Tag Archive for: Indian Ocean

Australia should champion Indian Ocean port development

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Australia can expand its engagement and influence in the Indian Ocean Region through port development, leveraging its expertise in the sector. In doing so, it can join with the United States, India and Japan in offering an alternative to China’s growing influence in the region’s maritime infrastructure.

Despite proximity to Australia, many countries in the Indian Ocean Region, including small island states, do not recognise Canberra as a preferred infrastructure development partner. This perception is understandable, as the modest scale of Australia’s investments signals a less committed presence in the region.

Australia has an opportunity to engage because important aspects of its port operations, notwithstanding local factors that hold back its own productivity, are quite advanced. Its knowhow would be valuable for countries in the Indian Ocean region.

By focusing on this sector, Australia can raise its regional profile and contribute to filling an important gap in the region. This approach also aligns with the goals of the recently announced Quad Ports of the Future Partnership, thereby also strengthening Australia’s role in the partnership with India, Japan and the United States.

Underdevelopment of ports is a serious challenge for Indian Ocean states. Despite the economic importance of ports, many in the region operate on outdated infrastructure and are therefore, inefficient, congested and costly to operate.

For instance, no port in the northeast of the region is among the top 10 globally in terms of container handling volume, even though they collectively handle about 30 percent of global shipping traffic. Ports in the Bay of Bengal, such as Colombo (Sri Lanka) and Chittagong (Bangladesh) lag behind in infrastructure, regulatory standards and turnaround times of ships and trucks. Absence of uniform standards and regulatory frameworks exacerbate these inefficiencies.

Shortening ships’ time in port not only accelerates trade processes and reduces costs; it also reduces the carbon emissions of idle vessels.

Australia has advanced port processes and high regulatory standards. A 2022 report on Australian ports highlighted that they were broadly aligned with international benchmarks, particularly in areas such as crane productivity, deployment of technology, and port security. Domestically, Australian port productivity is well known to be poor, but this is due to factors that would not be transferred to Indian Ocean friends: inefficient labour practices and a lack of competition between port operators.

Over the past decade, Australian ports have undergone technology and efficiency transformations. The government has fully implemented the World Trade Organisation’s Trade Facilitation Agreement, an arrangement that improves movement and clearance of goods, leading to automated processes, reduced customs clearance times and enhanced transparency. This has boosted Australia’s trade and logistics efficiency. By comparison, implementation of the agreement across other Indian Ocean countries is only about 40 percent.

Moreover, Australia is at the forefront of integrating decarbonisation measures in port operations. Its ports are increasingly adopting green technologies to reduce carbon emissions, such providing electricity from the shore, bunkering for green fuel, and automated systems. Australia has also partnered with Singapore to establish a Green and Digital Shipping Corridor to promote sustainable and efficient shipping practices bilaterally.

Though Australia sees itself as key actor in the Indian Ocean, it can solidify that status only by making a more significant contribution to economic development in the region and focusing on implementation. Exporting its expertise on port development is one way forward.

Australia can share its expertise in port operation by using existing regional cooperation mechanisms, such as the Indian Ocean Rim Association and the Trade and Investment Facilitation working group, which it led between 2021 and 2023.

Another path is through bilateral cooperation with key regional players. Australia can complement port development efforts of India, the United States and Japan in the northeast Indian Ocean region, such as in Sri Lanka and Bangladesh, focusing on soft initiatives, such as training in digitisation and regulatory standards. This could also be scaled up for port technology transfer, potentially in partnership with Singapore.

Australia’s advanced port infrastructure and regulatory framework provide a strong foundation for its role in promoting port development and processes in the Indian Ocean Region. Through this, Canberra can achieve a threefold foreign policy objective: address the developmental challenges facing countries in the region, enhance its geo-economic presence there and support the commitments of its Quad partners.

UK-Mauritius Chagos deal removes risk from Diego Garcia base

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Mauritius is getting sovereignty over the remote Chagos Archipelago in the Indian Ocean, but Britain will continue to administer the strategically crucial island of Diego Garcia for another century, preserving the Anglo-American joint base on it.

That’s the gist of the deal between Britain and Mauritius announced on 3 October. It prompts two questions. First, do the outcomes constitute a net benefit for regional security? Second, what are the general implications for Britain’s foreign policy and regional role?

The answer to the first question is a cautious ‘yes’. The deal, still unsigned, promises to end legal uncertainty over the base caused by Mauritius’s mounting sovereignty challenge to the British Indian Ocean Territory, Britain’s official name for the Chagos Archipelago. With a 99-year lease on Diego Garcia to Britain, it also charts a clear pathway for the US military to continue unhindered operations from the island into the long term. That contributes to maintaining the balance of power in the Indian Ocean and beyond.

Washington will have to live with additional risk into the bargain, as fundamentally, unlike the UK, Mauritius is not a US ally. But the US military has bases in other non-allied jurisdictions and Mauritius will also receive significant income from the base as an incentive to maintain the agreement.

India, Mauritius’s de facto security guarantor, has given its tacit blessing to the sovereignty swap, which from its perspective is an optimal outcome. India has always been ambivalent about the residual British presence but would like the US to stay at Diego Garcia as a check on China’s strategic ambitions. India will probably seek access to the base for itself in future.

Implications for British foreign policy and its role in the Indo-Pacific will take longer to evaluate. On one hand, relinquishing sovereignty over the British Indian Ocean Territory has ended a longstanding dispute with Mauritius. The dispute exposed Britain to risk of diplomatic isolation and accusations that its stance exposed a double standard on compliance with international law. Conversely, giving up territory potentially sends a mixed signal about Britain’s commitment to the region and to its other overseas territories. Not everyone has been convinced of the validity of the Mauritian claim, despite its gathering momentum through international courts and the United Nations.

Communications around the initial announcement by the four-month-old government of Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer were poor. A joint statement released on 3 October 2024 left basic questions about the deal unanswered, fanning anxieties that the Labour government had rushed to reach an agreement with Mauritius for unclear reasons. Former Conservative cabinet ministers quickly criticised the deal for selling out British sovereignty and for making unspecified financial commitments to Mauritius without consulting Parliament. But it was also revealed that those former ministers had opened negotiations with Mauritius two years previously.

In a subsequent statement to Parliament, Foreign Secretary David Lammy said a comprehensive deal to transfer sovereignty over the archipelago represented ‘the sole way to maintain full and effective operations’ for the base into the long term, through the lease from Mauritius.

It appears clear that the new Labour government, using internal legal advice, quickly decided that Britain was in a losing legal position and that an ‘inevitable’ binding judgement would force it either to abandon the base or break international law. Believing that its negotiating leverage with Mauritius was in terminal decline, the government apparently believed it had to strike a deal on the best possible terms as soon as possible.

Lammy has stressed that the deal includes a number of ‘robust security arrangements’ governing the base. Chief among these are:

—A carve-out for Diego Garcia that will preserve the administrative status quo for the base’s operations on the island, with Britain effectively taking a caretaker role and exercising ‘sovereign rights and authorities in respect of Diego Garcia’ on behalf of Mauritius; and

—Mauritius preventing ‘foreign armed forces from accessing or establishing themselves on the outer islands’ of the Chagos Archipelago.

The latter commitment could still conceivably leave the door open for grey zone activity by a hostile power, such as China, in surrounding waters. How Mauritius plans to provide maritime security for the Chagos Archipelago at large is therefore an important missing detail. There may be a role for India in this regard.

Lammy’s observation that the United States had ‘strongly encouraged us to strike a deal’ is telling, as is his observation that legal uncertainty was already weighing on operations at the base at Diego Garcia, delaying ‘critical investment decisions’.

The Biden administration did not simply endorse the deal after the fact. It has been central to the process. Senior White House officials have consistently lobbied their British counterparts about Diego Garcia. US pressure behind the scenes was apparently instrumental in kick-starting negotiations with Mauritius under the previous British government, despite its initial reluctance. All aspects of the deal have seemingly been thoroughly washed through an interagency process in the US.

Legal risk was perceived to be the primary factor. Since Mauritius obtained a favourable opinion from the International Court of Justice in 2019, parts of the UN machinery have been operating on the basis that Mauritius has sovereignty over Diego Garcia. British and US officials were concerned that further legal action by Mauritius could hamper base operations. For example, by jeopardising access for commercial aircraft, making it harder to bring in civilian contractors to undertake repairs, Mauritius could disrupt operations at the base. This threat was not seen as notional but as a real risk in the short to medium term.

Political risk was a significant compounding factor, as both Mauritius and the United States face elections in November. This helps to explain the compressed timing of the negotiations.

Compliance with international law dovetails with Lammy’s ‘progressive realism’. But he and the government have emphasised that the overriding factor driving the decision to retreat from sovereignty was not soft power but hard power and the determination to avoid disrupting operations at the base.

The public narrative around the dispute with Mauritius has largely been dominated by its framing as a decolonisation issue. The plight of the Chagossian people, who were forcibly removed from the archipelago to make way for the construction of the base in the late 1960s, has received keen focus. However, British officials have also had to weigh the uncomfortable prospect that the US military, as the nominal lessee, could ultimately decide to vacate the base in favour of an alternative location. That would leave Britain as the sovereign landlord with costly liabilities associated with the base and an escalating legal dispute with Mauritius to deal with. Although the ‘footprint of freedom’ may be a joint British-US facility in name, in reality it is overwhelmingly used by the US military.

Right from the start, the British Indian Ocean Territory’s expedient existence has owed more to bargaining within the Anglo-American alliance than considerations of British sovereignty for its own sake. Because of this, there is a prevailing sentiment within the British foreign policy establishment that the Chagos Archipelago is not a real overseas territory, or that it is, at least, unique. It should not be surprising, therefore, that British negotiators might feel relieved to bid goodbye to the issue.

Lead negotiator Jonathan Powell’s dismissive description of the archipelago as ‘tiny islands … where no-one actually goes’, though ill-advised, is probably widely shared within government. The problem with this sentiment, however, is that sovereignty is an irreducible concept. How the Indian Ocean territory is ceded also matters for the Falkland Islands and Gibraltar, which are claimed by Argentina and Spain, respectively. Britain’s Indo-Pacific partners will also be gauging the deal in the light of the Labour government’s willingness to remain regionally engaged.

On balance, consigning the legal distractions and bad publicity associated with the British Indian Ocean Territory to the past is a net plus for Britain’s Indo-Pacific policy. Assuming the deal is signed and ultimately ratified by Parliament, Britain’s only remaining possession in the Indo-Pacific will be the even more remote and much less strategically located Pitcairn Islands in the South Pacific. Hopefully, a final and amicable settlement with Mauritius will enable Britain to concentrate on the real prize—deepening its partnerships across the Indo-Pacific at large—while the base at Diego Garcia goes about its important business much as it did before.

Australia needs to step up in the western Indian Ocean

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Australia must become more active in the western Indian Ocean, not least because the country’s fuel supplies depend on tanker traffic through the region.

The Royal Australian Navy has operated in the western Indian Ocean consistently for more than a quarter of its history. Those operations have spanned a spectrum of tasks from counter-piracy, counter-narcotics and counterterrorism to support to both Gulf Wars in the Red Sea and Persian Gulf.

The nature and persistence of such operations is often attributed to Australia–US alliance responsibilities or the need for operational experience. However, the overarching reason is that western Indian Ocean maritime security directly affects Australia’s national security.

While maritime operations in the region are understandably not Australia’s primary focus, ignoring the region and its impact on national security may have significant consequences as the Indian Ocean becomes more contested. Maritime operations and capacity building in the western Indian Ocean must be factored into Australia’s maritime strategy.

Since the articulation of the ‘Indo-Pacific’ concept in the 2013 Defence White Paper and the 2017 Foreign Policy White Paper, Australia has limited its Indo-Pacific imagination to the eastern Indian Ocean. That focus has been reinforced repeatedly since then, including in the recent National Defence Strategy (NDS). The NDS defines Australia’s primary area of military interest as ‘the immediate region encompassing the Northeast Indian Ocean through maritime Southeast Asia into the Pacific’.

A primary focus on the northeastern Indian Ocean makes sense for many reasons. The obvious ones are the importance of the oil and gas reserves on Australia’s northwest shelf, Australia’s northern approaches and the ‘general proximity’ argument. The Malacca Strait between Singapore and Indonesia, and the Sunda and Lombok straits through the Indonesian archipelago, are central to Australia’s maritime trade dependencies. In a time of crisis or conflict, any direct threat to Australia beyond missile and long-range bomber attacks would likely transit through the northeastern Indian Ocean, although not exclusively.

The Australian Defence Force and the current and previous governments have actively sought to bolster the defence presence in the northeastern Indian Ocean. This has taken the form of naval diplomacy through the Indo-Pacific Endeavour regional engagement activity and the bolstering of facilities in Australia’s Indian Ocean territories. The Cocos (Keeling) Islands have become a focus: a significant investment is being made to upgrade the airstrip there on West Island to support Australian P-8 Poseidon surveillance aircraft, and there has been talk of potential deployments of the Australian Army’s new HIMARS missile launchers there for maritime strike capability. This emphasis has been underwritten by the new era of maritime patrol aircraft diplomacy, including visits to the Maldives and a suite of new defence attache appointments.

The focus on the eastern Indian Ocean is extended by the expansion of Australia’s naval base in Rockingham, Western Australia. The base HMAS Stirling will not only play host to Submarine Rotational Force–West from 2027 and Australia’s nuclear-powered submarines; it will also inevitably be host to Australia’s expanding surface combatant fleet, albeit in the 2030s.

In many respects, Australia’s increased emphasis on the eastern Indian Ocean is realising what Kim Beazley hoped for with his 1987 two-ocean Navy strategy.

However, Australia’s Indian Ocean defence engagement cannot be confined just to the eastern Indian Ocean or subscribe to an artificial line drawn south from India in its conception of the Indo-Pacific. There are several reasons for this, from population growth in Africa to Australia’s important trade relationships with the European Union, Australia’s third-largest trading partner. However, the most compelling and strategically significant is Australia’s fuel supply.

Australia imports 90 percent of its fuel. Any interruption to the fuel supply would have dramatic and immediate effects not only on the Australian economy, but also on Australia’s ability to defend itself. F-35 fighters would not be able to fly, and HIMARS launchers could not be moved around the country, to name but two of the effects.

In conversations about Australian fuel supply across the Indian Ocean, it is common for concerns to be dismissed by pointing out that Australia imports most of its fuel from its north. In June 2024, the top three exporters of fuel to Australia were South Korea, Singapore and Malaysia. But there is a catch: those imports are of refined fuel, because all but two Australian oil refineries have closed.

South Korea, Singapore and Malaysia all import most of their crude oil from the Middle East, so any interruption to the crude-oil supply across the Indian Ocean will directly affect Australia’s fuel supplies and its national security. While many countries in the region are also vulnerable, Australia’s vulnerability is twofold. Australia’s fuel needs to cross the Indian Ocean twice, first as crude oil from the western Indian Ocean to the Malacca Strait to be refined in Asia, then through the Indonesian archipelago back into the Indian Ocean as refined fuel to be imported into Australia.

Australia’s fuel supply is but one obvious example of why Australia should care about maritime security in the western Indian Ocean. While there have been calls for Australia to bolster its fuel-supply resilience, policies developed to do so will not have an effect in the near to medium term.

The western Indian Ocean is increasingly a contested maritime domain, not only as a result of increased piracy and Houthi attacks on shipping, but also because China is gaining a foothold in the region. In 2017, China established a base in Djibouti and has since invested in ports across the western Indian Ocean. In the event of a crisis, it is not a stretch to think that Australia’s fuel supply would be directly affected.

While the claim has been made that Australia relies on its partnerships and alliances to ensure maritime security in the western Indian Ocean, that’s not entirely accurate. Australia has relied on partners and allies, in concert with its independent operations, to ensure maritime security in the western Indian Ocean, as evidenced by the near 30 years of continuous Australian naval deployments to this region.

Given the implications for it of western Indian Ocean maritime security matters, Australia must become more active in this region through semi-regular deployments of ships and aircraft and through investment in capacity building. This will ensure presence, build relationships in the region and grow the Royal Australian Navy’s fluency with operating in the region—a baseline of familiarity that would be essential to surging operations in the event of a crisis.

Australia is correct to prioritise the northeastern Indian Ocean in its military calculus, but that prioritisation should not mean that the western Indian Ocean is ignored. It’s time for Australia to incorporate a greater presence in the western Indian Ocean into its maritime strategy.

India and Japan take small steps towards stronger ties

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India and Japan have just concluded their 2+2 ministerial dialogue. On the one hand, the talks demonstrated significant progress in the relationship over the past few years—a positive trend from Australia’s point of view. On the other, it is difficult to avoid the sense that most of the accomplishments were the low-hanging fruit in the relationship, and progress in further deepening ties would require significant political investment on both sides, which is not yet visible.

The India-Japan 2+2 began in 2019, one of several such dialogues that India and its partners initiated in the Indo-Pacific. Though it was meant to be an annual affair, this was the only the third such meeting since 2019. Nevertheless, the joint statement listed an impressive set of achievements. These included Japanese participation in bilateral and multilateral air exercises hosted by the Indian Air Force, and bilateral military exercises by all three services in 2023—the first time this has happened in a  single calendar year.

In addition, there has been a steady drumbeat of dialogues on issues including disarmament and non-proliferation; cyber security and counterterrorism. A particular emphasis for both countries is the UN Security Council reform. Even though this still seems a somewhat distant ambition, both sides continue to discuss pathways forward in promoting such reforms.

As well as security cooperation, India is clearly interested in technology transfers from Japan—an area that New Delhi has been keen to develop with other strategic partners, especially those with access to high-end technology such as its Quad partners, the United States, Japan and Australia.

Indian Foreign Minister Subrahmanyam Jaishankar emphasised this point in his statement, asking that Japan ‘look into the current regulatory bottlenecks’ that might be standing in the way of such technology sharing. India has stressed that, rather than simply buying Japanese defence platforms, it is more interested in joint research, design, development, testing and production. This would likely enhance India’s own technological base. But technology sharing is always difficult because even close security partners guard their national technological assets jealously. For example, despite Jaishankar’s request, the joint statement made no reference to any progress on this issue.

Moreover, it is unclear how much progress was made in previous efforts. For example, India and Japan collaborated in a joint research project on unmanned ground vehicle (UGV) robotics—though it seems possible this did not lead to the development of any actual vehicles. The collaboration was revealed by the first 2+2 ministerial dialogue in 2019 and mentioned again in 2020 by the Japanese Ministry of Defense as an example of defence equipment and technology co-operation with partner countries. The initiative was quite forward-looking, considering the development of such UGVs in the context of the Ukraine war.

The latest joint statement says the project is complete, but what this means is unclear. Japan has contracted for three THeMIS UGVs from Estonian firm Milrem Robotics, which suggests that the India-Japan research project has not produced any UGVs. The two countries did announce transfer of the unified complex radio antenna (UNICORN) and related technologies, communication gear that are deployed on Japanese stealth warships.

India’s other partners in the Quad and in the Indo-Pacific such as Australia should be pleased with the progress in India-Japan security ties. They all have an interest in creating a mesh of security partnerships to maintain greater stability in the region. Such a security mesh will be strengthened significantly if India is part of it. Indeed, other bilateral and minilateral partnerships have been accelerating in the region, including AUKUS, the Japan-Australia defence agreement, the UK-Japan defence agreement and the growing security ties between Japan and South Korea.

Nevertheless, Jaishankar’s press release and the joint statement, read together, suggest that while progress has been made, there are no major initiatives in the works to propel the relationship to the next stage. Again, this might have parallels with India’s other security partnerships, including with Australia and even the US. India and its partners can only do so many military exercises and bilateral and minilateral dialogues.

It is possible that New Delhi is satisfied with what it has achieved already, and does not want to further deepen security ties beyond its desire for technology. But this leads to a quandary because India’s partners may not be willing to transfer the kind of technology that India wants at the current level of partnership.

It is therefore possible that India and its security partners—including Japan—need to figure out a new equilibrium in their strategic partnership that satisfies the needs of both sides.

Out of focus: Australia neglects western Indian Ocean

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The Quad partners often discuss the Indo-Pacific, but they hold differing views on what exactly it is. That disparity has tangible effects, such as Australia’s diminished interest in piracy in the western Indian Ocean compared with its Quad partners. While China consistently demonstrates interest in the seas off eastern Africa, Australia does not, neglecting significant maritime zones that are vulnerable to security threats. 

India and Japan advocate for a broad interpretation of the Indo-Pacific, including the western Indian Ocean, aligning with their extensive economic and security interests. The US, through its National Defence Authorisation Act 2020, has expanded its conception of the Indo-Pacific to the east coast of Africa, while Australia maintains a narrow focus on the Pacific, its own side of the Indian Ocean and parts of Southeast Asia, as reiterated in its recently launched 2024 National Defence Strategy. 

That divergence has practical implications, particularly for maritime security challenges such as piracy. Australia’s limited attention to piracy in the western Indian Ocean contrasts with the proactive stance of its Quad partners. For example, recent actions by the Indian Navy to recover ships hijacked by Somali pirates, including the Ruen on 15 March off Somalia and the Al-Kambar on 29 March in the Arabian Sea, underscore the need for further collaborative action. 

It’s not that Australia hasn’t contributed to the region. In 2009, Canberra announced spending of $500,000 to help Kenya with counterpiracy efforts. There have been deployments by the Royal Australian Navy since 1990, and in 2014 the navy participated in the EU’s Common Security and Defence Policy (CSDP) mission and the EU Mission on Regional Maritime Capacity Building in the Horn of Africa (EUCAP Nestor), emphasising capacity-building in the western Indian Ocean. 

However, no concrete Australian effort has been put into piracy control because much of the RAN’s attention has been nearer to home. Canberra’s priorities are shaped more by geographical proximity and direct threat perceptions than by a comprehensive understanding of Indo-Pacific security dynamics. 

Australia’s absence in the western Indian Ocean region results in reliance on extra-regional entities for maritime domain awareness, such as the European Union’s Naval Force Atalanta and its Maritime Security Centre Horn of Africa. As those centres struggle to share information effectively, conduct research and analyse maritime developments, this poses a challenge for coordinated operations in the region. 

Further, by overlooking crucial sea routes from the Persian Gulf across the Indian Ocean, Australia ignores significant trade corridors that carry two-thirds of the world’s oil shipments and a third of the world’s bulk cargo. Recent incidents, such as Houthi attacks in the Red Sea and the Gulf of Aden that led to a ship carrying 16,000 sheep and cattle being stranded in an Australian port, highlight the vulnerability of global trade and the need for comprehensive maritime security measures, for which a basic prerequisite is a broader understanding of the Indo-Pacific. 

Conversely, China shows consistent interest in the region, investing in port infrastructure in Djibouti, Kenya, Madagascar and Tanzania and establishing diplomatic footholds in those nations. The Chinese navy’s anti-piracy operations off Somalia since 2008, as part of China’s broader Maritime Silk Road initiative, reflect its commitment to projecting maritime power and influence. 

China’s strategic influence is also demonstrated by the fact that Houthi leaders have granted safe passage to Chinese ships, reducing the risks faced by more than 1,200 Chinese merchant vessels travelling through the region. China’s actions highlight not only its strategic foresight but also the geopolitical competition that Australia—and by extension, the Quad—must navigate. 

Australia must recognise the strategic significance of the western Indian Ocean and actively collaborate within the Quad framework. Updating Australia’s strategic outlook to encompass the wider region is needed to address evolving geopolitical challenges. By demonstrating reciprocity and commitment to its Quad partners, particularly India, Australia can strengthen regional stability and resilience while fostering inclusiveness and cooperation.

Turkey’s influence grows eastwards. That’s welcome

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Turkey’s newly strengthened relationship with Somalia raises the prospect of Ankara’s further involvement in Indian Ocean affairs, probably to the benefit of the West. 

With Turkey now tilting towards the West after a period of strained relations, its growing presence in the region to its east should be welcomed. Conversely, China cannot be welcoming this development at all.

In February, Somalia and Turkey signed a ground-breaking agreement encompassing defence, security and economic cooperation. This occurred amid escalating tensions between Somalia and Ethiopia.  

Somali Prime Minister Hamza Abdi Barre says the agreement’s primary focus is combatting terrorism, piracy, illegal fishing and foreign threats. But it also grants Turkey unrestricted access to Somali territorial waters and greater military presence in Somalia. Turkey also pledges to help bolster Somalia’s naval capabilities, for which purpose Somalia will transfer 30 percent of its marine income to Turkey. 

All this allows Turkey, the country with the second-largest military in NATO, to be well ensconced in the northwestern Indian Ocean. 

Meanwhile, after a period of difficult relations, Turkey has re-engaged with the West, particularly the United States. Growing Chinese influence in the Middle East and Central Asia may have been a factor behind that move.

In particular, China’s growing presence in Turkey’s periphery and domestic society has worried Ankara. Although Turkey has had positive economic engagement with China, the arrest in February of six Chinese spies in Turkey, China’s active presence in the Balkan Peninsula and Central Asia and its  close ties with Iran make Ankara uncomfortable.  

Examples of Turkey’s re-engagement with the West include its approval of Sweden’s NATO bid, rapprochement with Greece, increasing defence cooperation with the Britain and other NATO partners and proactive engagement with US officials. So, eastwards expansion of Turkish influence is, on balance, likely to benefit the West. 

It will not be limited to military capability nor to the northwestern Indian Ocean. 

The latest agreement is part of a larger shift in Turkish foreign policy. It formerly focussed on nearby places—the Middle East, South Caucasus and Mediterranean—but these days, much more ambitiously, extends to the Horn of Africa and beyond. 

Since 2019, Turkey has sought to strengthen ties with Japan, South Korea, Southeast Asian nations, Turkic states of Central Asia, and countries in the Horn of Africa. Turkey unveiled its Asia Anew Initiative in 2019 to establish closer ties with Muslim countries and developed economies in East Asia. It has strengthened security and defence cooperation with Malaysia, Bangladesh, South Korea and the Philippines. 

Already in the Horn of Africa, Turkey has substantially bolstered its influence through military cooperation with Somalia, Sudan and Ethiopia. Its economic presence in Somalia has been expanding since 2010. Notable achievements include reopening Mogadishu’s ports in 2014 and establishing a military training camp to support the Somali National Army in association with the United States. 

While Ankara welcomes Beijing’s Belt and Road Initiative, it does not view Chinese activity in its former Ottoman territory or sphere of influence positively, especially China’s establishment of its first overseas base in Djibouti, at the southern entrance of the Red Sea, in 2017. Turkey later leased the Sudanese port Suakin, halfway up the Red Sea, for 99 years. Moreover, Turkey competes with China more generally in Africa. 

Now, the deal between Turkey and Somalia must be discomforting China, which has sought influence in the Horn of Africa beyond Djibouti but is handicapped by its geographical and cultural remoteness from the region. 

Turkey’s weight will be minimal in the Far East and Southeast Asia compared with China’s. Yet, Ankara does have advantages that Beijing lacks in these regions: its Muslim identity, a more solid relationship with Japan and South Korea, a lack of territorial disputes with countries there, and defence ties with Malaysia and others. Adding the Gulf, Horn of Africa and Central Asia, Ankara has more room to manoeuvre and a bigger role that it can play. 

Turkey will of course look after its interests as it develops new relationships. But the West should recognise and endorse the eastwards move in its influence, which is definitely to China’s disadvantage. 

Policy, Guns and Money: Pacific engagement and strategic mapping in the Indian Ocean

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In this week’s episode, ASPI’s Bec Shrimpton speaks to Joanne Wallis and Anna Powles, authors of Smooth sailing? Australia, New Zealand and the United States partnering in—and with—the Pacific islands, released by ASPI in May. They discuss the key recommendations from the report, including setting up an ASEAN-style forum for Pacific island nations, as well as the need for the actions that partners undertake in the region to be directed by Pacific priorities. They also discuss how Australia, New Zealand and the United States have engaged with the Pacific in the past and explore opportunities to strengthen cooperation.

The Carnegie Endowment for International Peace recently released the Indian Ocean strategic map, which provides a coherent, data-driven understanding of the players, security challenges and other factors that shape the region. ASPI’s Baani Grewal speaks to Darshana M. Baruah, a fellow with the South Asia program at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. They discuss the key takeaways from the project, the importance of viewing the region as one continuous theatre, and the emergence of China, Turkey, the United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia and Russia as players in the region.

How Australia and India can collaborate in the western Indian Ocean

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Deepening strategic and defence cooperation with India is one of Australia’s regional priorities, as Prime Minister Anthony Albanese’s recent visit to India clearly demonstrated. As we seek to build our cooperation in ways that benefit both nations, we need to keep in mind what India wants most and how that fits with Australia’s interests. One of India’s priorities is security and stability in the Indian Ocean, including its westernmost edges. How might Australia best work with India in the western Indian Ocean?

Australia’s 2023 defence strategic review (and the 2020 defence strategic update) are crystal clear on where our priorities lie—the Pacific, Southeast Asia and the northeast Indian Ocean. So pressing are the needs in our immediate region that then defence minister Linda Reynolds announced in late 2020 that Australia would cease annual navy deployments to the Middle East and western Indian Ocean, ending almost 30 years of Australian maritime security operations in that part of the world.

No friendly country, including India, begrudges Australia making these carefully weighed decisions in our national interest. But it’s also worth us understanding that when India looks out into the Indian Ocean, it sees geostrategic uncertainty and competition, just as we do in the Pacific.

The significance of the Indian Ocean to global energy needs and supply chains, including for China, is well known. Half the world’s shipping container traffic transits through it and it’s home to 40% of the world’s offshore oil production. This has driven China to step up its Indian Ocean engagement, from signing port deals in the northeast in Sri Lanka and Pakistan to establishing a military base in 2016 in Djibouti.

Few Australian observers will have paid attention to the full extent to which China has embedded itself in the westernmost edges of the Indian Ocean over the last decade.

Among other things, China has developed or expanded port infrastructure right around the western edge of the Indian Ocean, including in Djibouti (2012), Kenya (Lamu, 2013), Madagascar (Tamatave, 2015) and Tanzania (Dar es Salaam, 2017).

Its forays into East Africa aren’t a fait accompli though. Tanzania pushed back against China’s proposal to build a $10 billion port at Bagamoyo that would also have banned any other parties from operating or accessing ports along a 900-kilometre stretch of coastline. Similarly, a 2018 deal with Comoros for China Bridge and Road Corporation to build a deep-water port in the capital, Moroni, hasn’t progressed and instead French logistics company Bolloré is expanding the existing port.

In parallel, China is expanding its economic, security and political presence in the western Indian Ocean island states (Mauritius, Seychelles, Comoros and Madagascar). Apart from France, China is the only country with an embassy in each of these countries. It’s the biggest diplomatic presence in Seychelles, and according to some diplomatic sources the largest foreign donor in Comoros (the French government also assesses that China’s the largest creditor there). Confucius Institutes are on every island.

Huawei is also a key telecommunications provider across the region—providing Seychelles with its submarine cable, upgrading Madagascar’s telecommunications infrastructure, and building an inter-island undersea cable in Mauritius, where it has also installed a network of 4000 safe-city cameras (in a country with one of Africa’s lowest crime rates).

With these island nations right on India’s doorstep, it’s not hard to see why Delhi has concerns.

Any Australian cooperation with India in a region beyond our immediate neighbourhood needs to be based on three principles.

First, is reciprocity. We should be proactive in demonstrating to India that we understand why it cares about the western Indian Ocean and that we are willing to help India reinforce its strategic narratives, just as they are starting to do for Australia in the Pacific.

Second is managing long-term strategic risk. We need to consider the possibility that the balance of power in the Indian Ocean could change in the coming years, and potentially quite quickly. That’s even more the case now that the UK has formally opened negotiations with Mauritius to return the island of Diego Garcia, on which the US has run a naval base since the late 1960s. Mauritius says it’s committed to retaining the US base—but China will see an opportunity and lobby hard in Port Louis.

And third, proportionality. Support to India in the western Indian Ocean doesn’t have to mean Australia redeploys naval assets.

But there are some modest things we can do that signal to India—and to others—that long-term Indian Ocean security and stability matter to us too. These include:

  • Australia becoming an observer to the Indian Ocean Commission (IOC), the mostly EU-funded sub-regional body that brings together Reunion (France), Mauritius, Seychelles, Comoros and Madagascar. India, Japan and China are already observers and Russia’s been pushing to join.
  • We should work with India (through the IOC) to build the capacity of the regional Information Fusion and Operation Centres in Madagascar and Seychelles. India should take the lead as it’s got a MOU with the RCOC already, but Australia could provide very modest funding or expertise.
  • We should also consider a trilateral collaboration between India, Australia and France that shores up security of critical infrastructure like undersea cables, as a recent report by the ANU National Security College proposes. A co-branded project where Australia leads efforts in the Pacific and India and France leads them in the Indian Ocean would make the most sense.

Deliberately crafting a modest Australia-India collaboration in the western Indian Ocean can help demonstrate that we understand what matters to Delhi. And ultimately, enhancing the relationship with India is what matters to us.

This article was written as part of the Australia India Institute’s defence program undertaken with the support of the Australian Department of Defence. All views expressed in this article are those of the author only.

India’s battle over disinformation in the Indian Ocean

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Seeking to shape public opinion has long been part of diplomatic checklists the world over.

In the context of an increasingly assertive China, Australia and others have had to think much harder about their own strategic messaging throughout the region, and particularly for small island states that find themselves caught between much bigger powers.

For Australia, this dilemma has been especially stark in the Pacific, where China has sought to build influence through social media, online news and traditional media, in tandem with its agenda to build infrastructure, undersea cables and security pacts.

Similar dynamics are at play in the island states of the far western Indian Ocean. Only there, it’s India that’s fighting the public diplomacy battle in a region where it never expected to lose influence.

India has long considered itself the net security provider, and partner of choice, for the subregion. Island nations like Mauritius, Seychelles, Madagascar and Comoros are right on India’s doorstep and, some would say, within India’s sphere of influence.

So China’s growing engagement in the western Indian Ocean worries Delhi—from the Chinese military base in Djibouti, to its investment in port and telecommunications infrastructure, to embassies on every island (the only country apart from France to have such a presence), to Mauritius becoming Africa’s third clearing centre for the renminbi.

As a result, in recent years the two countries have been engaged in a tit-for-tat on the battle for influence in the Indian Ocean islands. China’s free trade agreement with Mauritius in early 2021 was swiftly followed by the announcement of India’s comprehensive economic partnership with Mauritius. India’s external affairs minister, S. Jaishankar, is also a regular visitor to the region, as was former Chinese foreign minister Wang Yi.

At the local level, the two countries’ strategies are quite different. In Mauritius, Delhi’s public diplomacy takes the shape of grassroots community engagement and big cultural projects like the Indira Gandhi Cultural Centre in Mauritius (one of the world’s largest). In contrast, China has had a clear focus on the information environment—through scholarships, funding for journalism training, and cybersecurity training at the local Huawei academy.

India is now realising it doesn’t have as firm a hold on public opinion in the western Indian Ocean as it once thought it did. It can no longer assume that it’s seen among the islands as a benign big brother, in contrast to the Chinese interlopers.

When India sought to establish a naval base on Assumption Island in Seychelles, it was probably predictable that this would ignite local opposition. Seychelles President Wavel Ramkalawan was on the record about the threat a naval base would pose to Seychelles’ sovereignty long before his 2020 election. Not even an Indian high commissioner and former chief of the Indian Army, Dalbir Singh Suhag, could shift this perception.

But India thought itself on solid ground in places like Mauritius: 70% of Mauritians are of Indian origin and India is deeply integrated into Mauritian institutions. The Mauritian prime minister’s national security adviser is an Indian secondee, as is the head of the coastguard. And when Mauritian prime minister Pravind Jugnauth’s father died in 2021, India called a national day of mourning.

Despite those deep cultural and institutional links, as well as significant economic investment, India has faced a surprising amount of public pushback in Mauritius. There’s solid public opposition to India’s development of a military base on the Mauritian island of Agalega.

But there is also a broader agenda. High-profile Indian delegations that continued to enter Mauritius despite its borders being closed during the Covid-19 pandemic were accused of bringing in the Delta variant. Jugnauth has been under fire in parliament in recent years for being too ‘pro-India’. Social media and radio commentary in the country regularly questions India’s motivations and the motivations of its diplomatic representatives.

Mauritian debate about the India relationship reached fever pitch in mid-2022 when a scandal broke implicating Delhi and Port Louis in an interception of the country’s Huawei-managed submarine cable. Mauritians worried that they were being spied on by their own government, and by India’s. And they weren’t persuaded by the Mauritian government’s claim that the interception was undertaken for national security reasons.

The Mauritian public’s interrogation of foreign engagement in their country is legitimate and important. But the lack of public discussion about China’s possible role in the affair was striking. And given the amount of news that Mauritians (and others in the region) consume via social media (especially Facebook), it would be surprising if Chinese disinformation operatives weren’t engaged on this, and other issues in the region, just as they have been in the Pacific.

India’s public diplomacy battles are happening in the context of low community awareness of how to critique online information and enormous public distrust in government.

And while India’s strategic narratives are for Delhi to manage, Australia should care about China’s role in shaping public opinion in these Indian Ocean islands. We are, after all, an Indian Ocean–facing state as much as a Pacific-facing one.

India could learn from our experience in the Pacific—for instance, our declining broadcasting presence in the South Pacific over the past decade provided an opening for China. To remedy that situation, Australia is now trying to rebuild international public broadcasting, in tandem with training to enhance Pacific island states’ resilience to misinformation.

Stronger media institutions, and greater community resilience to misinformation and disinformation, also needs to happen in the far-flung corners of the Indian Ocean. Australia won’t be the lead here. But we should have countering disinformation in small island states on our agenda for cooperation with India in the Quad, and in our trilateral cooperation with India and France (which comprises Indian Ocean islands, including Reunion). If we don’t, we risk the balance of power in the Indian Ocean changing when we aren’t looking.

This article is part of the Australia India Institute’s Defence Program undertaken with support from the Australian Department of Defence. All views expressed in this article are those of the author only.

Cold War offers clues about China’s plans for the Indian Ocean

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A recent study published by the US Army War College looks at how geography constrained the Soviet military presence in the Indian Ocean and the lessons that can be drawn for China’s efforts to become an Indian Ocean power.

Geography has a big impact on the strategic dynamics of the Indian Ocean. It is largely enclosed on three sides with few maritime entry points. The Himalayas also cut off much of the Eurasian hinterland from access to the sea.

This makes it hard for militaries to get access. The semi-enclosed geography of the Indian Ocean creates a premium for naval powers that control the maritime chokepoints and the limited number of deep-water ports for essential logistical support.

There are similar constraints in projecting airpower. Aircraft can access Indian Ocean airspace from, say, Chinese territory only by flying over other countries. Within the region, the sheer size of the Indian Ocean makes it essential to have a network of local airfields for staging and support.

In the Cold War, the Soviets struggled to overcome these constraints. The Soviet Union had no direct access to the Indian Ocean by sea or air and few reliable regional partners. Its navy had to deploy to the Indian Ocean mostly from the Pacific, transiting the straits through Southeast Asia where vessels were subject to interdiction and tracking.

This had a significant impact on the Soviet naval presence. The long transit from Vladivostok to the Arabian Gulf meant that keeping one vessel on station required ships to spend around a third of their time in transit. Long transits also limited the deployment of smaller vessels. Logistical requirements meant that a majority of deployed Soviet vessels were support and other auxiliary vessels.

There were strong imperatives to obtain local bases. The Soviet Navy developed several facilities around the Horn of Africa, and where onshore support wasn’t available, they relied on floating bases in international waters. The quest for bases was pursued opportunistically and often meant relying on politically unstable partners. Access was far from guaranteed and they were evicted from several bases.

Although Soviet ships often outnumbered the US Navy’s in the Indian Ocean, the Soviet Navy didn’t achieve meaningful or lasting naval superiority across the region. The naval balance in favour of the Soviets was quickly reversed in times of crisis.

The composition of the Soviet fleet also differed considerably from the US’s with a large number of auxiliary vessels, including intelligence and research ships.

The Soviet air presence developed with several years’ lag. Operational access was also geographically constrained. Flight distances into the region were long, and aircraft operating from Soviet territory had to fly over other countries. This created a premium for access to local air bases.

The geographic constraints faced by China in the Indian Ocean mirror those faced by the Soviet Union.

For China, the Indian Ocean has secondary importance compared with the Pacific. But Beijing still has several strategic imperatives or missions in the Indian Ocean, starting with the protection of its crucial ocean supply lines for energy. But other missions are just as important in influencing the composition, size and locations of the Chinese military presence. These include protecting Chinese citizens and investments, bolstering soft-power influence, countering terrorism, collecting intelligence, supporting coercive diplomacy towards small countries, and enabling operations in a conflict environment. The People’s Liberation Army must be capable of responding to a range of contingencies.

The PLA Navy has a leading role in the PLA’s Indian Ocean presence, reflecting the imperatives of protecting supply lines and the political advantages of a relatively transient naval footprint.

The size and composition of Chinese naval deployments to the Indian Ocean have evolved. They now include an antipiracy taskforce, hydrographic-survey and intelligence-collection vessels, and submarines. But, although the presence has grown, China has so far been relatively incremental in its approach.

It’s possible that the PLA Navy’s presence could come to resemble the US Navy’s, if Beijing wants to protect the entirety of its Indian Ocean supply lines. That would be a major undertaking, requiring the sustained deployment of large numbers of vessels, including aircraft carriers and submarines, as well as land-based aircraft. It would require multiple naval and air bases in the region.

But Beijing may judge that protecting its supply lines against the US and India is impracticable. It may choose to focus on the Pacific while pursuing limited objectives in the Indian Ocean.

The PLA Navy’s presence in the Indian Ocean over the past decade has focused overwhelmingly on antipiracy, intelligence and naval diplomacy. These will likely continue to be a major focus and might evolve to include limited, coercive diplomacy (for example, disputes over fishing rights), as has been the case elsewhere. PLA Navy assets might be supplemented by vessels from other maritime agencies.

China may also develop additional capabilities to create local superiority; respond to a limited distant blockade; provide support for local interventions; or undertake limited sea-denial operations. All of these missions would be broadly analogous to the Soviet Union’s Indian Ocean strategy. These could provide options to respond to certain contingencies at a fraction of the cost of a full sea-control strategy.

As with the Soviets, constraints on China’s access create imperatives for local support facilities. But the nature and extent of China’s basing requirements would also depend on its overall strategy. Many needs could be satisfied by relying on a ‘places not bases’ approach of using commercial facilities while minimising the need for dedicated bases. But any significant and sustained Chinese naval presence in the Indian Ocean would likely require dedicated support facilities comparable to traditional bases.

China’s approach to securing local facilities is much more deliberate and comprehensive compared with the Soviet approach. China may be seeking to build what some analysts call strategic strong points as part of a network of supply, logistics and intelligence hubs across the Indian Ocean.

But whether that would yield assured access to support facilities under wartime conditions is uncertain. Despite many ‘feelers’ for facilities in the Indian Ocean region, no potential host country has offered permanent facilities to the PLA Navy (with the exception of Djibouti). Indeed, several potential hosts have pushed back on proposed port developments.

The port at Gwadar, Pakistan, is often identified as the most likely location of another Chinese naval base in the northwestern Indian Ocean (although it has not been used by the PLA). But any comprehensive Chinese naval presence would likely also require assured access to facilities in the southwestern, central and eastern Indian Ocean.

China also needs to develop its regional airpower capabilities. Support for sustained naval operations would require substantial airpower, including maritime surveillance and strike aircraft. But the PLA Air Force doesn’t have assured airfield access in the Indian Ocean, although it could potentially use the new 3,400-metre airfield at Dara Sakor, Cambodia. China’s lack of air capabilities in the Indian Ocean places it at a major tactical disadvantage. That could become a bottleneck limiting the PLA’s strategic power projection.

One clear lesson from the Cold War is that securing local bases can be costly and uncertain. China’s relationships with Pakistan and Sri Lanka demonstrate how much Beijing has to spend, even without securing assured access. Like the Soviet Union, China may find that relationships with some countries—particularly, corrupt and autocratic regimes—are less than reliable.

The Soviet experience also suggests that the size and composition of the PLA in the Indian Ocean will principally be a function of China’s unique interests in the region. It should not be assumed that China’s future military presence and security relationships will necessarily resemble those of the US.