INDIA, U.S. ON RADAR AS CHINA PLANS TO CONTROL ARABIAN SEA FROM 3 NAVAL BASES

Status quo in the Indian Ocean Region, dominated by anti-China-Pakistan groupings, is likely to see considerable change in the coming years.

- ABHINANDAN MISHRA

The nearest Chinese naval base to India is located at Yulin naval base near the town of Sanya of Hainan province, a distance of roughly 3,500 km from India’s southernmost point as the crow flies in a straight line.

However, naval vessels don’t fly and hence, if today China has to bring its naval force into play in an assertive manner against India, its warships will have to take a long circuitous route to come near Indian shores, unless it already maintains a naval base or bases near India where its assets are berthed.

The People’s Liberation Army Navy (PLAN) has a fully functioning naval base at the African country of Djibouti; by multiple accounts, it is working to establish a similar naval station at Gwadar in Pakistan and it is eyeing a location in Mauritius where its naval ships can berth and keep an eye on the events on the Indian Ocean Region. Read and viewed separately, these existing and future Chinese naval bases don’t cause much concern. However, once they are seen in relation to each other, things change drastically.

As the picture of the Google map (shown circled in the map) that shows the location of these places, if China manages to build and operate its naval bases from all these three places in the future, then it will reach a position to control the entire Arabian Sea overlooking India’s western and southern borders and will be able to launch naval assertiveness exercise in the region in close coordination with its all-weather friend, Pakistan.