Countering China: India to hold bilateral naval exercises with Australia, Japan and others

NEW DELHI: India may still be reluctant to invite Japan, Australia and others to join its top-notch Malabar naval exercise with the US this year, in part because China protested against such a multilateral naval grouping in the Bay of Bengal the last time around. But, it does not mean there is no strategic game plan underway.

Sources on Friday said India will hold a flurry of bilateral naval exercises over the coming months with countries in the critical Asia Pacific region, ranging from Australia, Japan and Indonesia to Sri Lanka, Thailand, Myanmar and Singapore. Interspersed with them will be exercises with the US (Malabar), UK (Konkan) and Russia (Indra), with the one with France (Varuna) already being held in Arabian Sea in April-May.

As was first reported by TOI, India has "so far" kept Japan out of the initial planning for the 19th Indo-US Malabar naval combat exercise to be held in Bay of Bengal in October. This despite the Modi-Obama summits in September and January agreeing "to upgrade" the annual wargames, and both Japan and Australia keen to hop on to the bandwagon.

The previous UPA regime largely restricted the Malabar exercise to a bilateral one after China protested against its 2007 edition in Bay of Bengal especially since they were expanded to include the Japanese, Australian and Singaporean navies as well. Since then, Japan has been co-opted only when the Malabar was held in the north-western Pacific in 2009 and 2014.

Interestingly, the Bay of Bengal will be the venue for India's first-ever IN-RAN naval exercise with Australia from October 30 to November 4 as well as the JIMEX exercise with Japan thereafter in mid-November.



Around the same time, Indian and Thai warships will also hold their coordinated patrolling along their international maritime boundary line. This will be followed by a similar exercise with Myanmar in February-March next year.

Under the overall plan to counter China's huge strategic inroads in the Indian Ocean region and beyond, India is steadily building maritime bridges with other countries in the region. Four Indian warships, for instance, are currently on a long overseas deployment to South Indian Ocean and South China Sea in consonance with the "Act East" policy.

India also recently decided to crank up its bilateral defence cooperation with Vietnam through a new "joint vision statement" for 2015-2020. Apart from supplying military hardware and software, India is already training Vietnamese personnel on Kilo-class submarines and now proposes to do the same for Sukhoi fighter jets.

Much like Vietnam, Japan, the Philippines and others locked in territorial disputes with China in the East and South China Seas, India remains deeply suspicious of Beijing's expanding military might and assertiveness in Asia-Pacific.

China, in its latest policy document on defence, has also vowed to increase its "open seas protection" in tune with its expanding long-range deployments of nuclear submarines, destroyers and frigates far away from its shores.