Pro-Beijing Maldives President Mohamed Muizzu defies successive leaders, chooses to travel to China before India

Maldives president Mohamed Muizzu is likely to visit China this month, ahead of his visit to India, making him the first democratically elected Maldivian leader to travel to Beijing before he gets to New Delhi. A report by ToI quoted a source in Male saying China and the Maldives are in talks for a bilateral visit to Beijing by Muizzu that could take place in a matter of a couple of weeks. Muizzu, considered to be pro-China, also defied his successive Maldivian presidents, who chose India as their first port of call. China will be Muizzu’s third foreign trip abroad since taking over the presidency in November 2023. He had first visited Turkey as president, before travelling to Dubai for the COP28 summit. Meanwhile, Muizzu’s China visit and meeting with his Chinese counterpart Xi Jinping are expected to be closely followed by India. Muizzu chooses China before India Every Maldivian president, since first democratically elected president, Nasheed, in 2008, including anti-India leaders like Mohamed Waheed in 2012 and Abdulla Yameen in 2014 had first visited India. This was often cited by Indian authorities as symbolic of India’s “pre-eminent” position in the Maldives and the latter’s stated India First policy. It is almost after a decade, a Maldivian president will be visiting China. Yameen was the last leader of the strategically located Indian Ocean country visit Beijing. In his last year of presidency, in 2017, Yameen worked overtime to target Indian interests in the country. Yameen’s visit to China saw both the countries signing a secretive free trade agreement and also a deal to enable China build an observatory in one of the westernmost atolls, setting off concerns in India that it would allow China a vantage point of an important Indian Ocean shipping route through which many merchant and other vessels pass. Maldives president wants India ‘out’ Muizzu’s predecessor Ibrahim Solih was pro-India and Beijing took no time to extend invitation to the incumbent China-leaning leader to the country within days after he came to power. Some of Muizzu’s election promises were to ask India to withdraw its troop from Maldives and review of more than 100 agreements with India. After coming to power, Muizzu formally “requested” India for the withdrawal of Indian servicemen, who are in the Maldives to maintain and operate two helicopters and a Dornier 228 aircraft gifted by New Delhi for humanitarian relief, search and rescue missions, and civilian missions. Though India has been hoping for a workable solution for continued operations of these Indian assets, Muizzu, after his meeting with PM Modi on the sidelines of COP28, said India had agreed to withdraw its troops. Also, recently, Maldives announced it had decided to walk out of an agreement with India that allowed the Indian Navy to carry out hydrographic surveys in Maldivian waters. The agreement had been signed during PM Modi’s visit to Male in 2019, during Solih’s presidency. With inputs from agencies