The president-elect of Maldives, Mohamed Muizzu, who will assume office in mid-November, has scored with his so-called “India Out” platform. Muizzu won run-off elections against the incumbent, Ibrahim Mohamed Solih, on September 30.
Muizzu’s consistent “India Out” rhetoric seeks, among other things, to remove India’s limited military presence in the Maldives. It is being seen by the commentariat in various regional and global capitals, and certainly in New Delhi, as a significant diminishing of India’s influence in the strategically placed atoll-nation, and a significant victory for China.
As ever, reality is not self-importantly black and white. It lies in the geo-strategic grey zone where established and emergent powers thrive while other countries try to survive by a canny and parallel use of leveraging potential and playing possum. The Maldives, with about 300sq-km of landmass dispersed over 90,000sq-km of ocean -- a vast exclusive economic zone by hugely important sea lanes -- is one such.
A flexing of muscles
There’s no denying that China’s millennial game face is that of reclaiming land as much as claiming land. Its mushrooming bases in the South China Sea is proof of it. So is its raucous claim over Taiwan, and vast swathes of northern and eastern India -- occupied by China in some places and repeatedly mapped by China in others, such as the Indian province of Arunachal Pradesh.
Indeed, three members of the Indian wushu team from Arunachal Pradesh were unable to travel to the just concluded Asian Games in Guangzhou. Even after accreditation by the Games committee, only these three athletes from India were unable to download their official Chinese travel documents. The players became collateral damage in the India-China spat.
The same three athletes had in July had their Chinese visas delayed -- affecting their visit to Chengdu for the World University Games. When the visas arrived, they were “stapled.” As in, the visas were marked on a separate piece of paper instead of being pasted or stamped directly onto the passport. It’s a practice used by China in India for those from Arunachal Pradesh, to figuratively mark China’s claim over Arunachal Pradesh.
This seemingly churlish diplomacy is designed to set India’s teeth on edge -- and it unfailingly does.
When China’s strategic push extends to the Maldives, at the cusp of the Arabian Sea and the vastness of the Indian Ocean, it takes on a whole new meaning. Maldives’ location straddles the sea lines of communication, or SLOC, between South and Southeast Asia and the Indo-Pacific rim, and Africa’s eastern seaboard, the crucial energy routes to West Asia and the trading routes through the Suez Canal to the Mediterranean.
Besides, as with the instance in Arunachal and elsewhere in South Asia, a move perceived as pro-China in the Maldives, literally India’s maritime backyard much like Sri Lanka, triggers a flurry of official statements and, as if on cue, fulmination and breast-beating by India’s establishment media.
There’s a history to typhoons in the Maldivian teacup.
India flexed its muscle in the Maldives back in 1988, to prevent a coup -- the third -- against Maldivian president Maumoon Abdul Gayoom. Mercenaries attempted to take over the capital city of Malé, including the presidential palace and the airport -- on Hulhulé island just northeast of the capital.
A disaffected Maldivian businessman resident in Sri Lanka, alleged to have ties with a former Maldivian president, had recruited Tamil mercenaries to oust Gayoom. The embattled president sent out an all-points alert, including to the US and UK -- which operate a strategic air base in the Indian Ocean atoll of Diego Garcia about 1,200km due south of Malé -- and Sri Lanka, Singapore, and Pakistan. The UK was particularly seen as a source of aid because, until it moved to Diego Garcia, it had maintained a base on Gan Island -- RAF Gan -- in the southernmost Addu Atoll of the Maldives, from 1957 to 1976. All demurred, variously citing inability of equipment, logistics and, crucially, time.
India stepped up. Indian Army paratroopers landed in Hulhulé within half a day of Gayoom’s SOS. Operation Cactus was borne by Ilyushin IL-76 transports of the Indian Air Force.
Reclamation of Malé and Maumoon Gayoom followed. Several mercenaries were killed, and several of those fleeing on a commandeered ship were interdicted by the Indian Navy off the coast of Sri Lanka, and handed over to the Maldives.
India had a geostrategic stamp -- and official Maldivian gratitude.
On China’s radar
With China’s massive millennial push in the Indo-Pacific and Indian Ocean area and their hinterlands of Southeast Asia, South Asia, West Asia, and Africa -- collectively New China’s energy, minerals, trade, and future bread-baskets -- the Maldives inevitably showed up on its radar. The India-China jostling that has come to shadow Nepal, Bangladesh, and Sri Lanka, visited the Maldives.
Governments began to be played for influence. After Gayoom’s 30-year run ended in 2008, there began a series of alternating pro-China and pro-India governments -- and even bursts of pro-Both, as it were. China’s push in neighbouring Sri Lanka during the first Rajapaksa family-run government and presidency from 2004 to 2015, which fetched China key port, airport, and infrastructure projects and long term-leases, began to spill over to Maldives.
India watched with alacrity as some marquee initiatives slipped away. A World Bank project to upgrade Malé’s airport in Hulhulé was nixed in end-2012 on a technicality. India’s GMR, which had won the $500 million-plus project in partnership with a Malaysian firm, was given seven days to clear out. It was during the short-lived presidency of Mohamed Waheed Hassan.
In 2018, during the Belt-and-Road-Initiative presidency of Abdulla Yameen, a mentor to Muizzu, Maldives officially asked India to take back a gifted India-made attack helicopter -- the “Dhruv” as the so-called Advanced Light Helicopter was christened -- saying it was inappropriate for security needs. It was seen as a rebuff at a time India was invested in helping Maldives amp up its coastal defenses with surveillance equipment, training, and manpower.
A perceived pro-India phase followed during the presidency of Solih from November 2018. Goodwill towards India returned to an extent. India even extended a large line of credit to contribute to the expansion of the new integrated airport complex in Hulhulé from which GMR was kicked out -- and which was finally finished with multinational input, including from Saudi and Chinese governments and firms.
Today the China-Maldives Friendship Bridge connects Malé with Hulhulé -- and the airport is renamed Velana International. To the north of Hulhulé is the reclaimed island of Hulhumale, connected with a causeway -- also reclaimed. Hulhumale is now an elegant office and residential extension of the capital and a part of the growing capital complex. It’s a bustling centre of about 50,000 people, and also has hotels for visiting businesspersons, executives, contractors, and tourists. As with the airport expansion, this urban hub raised from the sea is a transnational effort, ranging from Singaporean to Dutch.
Moving across the board
This is among several realities of Maldivian atoll chess: Irrespective of which government is in power, and irrespective of which country attracts its tilt, Maldives’ future lies in benefiting from a sort of play-all Bangladesh Model of diplomacy and development.
The United States is also a player here. In September 2020, the US Department of Defense signed a “Framework … Defense and Security Relationship” with Maldives. India welcomed it, signalling a changed security paradigm from 2013 when, along with Sri Lanka, it criticized US outreach for a SOFA, or Status of Forces Agreement, with Maldives, which would have given the US vast remit to use Maldives’ air, land and sea facilities. The 2020 “framework” remains active -- unless the Muizzu administration decides to play Chinese checkers.
China is an indubitable factor here. It will push for everything from more infrastructure and defense deals to preferential trade deals with Maldives. Things won’t change without amputation of China’s sea communication from the Strait of Malacca to Suez and the Horn of Africa -- and that is unlikely unless China becomes an unmitigated rogue state.
Equally, India -- with its vast landmass directly to the northeast -- will retain active interest in Maldives through passive-aggressive diplomacy. To assume otherwise is illusory.
Sudeep Chakravarti is Director, Center for South Asian Studies at University of Liberal Arts Bangladesh. He has authored several books on history, ethnography, conflict resolution, and Eastern South Asia. His most recent book is ‘The Eastern Gate: War and Peace in Nagaland, Manipur and India’s Far East’ (Simon and Schuster).
