A manufactured realignment

Maldives — an archipelago — was inhabited as early as the 5th century BCE by Buddhist peoples, probably from Sri Lanka and southern India. People embraced Islam in the 12th century. Maldives is often considered as a part of South Asia. It is a member of the South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation (SAARC). The other member nations of this almost defunct organisation are: Bangladesh, Bhutan, India, Nepal, Pakistan, Sri Lanka and Afghanistan.

Conflict with India

The relation between India and Maldives has taken a very ugly turn after the recent election where the newly elected Maldivian President, who is pro-China, had fought his elections last year on anti-India plank. Soon after coming to power, he formally asked New Delhi to withdraw its troops from Maldives. The Maldivian President Mohamed Muizzu has proposed that New Delhi withdraw its military presence from the archipelago nation before March 15. Muizzu’s proposal came just days after he returned from China. Around 80 Indian troops, along with Dornier 228 maritime patrol aircraft and two HAL Dhruv helicopters, are stationed in the Maldives. The removal of Indian troops was the main campaign weapon of Muizzu’s party. Soon after assuming power, Muizzu asserted that he was firmly committed to ensuring that Maldives remains “free” of any “foreign military presence” to preserve its independence and sovereignty. “We may be small but this doesn’t give them the license to bully us,” Muizzu said without naming any country. “Though we have small islands in this ocean, we have a vast exclusive economic zone of 900,000 square km. Maldives is one of the countries with the biggest share of this ocean,” he told the media on his arrival from China after concluding the state visit, the first after assuming office in November last year. “This ocean does not belong to a specific country. This (Indian) Ocean also belongs to all countries situated in it,” he said, in an apparent jibe at India. “We aren’t in anyone’s backyard. We are an independent and sovereign state,” he was quoted as saying by the local press. After the Maldives President’s official visit, China in its statement said. It “firmly opposes external interference” in the internal affairs of the Maldives and supports the island nation in upholding its sovereignty and independence. “The two sides agree to continue firmly supporting each other in safeguarding their respective core interests,” said a joint statement.

While the Indian prime minister and his political colleagues were busy in the preparation of the grand event of ‘Ramlala’s prana pratisthan’ in Ayodhya, Indian diplomats were engaged in intense negotiations with their counterparts in Male to find an amicable solution of troop withdrawal. India, on January 18, said it continues to hope for a resolution of the tussle with the Maldives over stationing of Indian troops in the islands, despite the Maldivian government setting a deadline of March 15 for their removal. Answering a number of questions about the tensions between the two countries, that have visibly increased since the new President Mohamed Muizzu took power and made sending back Indian military personnel attached to Indian aircraft given to the Maldives for humanitarian and maintenance operations a priority, the Ministry of External Affairs (MEA) spokesperson said India remains “committed” to its partnership with the Maldives. He said discussions between officials who were part of “High-Level Core Group” talks held in Male on January 14 would continue “soon”, when a Maldivian delegation travels to India. “Both sides held discussions on finding mutually workable solutions to enable continued operation of Indian aviation platforms that provide humanitarian and medevac services to the Maldivian people,” said spokesperson Randhir Jaiswal, referring to a press release issued by the MEA on January 14. “The next visit is due to be held in India to take discussions forward,” Mr. Jaiswal added. However, in a press conference after the core group talks in Male, the Principal Secretary to President had told journalists that Indian military personnel will no longer be permitted to reside there, and all Indian troops, estimated to be about 88, have been asked to leave by March 15, 2024, reports The Hindu. Meanwhile, the new government in Maldives has signed a USD 37-million deal with Turkey to buy military drones that will patrol its high seas – a task so far done by India in partnership with the Maldivian defence forces.

Genesis of the conflict

The Maldives has traditionally been in the Indian sphere of influence. Over the last ten years, since Abdulla Yameen was declared the winner, in 2013, of a contested election, it has drifted away from India into the Chinese sphere. In 2015, the Constitution was amended to allow foreign ownership of land. In December 2017, 1,000-page free trade agreements with China passed with less than 1 hour of discussion.

High-end tourism is the mainstay of the Maldivian economy, and before the outbreak of the COVID 19 pandemic, the largest number of tourists into the Maldives came from China. The international airport through which they arrive is being developed by a Chinese company. The sea-plane operator which ships them to the island resorts is owned by a Chinese firm, as are many of the resorts themselves. All of these made Maldivian tourism, which accounts for a quarter of its GDP, highly dependent on China. By October 2023, China emerged as the Maldives’ biggest bilateral creditor (USD 1.37 billion), ahead of Saudi Arabia and India, to which it owed USD 124m and USD 123m, respectively, reports Al Jazeera.

China and the Maldives have further upgraded their relationship during newly elected President Mohamed Muizzu’s first state visit to Beijing, following a campaign in which he had cast China’s regional rival India as a threat to its sovereignty. On January 10, both the countries signed 20 “key” agreements, including one on tourism cooperation, and announced the elevation of their bilateral ties to a comprehensive strategic cooperative partnership which includes disaster risk reduction, blue economy and strengthening investment in the digital economy.

Diplomatic failure

On January 10, Maldivian news portal Adhadhu reported that the website of the Juvenile Court was hacked by Indian hackers. A screenshot of the message displayed on the site has an Indian flag and a very long message in English. It claimed that the hacking was carried out “backed by Team Network9” and that “We Are Bharatiya Hackers”. Maldivians believe that Indians are indeed behind it.

The spat began after Prime Minister Narendra Modi visited Lakshadweep, an Indian archipelago, and posted on X (formerly Twitter) on January 4, about the beauty of the islands. He made other posts too that promoted Lakshadweep. The same day, hundreds of right-wing handles and BJP supporters began trending Lakshadweep and putting down Maldives, which has long been a preferred vacation spot for India’s glitterati and the ultra-wealthy across the world. Soon, many Maldivians retaliated by defending their country. Some denigrated all Indians. Unfortunately, three Maldivian officials were intemperate in their response and went one step further to mock the Indian Prime Minister.

What followed was a social media free-for-all, led by India’s right-wing trolls, not just against the Maldives but against the three officials too, with hashtags asking for a boycott of Maldives. The BJP roped in its favourite celebrities including Amitabh Bachchan, Virender Sehwag, Sachin Tendulkar, Akshay Kumar, and others from the sports, film, and corporate world. Tata Group also suddenly realised that Lakshadweep has a huge potential for the hospitality industry and promised to invest hefty capital to construct hotels and resorts!

Foreign policy experts have criticised India’s handling of the delicate situation, saying that “the Right-wing ecosystem, created and nurtured by the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), has taken over, setting Indian diplomacy on a collision course with that of the tiny island nation”. Disturbingly, India’s diplomatic agenda is being set up by the Twitterati. And unfortunately, the Ministry of External Affairs, instead of quenching the fire, has been playing along. The tweets by three amateur junior ministers of the Maldives ‘insulting’ the Indian Prime Minister should have been ignored, or dealt with quietly. Instead, the Indian establishment has bought into a zero-sum narrative: Maldives President Mohamed Muizzu is ‘anti-India’ and, therefore, he must be totally ‘pro-China’, they commented.

China eyeing India’s trusted neighbours

Vijay Gokhale, former Foreign Secretary, Ambassador to China, and author of the new book ‘Crosswinds: Nehru, Zhou and the Anglo-American Competition over China’ has observed that China may have concluded that India is tilting towards the U.S. “rather than maintaining relative neutrality” on China-U.S. rivalry. “We need to understand that certain actions which China takes diplomatically, as well as in terms of grey zone warfare, might be intended to nudge or even coerce India towards correcting that tilt or rebalancing”, he added.

Earlier, it was reported that Bangladesh has been in talks with the 15-member RCEP (Regional Comprehensive Economic Programme) bloc and is likely to take a call about joining it after the elections on January 7. This news has cautioned India and it is now reassessing its plan to ink a trade pact (FTA) with Bangladesh. If Bangladesh joins RCEP, which India had pulled out in 2019 after negotiating for seven years, it will be a major blow to Indo-Bangladesh relations. Sri Lanka has also expressed its desire to join RCEP. It may be noted that after winning the record fourth straight term as the Prime Minister of Bangladesh, Sheikh Hasina excluded two key pro-India cabinet ministers from the new government and demoted others, which is seen as a big setback for India’s diplomatic and security establishments. She suddenly dropped Foreign Minister Abdul Momen and replaced him with her own man, Hasan Mahmud. New Delhi had established an excellent equation with Momen and junior foreign minister, Shariar Alam, through regular interactions in New Delhi and Dhaka for five long years. But Hasina has removed both of them at one go. Interestingly, immediately after winning the election, in an exclusive conversation with India Today TV, Bangladesh’s former foreign minister AK Abdul Momen, reacting to a question on the growing influence of China in the region, be it in the Maldives or in Bangladesh, commented: Bangladesh won’t ‘succumb’ to the Chinese, India need not fear.

In October, Tandi Dorji became the first Bhutanese foreign minister to travel to Beijing when he met Chinese Vice President Han Zheng and described the long-running border talks as an ‘historic opportunity’. In the same month, Lotay Tshering, Bhutan’s prime minister at the time, told The Hindu newspaper: “We hope to see a line being drawn – this side Bhutan and that side China.” “Theoretically, how can Bhutan not have any bilateral relations with China? The question is when, and in what manner,” he said.

The latest images of Jakarlung Valley show a Chinese settlement under construction and an extensive road network built by the Chinese in the area. This recent imagery makes clear, the Chinese presence is growing in Bhutan’s north, and it is soon expected to become permanent. A “cooperation agreement” (the “three-step roadmap” to expedite negotiations to resolve their boundary dispute) was inked between Bhutan and China in October 2021 after talks over their disputed northern frontier sparked concern in India, which has long regarded Bhutan as a buffer state firmly under its orbit. Bhutan is “one of the last barriers” in China’s bid to exert influence in South Asia, said Harsh V Pant, an international relations professor at King’s College London. India effectively oversaw Bhutan’s foreign policy until 2007 till the first election was held in 2008, reports France24.

It appears that as India has decisively tilted towards the USA, China with its deep pocket is trying to isolate India from its trusted neighbours. In the second week of January, the National Development and Reform Commission (NDRC), China’s top economic planner, launched its seventh batch of major foreign investment projects to further consolidate the fundamentals of foreign investment. The 11 selected projects cover a number of fields including biomed, automobile manufacturing, new energy batteries and chemical production — marking a new all-time high. The total planned investment for the projects exceeds USD 15 billion, and the investment in any single project is generally more than USD 1 billion. Up to now, the first six batches of 40 major foreign investment projects have completed a total investment of USD 73 billion, and 23 have been fully or partially put into production, according to the NDRC.

Observations

US strategists observe that the White House’s high-profile “Indo-Pacific Strategy” document from 2022 does not reference Maldives, but instead references India multiple times and discusses in its action plan how the United States will support India’s leadership in the region. However, this stance has implications for the U.S.-Maldives relationship if Maldives-India relations remain tense. The United States does not appear to be involved in the difficult Maldives-India conversation and is focused on expanding its own relationship with Maldives. Samantha Power, the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) administrator, attended Muizzu’s inauguration, the US policy analyst notes.

The Modi government’s ‘neighbour first policy’ is facing strong challenges from India’s big neighbour — the Peoples’ Republic of China. A long-term India-China peace treaty and amicable settlement of border disputes through negotiations appears to be the only viable win-win solution to these two great ancient civilisations which share thousands of years of peaceful co-existence.

Views expressed are personal