India and the Great Watery Game

The world is witnessing a new type of maritime rivalry ensuing for the past few years, the impetus being the scramble for undersea energy resources by fuel hungry economic powers. Nearly, 30 mn barrels of oil per day, which constitutes one-third of global production, is coming from offshore fields. The posturing of the contending parties over rival claims over maritime resources is therefore becoming increasingly belligerent.

The scramble is rather growing hostile in the Mediterranean Sea (Atlantic Ocean), Indian Ocean and the South China Sea in the Pacific. Even the Arctic Ocean is not being spared, as the melting polar ice has attracted maritime powers like Russia, Canada and US in search of what is believed to be huge oil and gas reserves under the ocean (estimated more than 238 billion barrels). The US Geological Survey estimated in 2008 the areas north of the Arctic Circle to be pregnant with 90 billion barrels of undiscovered, technically recoverable oil and 44 billion barrels of natural gas liquids, constituting 13 percent of the undiscovered oil in the world.

Similarly, it is believed that there are enormous  offshore energy reserves in the Eastern Mediterranean .  The region is fast turning into a flashpoint in which the principal contestants are Israel, Turkey, Cyprus, Greece, Lebanon, and even Syria. There are commentators who feel that the so-called uprising in Syria and other countries have been engineered by external players vying for stakes in the offshore undersea energy resources in the Mediterranean region.

In the South China Sea the quest for offshore energy resources is fueling aggressive military posturing and a naval arms race, the provocation being China’s claim over the entire water body. China’s intransigence over the claim was very much in evidence when it confronted the Indian Naval Ship Airavat in the Vietnamese EEZ (45 miles off the Vietnamese coast) in July this year. In the ongoing 6th East Asia Summit in Bali (Indonesia) Prime Minister Manmohan Singh has tried to dispel China’s misgivings with regard to India’s maritime ambitions in South China Sea but did not fail to reiterate that India’s interests were purely commercial. The principal focus of the Summit is on maritime issues related to ‘freedom of navigation’ and offshore rights. Ever since Manmohan Singh and the Vietnamese President Truong Tan Sang signed an agreement on oil exploration during the latter’s visit to India in October this year China has started considering India as another adversarial, possibly inimical, player with regard to South China Sea. As per the agreement ONGC’s foreign arm, OVL and Vietnam’s Petro Vietnam will carry out joint exploration, notwithstanding Beijing’s festering dispute with Hanoi over sovereignty over islands in South China Sea.

Undoubtedly the safety and security of the vital Sea Lanes of Communication (SLOC) in the South China Sea is of critical concern to regional countries and extra regional countries like India and the US. The South China Sea is the busiest maritime highway in the world. It supports the movement of nearly 50 percent of the world’s the world’s merchant fleet and oil tankers. 40 percent of India’s trade with the US is through the west coast of that country, which must pass through the South China Sea. While the US is seen to be adopting tough posturing on ‘free access’ and ‘freedom of navigation’, it is the offshore energy resources which is accentuating matters. It is primarily for this reason that the US is increasingly becoming a strident player with regard to the South China Sea. As per one estimate the water body has 213 billion barrels of oil and 900 trillion cubic feet gas reserve. The American quest for a permanent military base in Australia should be viewed in this backdrop.

The US has been backing American Corporations like Exxon Mobil that are developing energy projects in Vietnam. China has been demanding that US firms stop their exploration. Most of the ASEAN countries and Japan, as also Australia view the increasing US involvement in South China Sea as the most effective counterpoise to China’s maritime belligerence.

This maritime rivalry for offshore energy resources is being referred to as the ‘Watery Great Game’. This game is very much ensuing in the Bay of Bengal between China and India but remains generally imperceptible. In the overall perspective there is linkage between China’s maritime thrust in Bay of Bengal and India’s tentative maritime footprints in South China Sea. The maritime concerns accentuated by quest for offshore energy is the overriding factor in determining strategic partnerships and groupings.

It may be recalled in 2007 the Malabar series of exercises was for the first time since I992 conducted in the Bay of Bengal wherein 24 warships from India, US, Japan, Australia and Singapore had participated. With 13 warships, the US had largest presence. It included aircraft carriers USS Nimitz and USS Kitty Hawk as also the nuclear powered submarine USS Chicago. China, an extra regional maritime power as far as Bay of Bengal is concerned, was incensed over this largest Exercise in Bay of Bengal. It issued demarches to all the participating nations. This Exercise was also a watershed development in evolving maritime equations, as from a bilateral US-India engagement it assumed a multilateral profile. Japan’s participation was a strategic surprise, unthinkable few years back. Malabar 2011 took place east of the Luzon Strait and east of Okinawa coast in Japan.

It is China’s growing energy hunger and the acute vulnerability of its energy lifeline i.e. SLOC in the Indian Ocean that is dictating its maritime posture in South China Sea. It is using this Sea as a bargaining water body and maritime highway to address its vulnerability by calibrating its position from a maximal position. In that endeavour, euphemistically speaking, it has been treating South China Sea as its Lake. Thus the great game in Bay of Bengal and in South China Sea is linked as pressure and counter-pressure maritime arenas with respect to China 

The Bay of Bengal is  serving as a unifying medium not only between India and the regional countries, but South Asia and Southeast Asia as such. For India, the Bay of Bengal was not an area of maritime concern, especially after the creation of Bangladesh. One of the biggest advantages of the emergence of Bangladesh was that Pakistan ceased to pose any serious maritime threat to India’s eastern seaboard. Nevertheless, there is a new element in form of China, which has registered presence in the Bay of Bengal in quest for energy resources and to obviate the vulnerability of its oil supply-lines from Middle East and Africa through the choke point Malacca Strait, which Chinese President Hu Jintao referred to as ‘Malacca Dilemma’.

The economic rise of India and China is influencing the maritime order in South China Sea and Bay of Bengal. To address the Malacca Dilemma, China is making thrust into the Bay of Bengal with Myanmar providing as the land bridge. It reckons the Bay as critical for development of its southern region, which are located far away from its eastern coast.

China is engaged in construction of 1500 Km oil and 1700 Km gas pipeline(around 800 kilometers across Myanmar) from Kyaukpyu deep sea port on Myanmar’s western coast in Bay of Bengal to Kunming in China’s Yunan province. The oil and gas pipelines will cost China US $ 1.5 billion and 1.95 billion respectively. Myanmar is likely to earn as transit fee of US $ 150 million annually. A railroad running adjacent to the pipelines has also been planned. In two years time, the pipeline will supply gas from Shwe gas-fields, i.e. offshore Myanmar.

India’s ONGC and GAIL has nearly 30 percent stake in the Shwe gas-fields. Myanmar had indeed offered India to tap gas from these fields (A1 Block) and transport to India’s Northeast states through Bangladesh. No sooner Dhaka refused permission, China seized the opportunity. Was the posturing of Bangladesh influenced?

Nevertheless in 2008, Myanmar did a balancing act by permitting India to ‘build, operate and use’ Sittwe port on Arakan coast and make the Kaladan River navigable to Mizoram.

There is a segment in Bangladesh, which is of the strong opinion that Bangladesh should balance India and China’s maritime thrust and ambitions in the Bay of Bengal. The anti-India lobby in the country feels that China should be wooed as a maritime counterweight to India. During the visit of Sheikh Hasina to China in March 2010, Beijing agreed to cooperate with Bangladesh in construction of a US $ 8.7 billion deep sea port in Chittagong and building of road link from Chittagong to Kunming in Yunan province of China.

There is great historical awareness about the Great Game between the British and Russian empire in Afghanistan and Northwest Frontier of India in the 19th century. But it is little known that there was another Great Game being played on the Eastern frontiers of the British Empire. This great game was scripted by none other than Churchill’s father Lord Randolph. Lower Burma, i.e. the area surrounding the mouth of the Irrawady River along with a strip of coast line on the eastern shore of Bay of Bengal was annexed in 1826 and was administered from Kolkatta. The Upper Myanmar remained independent. In the years to follow, the French having taken Indo-China were pressing westward and signed a commerce agreement with King Theebaw in 1883, who ruled upper Myanmar, thus, challenging British monopoly and interests. To preempt French western thrust Lord Randolph prevailed on the British authorities and Upper Myanmar was annexed in 1885. The move was driven both by commercial and strategic interests.

Similarly there is the great watery game ensuing between India and China in the Bay of Bengal, which is primarily driven by quest for energy and its supply routes. This has reverberations in other maritime domains as well. 

RSN Singh is Associate Editor, Indian Defence Review (IDR)

Views expressed are personal