 "Maldives: Muizzu can learn from Pakistan about hazards of China ties")
Though it was a little late in coming, External Affairs Minister (EAM) S Jaishankar’s retort, ‘Big bullies don’t provide $4.5 billion’ should have sent out a clear message to Maldivian President Mohamed Muizzu that it was ‘thus-far-and-no-more’ from the Indian side. In the same vein, he also pointed out how ‘big bullies don’t supply vaccines to other countries when Covid is on.’ If India were a true bully, it would also not make exceptions to its own rules ‘to respond to food demands or fuel demands or fertilizer demands because some war in some other part of the world has complicated their lives.’
In an obvious reference to Pakistan, EAM Jaishankar said, ‘Our problem in the neighbourhood, very honestly, is in respect to one country. And in diplomacy, yes, always hold out hopes that yes, okay, keep the tact and who knows, one day, what the future holds.’ The minister explained how India’s relations with neighbours have changed over the last decade (under Prime Minister Narendra Modi). Ties with Nepal, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, Bhutan, and even the Maldives, have improved in terms of trade, investment, and people-to-people exchanges. ‘If you actually look today at the connectivity, just the volume of people moving up and down and the volume of the trade which is there, the investments which are there… It is actually a very good story to tell. Not just with Nepal and Bangladesh, but Sri Lanka as well. And I would even say with Maldives. And Bhutan,’ he said.
Jaishankar’s reference to $4.5-billion aid relates to Sri Lanka at the height of the continuing economic crisis in 2022, yes, but the mention of Covid-time help includes Maldives. In fact, India had rushed the first batch of home-made vaccines only to Maldives, over the legitimate needs nearer home, if only to help the smaller neighbour to contain the pandemic and revive the mainstay tourism economy early on. It worked and Maldives became the first nation in the world to open up after the Covid lock-down.
Yet, on specifics, the minister did not name Maldives, nor embarrass President Mohamed Muizzu, after the latter had targeted New Delhi just on return from his first state visit, to China, in mid-January. After signing a ‘Comprehensive strategic cooperation agreement’ during his China visit, Muizzu became the first government leader anywhere to borrow the Chinese phraseology which even the Beijing leadership had used for.
Impact Shorts
More ShortsThe usage of terms like ‘Indian Ocean does not belong to any specific country’ and ‘no one has the licence to bully us’ borrowed from the accusations levelled against India by Chinese scholars, including those in uniform, over the previous decade. In doing so, they all were supposedly speaking for India’s neighbours, particularly in the Indian Ocean, but without any of those nations seeking Beijing’s help or intervention, oral or physical, directly or otherwise. But it’s the argument that China had put forth before sending out its submarines (2014) and so-called ‘research vessels’, otherwise spying on India, thrice in as many years (2022-24) for test-berthing (?) in Sri Lanka, and the last one now in Maldives, after Colombo had suspended the facility for a full year for all overseas ships carrying the tag.
Conservative constituencies
Compared to what the Indian and international media have been hinting at, Muizzu’s demand for New Delhi to pull out unarmed military pilots and technicians manning the three air assets gifted to Maldives for humanitarian operations did not actually form a major part of his presidential poll campaign. It was just a minor part of it as anti-incumbency against incumbent President Ibrahim Solih was already working in his favour.
Muizzu definitely has an ‘Islamic nationalist’ constituency and also a ‘Maldivian nationalist’ constituency, which overlap at times. He has a parliamentary election to win — rather sweep — with a two-thirds majority if he has to avoid attempts at impeachment, sooner or later. The poll has been rescheduled from 17 March to 21 April after the Opposition MDP with an absolute majority passed a law not to have elections during the Islamic holy month of Ramadan, as it would inconvenience the elderly in the hot summer days even more.
While the new law in this regard is seen as reasonable, the MDP’s over-enthusiasm to pass what many see as ‘obstructionist’ laws that they could have passed when they were in power has avoidably upset traditional party supporters and also neutral voters, who might otherwise be ready to swing after voting in Muizzu in the presidential poll. At the same time, the potential of Yameen-backed Independent candidates and those of former President Mohammed Nasheed’s Democrats Party, a breakaway faction of the mainline MDP, to damage the chances of the parent parties is also being watched with interest. In Delhi recently, where he met Prime Minister Modi, Nasheed, now heading an international climate action group and is based in Ghana, ‘apologised’ to India and also appealed to Muizzu to end anti-India rhetoric.
Having kept the voter’s attention away from domestic ills, starting with the economic situation, that too with the parliamentary polls only weeks away, circumstances, Muizzu could not be expected to go back or slow down on the demands of his party, the People’s National Congress (PNC) and also the parent Progressive Party of Maldives (PPM), both of which he had stolen from his jailed political mentor and former President, Abdulla Yameen. The latter had given the ‘India Out / India Military Out’ call(s) while in opposition to rival President Ibrahim Solih of the Maldivian Democratic Party (MDP), 2018-23.
Strategic initiatives
As indicated by New Delhi continually since Muizzu’s electoral victory in September, followed by his inauguration in November last, both sides have since smoothened out a way for Indian technical personnel to replace the military pilots and technicians to man the three aerial platforms, namely, two helicopters and one fixed-wing Dornier, deployed for aerial surveillance. Incidentally, the Dornier was a gift sought and received by Yameen when he was President from 2013-18, yet, like Muizzu after him, had wanted it withdrawn during his Opposition campaign.
The three sets of pilots operating the three aerial platforms are to be replaced with a one-month gap, ending by 10 May. The first of it happened early this month and went off without any hiccups. Though the Indian media made it look as if the new batch of pilots and technicians being placed under the administrative control of the Maldivian National Defence Force (MNDF) hierarchy was unprecedented, there was nothing new about it. Even the Indian military personnel used to operate under the express directions of the MNDF— and Indian officials have pointed it out on more than one occasion.
Likewise, the Indian media interpretation of the nation’s navy setting up a new post, ‘INS Jatayu’ on Minicoy Island, not far away from the Maldivian territory, may not have followed Muizzu’s election and his perceived ‘pro-China’ tilt. They are all part of India’s long-term strategic initiatives aimed at checking Chinese advances, if any. Even India’s continued concerns about China finding a parking lot in the neighbourhood, even if in civilian grab as in Sri Lanka’s Hambantota, are aimed only at a ‘denial’ strategy and not at setting up one instead. Involving neighbours in India’s strategic concerns is against the very basis of the nation’s ‘Neighbourhood First Policy’. It works in the reverse, too, as neighbouring nations providing a berth to India’s adversaries too should form a part of that strategy. Either way, Maldives is no exception.
In this overall background, the Muizzu government hurriedly scrambling some retired airplanes to hurriedly form an air-ambulance service should cause eyebrows to rise. Incidentally, the government also concluded hasty negotiations with common neighbour Sri Lanka for providing emergency medical-care to high-risk patients thus air-lifted. It thus remains to be seen if the Muizzu government would order Indian aerial platforms and civilian pilots out if and when they develop a full-fledged air-ambulance service to call their own.
Politicising foreign policy
According to the Maldivian media, the Muizzu government is reported to have grounded the Dornier from undertaking aerial surveillance. These reports have also indicated how the government has gone ahead with Muizzu’s plan to procure drones from Turkey to monitor the nation’s EEZ, extending up to 900,000 sq km. Muizzu had announced his plans at his mid-January news conference on return from China, where alone he also opened up on his maiden ‘official visit’ to Turkey a fortnight earlier. While he said that they would also import all essentials like rice, sugar and flour from Turkey without having to depend on a ‘single source’ (meaning India) with immediate effect, the talk of drones’ procurement did not sound as immediate at the time.
Clearly, Muizzu is in a hurry to pack off the Indian aerial platforms and those manning them, even if civilians — and also take over aerial surveillance through drones from Turkey, a new player in the strategic space in the Indian Ocean Region (IOR) that Maldives shares with India and Sri Lanka, among others. Of immediate concern however would be the possibility of the MNDF personnel manning the drones after training by experts from Turkey being asked to cover the territorial waters that Maldives had supposedly conceded as belonging to southern neighbour, Mauritius, under the previous Solih regime.
On paper, it may sound far-fetched just now, but the question will arise when the Maldivian drones begin scavenging the skies for intruders of every kind, especially drug-smugglers and fishers from other nations, including India and Sri Lanka. Mauritian fishers may fit into the definition if the Muizzu dispensation goes ahead with its intention to rescind the new arrangement envisaged by the Solih government. Already, the new government has appointed a high-level committee under former attorney-general Dr Mohamed Munavvar, an expert in maritime laws who had contested Solih’s decision.
In this background, the February-end online inauguration of a new airstrip and jetty on the Mauritian island Agaléga by Prime Ministers Narendra Modi(India) and, Pravind Jugnauth (Mauritius) assumes added significance. They along with six other projects in Mauritius are a part of India’s SAGAR (Security and Growth for All) strategy for the neighbourhood. While the temptation again is to conclude that it is a counter to Maldives moving closer to China, first under Yameen and now under Muizzu, intervened by a five-year term for ‘pro-India’ President Solih, the project has been on for a fairly long time. Yet, there is no denying the relevance of the project now, more than any time in the past.
In the midst of all this come reports of China and Maldives signing a defence cooperation agreement to provide free military assistance gratis, or for free, to ‘foster’ stronger’ bilateral ties. Overlapping with the visit of a Chinese delegation for the purpose was the berthing of China’s controversial ‘research/spy’ vessel ‘Xiang Yang Hong 3’ for ‘rotation of personnel and replenishment’. That was after neighbouring Sri Lanka had ‘suspended’ such facilitation for a year after allowing two such docking in years, 2022 and 2023.
China has seemingly fixed a five-year life-time coinciding with Muizzu’s current term ending in 2028, for the ‘strategic cooperation’ signed when he met President Xi Jinping in January. It means that China is in a hurry as it has also drafted Maldives into Beijing’s three initiatives, namely, BRI (Belt and Road Initiative), GSI (Global Strategic Initiative’) and GCI (Global Civilisation Initiative). But the question emerges if Maldives and Muizzu should also be in a hurry without taking time off to study and grasp the fuller impact and implication of siding with China and more so wantonly antagonising the Indian neighbour?
If Muizzu were to learn from the experience of Pakistan especially, its anti-India rhetoric and pro-China policies has not taken the nation anywhere, other than to the economic mess that the nation is now. As EAM Jaishankar pointed out, India, and China, rushed to Sri Lanka’s assistance when caught in an economic crisis of its own two years back. That is to say, does making foreign policy, in this case, the nation’s ‘India policy’ a victim of domestic politics, help either Muizzu in the medium term and Maldives in the medium and long terms? It is much more different and complex than China replacing India as the top source for tourism in Maldives, the nation’s economic mainstay, especially after the ‘Boycott Maldives’ call in India a few weeks ago. But that is also for Muizzu and Maldivians to decide, however.
The writer is a Chennai-based Policy Analyst & Political Commentator. The views expressed in the above piece are personal and solely those of the author. They do not necessarily reflect Firstpost’s views.
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