 'Century of the Seas' and that the oceans will remain a key enabler in its global resurgence.
While the coalition of democracies have been cooperating with each other to confront Chinese belligerence, the US renamed the Pacific-Command as Indo-Pacific Command in 2018, recognising the strategic significance of India and the Indian Ocean.
Earlier, in 2007, then Japanese prime minister Abe Shinzo, while speaking in India's Parliament, articulated the concept of a confluence of the seas, saying that the Pacific and the Indian Oceans were bringing about a dynamic coupling as the seas of freedom and of prosperity.
A broader Asia that broke geographical boundaries was beginning to take on a distinctive form in India and Japan, Abe added.
India has major strategic interests as well as economic and commercial stakes in continued peace and stability in the Indo-Pacific.
India's view is that all countries must exercise restraint and resolve bilateral issues diplomatically and without recourse to the use or threat of use of force.
India supports freedom of navigation in international waters and believes that the current regional security landscape in the region calls for a cooperative and inclusive approach.
On its part, under the 'Act East' policy which places renewed emphasis on engagement with the Indo-Pacific, India has been an active participant in various bilateral as well as multilateral fora with a focus on security matters such as the East Asia Summit, ADMM-Plus and AFEAN Regional Forum .
India has urged that the ruling of the Permanent Court of Arbitration given in July 2016 should be complied with by the stakeholders.
In pursuant to its 'Act East' policy India has been participating in the Malabar naval exercises since 1992 initially with the USA; later, Japan and Australia have been participating in the annual naval exercises to facilitate interoperability.
Besides, India has also been undertaking bilateral naval exercises with most of the ASEAN countries including Indonesia, Thailand, Singapore and Vietnam.
The engagement of India's State owned Oil and Natural Gas Videsh in hydro carbon exploration in the South China Sea has both commercial and strategic traction. India and Vietnam recently renewed the oil exploration contract in the South China Sea.
India has also extended $100 billion line of Ccredit to Vietnam for procuring high speed guard boats for its coastal defence.
In a significant development, India and the Philippines recently signed an agreement for buying BrahMos missiles from India. India also participates in the RIMPAC naval exercises.
India's strategy has been what Dr Ashley Tellis wrote in context of the US strategy with regard to China 'balancing without containment'.
The unfolding geo-strategic scenario in the Indo-Pacific and the complex matrix of geo-politics reminds what the eminent English political geographer (who is credited to have coined the concept of geo-politics) Halford Mackinder (1861-1947) prophesised, if a maritime power wants to suppress a continental power and prevent its rise, it would be necessary for the former to block the latter's access to its seas.
Dr Rup Narayan Das is a former senior fellow at the Manohar Parrikar Institute for Defence Studies and Analyses and also the Indian Council of Social Science Research. The views expressed are personal.
Feature Presentation: Rajesh Alva/Rediff.com
