‘Must work towards just new order’ Indian Navy keeps a tab on Chinese base
PM holds talks with Putin, bilaterals with presidents of Argentina, Angola
BEIJING: China and India – being “vindicators” of the contemporary international order – should work towards upholding multilateralism and economic globalisation, official news agency Xinhua has quoted Chinese President Xi Jinping as telling Prime Minister Narendra Modi on the sidelines of the ongoing 10th BRICS summit in Johannesburg.
Asserting that the objective of the two countries should be to bring about a more just and rational international order, Xi said China was willing to work with India to carry forward the impetus provided to bilateral ties through his informal summit with Modi in the central Chinese city of Wuhan in April.
“The Wuhan meeting is of milestone significance in the history of India-china relations. It has greatly increased mutual trust, and will bring new impetus and opportunities to the longterm development of bilateral relations,” he said.
The Chinese president said that the informal summit provided a “top-level design for bilateral ties in a macroscopic perspective and timely fashion that could help mobilise positive elements of all sectors in the two countries and unite the will of 2.6 billion people across the two countries, so as to form a force that would push bilateral ties into the future”.
The meeting at Johannesburg was the third between the two leaders in four months. After Wuhan, Modi and Xi had met in the Chinese coastal city of Qingdao during the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation summit.
Details of the Modi-xi meeting were published on the news agency’s website.
According to Xinhua, the Chinese leader also called on the two sides to implement the consensus reached by the two leaders at the Wuhan meeting. “China is willing to consolidate and develop a closer development partnership with India,” he said.
During their several one-onone meetings in Wuhan, the two leaders had agreed to ensure peace and tranquility along the disputed boundary in the aftermath of the 73-day military standoff in Doklam (Donglang in Chinese) last year. “He (Xi) called on the two sides to strengthen strategic communication; increase mutual trust; promote practical cooperation as well as people-topeople exchanges; strengthen dialogue; and properly manage differences,” Xinhua quoted him as saying.
Xi also echoed Modi in talking about “upholding multilateralism, championing globalisation and striving for a more just and rational international order”.
In his address to the BRICS summit (comprising Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa), Modi had reaffirmed India’s commitment to multilateralism, international trade and a rules-based world order.
“At the session with fellow BRICS leaders, I shared my thoughts on various global issues, the importance of technology, skill development and how effective multilateral cooperation creates a better world,” Modi tweeted. In his summit address, Xi urged fellow leaders of the BRICS emerging economies to “reject protectionism outright”.
Modi met Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan on the sidelines of the summit and congratulated him on his re-election.
Earlier in the day, Modi met Russian President Valdimir Putin and also held bilateral meetings with the presidents of Argentina and Angola. “The last engagement in Johannesburg! PM @narendramodi met the Turkish President Recep Erdogan on the sidelines of #BRICSSUMMIT2018,” foreign ministry spokesperson Raveesh Kumar tweeted. NEWDELHI: India is keeping a close eye on China’s military deployments at the neighbour’s first overseas outpost in Djibouti, with a possible rotation of personnel taking place for the first time, two persons familiar with the matter said earlier this month on condition of anonymity.
Beijing established the base in the eastern African nation an year ago. Triggering concerns in India, China began deploying troops to Djibouti in July 2017, signalling its intent to expand its foreign military presence.
“We detected a Chinese amphibious warship in the Indian Ocean last week and suspect it is on its way to Djibouti for carrying out a troop rotation,” said one of the officials cited above.
The Djibouti base has boosted China’s ability to sustain its naval units in the Indian Ocean — a region the Indian Navy considers its backyard.
“Monitoring Chinese activities in Djibouti is just one aspect of our overall strategy of keeping an eye on extra-regional deployments in the Indian Ocean region. At any given time, there are around 50 Indian warships carrying out round-the-clock surveillance of areas of our interest,” the official said.
The Indian navy’s deployments cover the Gulf of Aden, Africa’s east coast, north Arabian Sea, north Bay of Bengal, the Malacca Strait and waters around Sri Lanka and Maldives.
Figures serve to illustrate the extent of navy’s deployment. Indian warships accumulated a total of 11,843 days at sea in 2017, logging close to 1.9 million nautical miles, the second official said.
“That kind of sea time is no mean feat and highlights the navy’s greater presence and visibility. The numbers went up significantly after we kicked off our ‘mission-based deployment’ last year,” said the official.
The Indian Navy, despite its modest size, has been doing a commendable job in ‘punctuating’ the Indian Ocean region in an appropriately selective manner, said retired Commodore C Uday Bhaskar, the director of Society for Policy Studies. “A 24/7 surveillance of the Indian Ocean is a very challenging operational task and clearly the navy is pushing its platforms to maximum endurance levels,” he said.
Navy chief Admiral Sunil Lanba approved the missionbased deployment model in 2017, paving the way for positioning dozens of combat-ready warships and aircraft along critical sea lanes of communications and choke points in the region.