New Delhi: Two Indian Navy warships have arrived at Subic Bay in the Philippines for a multilateral maritime activity involving ASEAN and its eight dialogue partners, as India steps up its naval engagement with Southeast Asian and Indo-Pacific countries.
INS Sahyadri, a Shivalik-class stealth multi-role frigate and INS Kulish, a Kora-class missile corvette, arrived at Subic Bay on Sunday for the ASEAN Defence Ministers' Meeting (ADMM)-Plus Experts' Working Group on Maritime Security Joint Cooperation Activity (JCA), co-hosted by Japan and the Philippines.
The activity brings together maritime forces from ASEAN member states and the eight Plus countries. Ships and aircraft from India, the US, Japan, Australia, Singapore, Brunei, New Zealand and the Philippines are taking part in the Subic Bay activity.
The Indian Navy said Monday that its participation was in consonance with the government's Act East Policy and the MAHASAGAR vision, and "underscores India's continued commitment to multilateral maritime cooperation and constructive engagement with regional partners". The deployment, it said, would provide opportunities to interact with participating maritime forces, contributing to a greater understanding of shared maritime challenges.
Alongside the two Indian ships are the US Navy's littoral combat ship USS Canberra and a P-8A Poseidon maritime patrol aircraft, Japan's helicopter destroyer JS Ise, Philippine Navy frigate BRP Jose Rizal and landing platform dock BRP Tarlac, Australia's HMAS Perth, Singapore's RSS Justice, Brunei's KDB Darussalam, and New Zealand's HMNZS Te Mana and sustainment vessel HMNZS Aotearoa. The activity involves engagements at Subic Bay followed by operational activities at sea.
Subic, on the western coast of Luzon facing the South China Sea, was one of the largest overseas US naval facilities until American forces withdrew in 1992. The former base was converted into a freeport but the area has assumed renewed strategic importance amid closer defence cooperation between Manila and Washington.
For the Indian Navy, deployments into Southeast Asia form part of a wider effort to maintain an operational presence beyond the Indian Ocean Region. Under its Mission-Based Deployment construct introduced in 2017, the Navy keeps mission-ready ships at important locations and chokepoints across the Indian Ocean, while its longer operational deployments regularly take warships into Southeast Asia and the western Pacific.
This comes against the backdrop of China’s expanding naval capabilities across the Indo-Pacific. The People’s Liberation Army Navy is already the world’s largest navy numerically, while Chinese warships, submarines, surveillance and research vessels have maintained a regular presence in the Indian Ocean Region.
India, for its part, has dozens of ships and submarines under construction or planned as it works towards a force of around 175 ships and submarines by 2035, while its conventional submarine fleet remains below the 24 boats envisaged under its long-term submarine construction plan.