Since India, the United States and Japan have begun their 10-day Malabar naval exercises in the Bay of Bengal, which are the biggest of their kind so far, and the US approved a $365-million sale of military transport aircraft to India last week and a $2-billion deal for surveillance drones is in the works, it is China that should feel ‘security concerns’, given the importance of the Indian Ocean for its trade and oil imports,” said a China Daily editorial Monday. This is an obvious reference to India flagging ‘security concerns’ over the Chinese incursion into the Dokalam region along the India-Tibet-Bhutan border. Claiming Indian troops had entered Chinese territory, the editorial warned that “India should respect the provisions in the boundary convention, before the situation deteriorates and leads to more serious consequences.”
The Malabar Exercise was planned for almost a year now, and has nothing to do with the current standoff. But the fact remains that China does worry about India cozying up to Japan and the US—particularly in the Indian Ocean region, which stretches up to the South China Sea where China claims and occupies a vast economic zone, much to consternation of Southeast Asian states like the Philippines and Vietnam. Originally a small bilateral exercise between the Indian and US navies launched almost a quarter century ago, three editions were held before India went overtly nuclear in 1998, leading to its cancellation. It was resumed in 2002 with Japan becoming a permanent partner in 2015.
The 21st edition, which kicked off from Chennai Monday, is particularly worrying for the Chinese not just because it entails three nations which don’t see eye-to-eye with China, but also because it focuses on anti-submarine warfare, amidst increasing reports of Chinese submarine activity in the Indian Ocean. While India denied this exercise was aimed against any particular nation, a US admiral was less diplomatic, declaring it was indeed “a strategic message to China … and others.”