How India can stay relevant in the South China Sea

As China tightens its grip over the South China Sea and America looks away, New Delhi must rethink how to remain a balancing force in Asia.

Narendra Modi Ma. Theresa P. Lazaro

When India embarked on its Look East policy in the early 1990s, and when the nation wasalmost immediately accommodated within the ASEAN framework as a dialogue partner, it waswidely commented upon as the ASEAN’ move towards seeking balance of power, in the faceof the overwhelming China, which had entered the said framework not very long ago.

This thinking was, of course, not baseless, especially in view of two background factors,complementing each other. First, local anxiety set in motion by gradually vanishing presence ofthe Western colonial powers’ security cover post second world war, complete upon withdrawalof the last British forces in the mid-1980s (on Brunei’s independence).

Second, the rapidly increasing and potentially threatening presence of China, backed by the latter’s historically infamous reputation of meddling in others’ affairs as well as loathing equality-based coexistence.

Against this backdrop, India’s entry into ASEAN’s overall framework could comfortably be viewed as such, though India was no match for China even then. India was rather a needy nation, seeking association with ASEAN for financial stability through increased trading opportunities, following the then recent disintegration of its all-weather supporter, the USSR. However, going by India’s known though understated reputation as a great civilisational entity and supporting the early civilisational growth of almost all the regional states to varying degrees during ancient times, and its respectable modern position as the world’s largest democracy, did certainly add some weight in its favour.

India too appears to have been well aware, since the beginning of this phase, of the ‘responsibility’ cast upon its shoulders to provide ‘balance’ in the region; but being primarily needy, it obviously was not in a position to flex its muscles in that direction during the early period of the policy. India’s different posturing actually started showing after the announcement of its Act East policy in 2014, through supporting official statements issued from time to time, found in repetitive utterances of certain terms and phrases by high office-bearers such as India’s external affairs and defence ministers, and even the Prime Minister. These have been the typical assurances of moral support towards the necessity of ensuring freedom of navigation and overflight through the South China Sea, which was troubled by nothing else but Chinese manoeuvres.

Resisting Beijing

However, much water has flowed through the South China Sea over the passing decades, and continues to do so. The story starts with China announcing its so-called Nine-Dash Line to the world in 1952, alerting all to its own sense of, and self-proclaimed right to, an unduly vast share of the sea touching its southern shores, historically called the South China Sea. This announcement naturally conflicted with the rightful interests of four Southeast Asian littoral states and ASEAN member states - Vietnam, the Philippines, Malaysia and Brunei - in terms of fishing and mineral deposits at the seabed, including crude oil. Of these, the interests of Vietnam and the Philippines were affected most substantially. While Vietnam has been resisting Chinese encroachment through a few confrontations at sea and also through the involvement of outside actors such as India’s ONGC in oil-rig operations, the Philippines chose to challenge it at the International Court of Justice in 2013. Although the ICJ delivered its verdict in favour of the Philippines in 2016, China refused to abide by it and continued not only to encroach but also to consolidate its overall grip on the sea by erecting military bases on the encroached islands, reefs and atolls.

ASEAN, the collective body of Southeast Asian states, politically carved up by China through some client states within, does not seem willing to take up the matter with China assertively to protect the interests of its member states. And even if it were willing, China pre-emptively (in 2016) refused to recognise it as a matter of ASEAN’s interest, declaring its willingness to deal only bilaterally with the concerned states. This leaves the affected with no option whatsoever but to watch helplessly as things unfold further to their detriment. Symbolic protest on the part of the affected has been shown in renaming the sea as the ‘East Sea’ by Vietnam and the ‘West Philippine Sea’ by the Philippines in 2011. Although Indonesia was never a party to the sea-related disputes, it too has suffered from time to time from the aggression of Chinese fishing boats, accompanied by naval ships misleadingly labelled as ‘coast guard,’ exceeding even the self-declared so-called Nine-Dash Line. That prompted Indonesia to officially rename the sea touching its northern shores the North Natuna Sea, after its bordering Natuna Islands, in 2017. These symbolic gestures point not only to the scale of the overall menace and panic caused by Chinese aggression but also to the state of helplessness of the affected.

Against this backdrop, things seem only to have worsened for the sufferers and improved from China’s viewpoint in maintaining its current position of undue advantage over all others. An indication to that effect was found during the 47th ASEAN Summit last October. The ASEAN Defence Ministers’ Meeting took place a day earlier, where the chair, Malaysia’s Defence Minister Mohd Khaled Nordin, showered praise on China, admiring the latter’s “vision reflected through its initiatives for global development, security, civilisation and governance, underscoring its leadership, wisdom and commitment to build a better and more inclusive world.” This amounts to little more than total surrender at the feet of an aggressive power that has been gradually and steadily destroying, limiting and curtailing the due rights of its southern neighbours day after day, by violating their Exclusive Economic Zones (EEZs) from time to time, thereby blatantly violating the provisions of the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS) on a regular basis.

Suffocating Control

Such violations of ASEAN states’ rights, and the resulting suffocating Chinese control over the South China Sea, seem likely to continue in view of the consistently declining interest and attention of the United States in this geography, which in turn appears sealed by the new National Security Strategy declared last week. This new NSS views China as a ‘near peer’ and declares its own inhibition about “wasting blood and treasure to curtail the influence of the world’s great and middle powers” as well as an intention to move “away from theatres whose relative import to American national security has declined in recent decades.” These are clear signs of America’s unwillingness to pay attention to China’s growing grip over the South China Sea. Is this NSS a green signal to China to adopt a ‘Monroe Doctrine’ in its immediate neighbourhood?

What should India be doing in this case to stay relevant and in the reckoning? Should it follow Japan’s path, where the latter, as if sniffing out America’s new NSS in advance, has quickly asserted itself to warn China of consequences should it dare violate the sovereignty of Taiwan? Not exactly, perhaps, given geographical realities. But these developments nevertheless call upon India to review the circumstances anew and strategize its positioning in the region to stay relevant geopolitically, and to be counted upon as a provider of the ever-elusive balance.

(The writer is a research scholar in international relations. Views personal.)