Maldives could be China’s revenge against India outsmarting it in Bhutan and Nepal

Maldives, China sign 20 agreements after Muizzu-Xi Jinping meeting. (File photo)

Maldives’ new President Mohamed Muizzu’s permission to Chinese ‘research’ ship Xiang Yang Hong 03 to dock in Male amounts to tacit approval of Beijing snooping on India for blatantly military ends, compromising Indian national security and interests. It is the latest in a series of highly provocative steps which are anti-India to the core and directly challenge New Delhi in its zone of influence.

Importantly, Colombo fell in line and recently announced a moratorium on foreign research ships, especially Chinese vessels, entering Sri Lankan ports to address India’s legitimate defence concerns. But Maldives has deliberately chosen to cock a snook at India by welcoming the Xiang Yang Hong 03, which New Delhi knows is a massive floating spying-cum-monitoring structure, into its waters at India’s doorstep.

The greenlighting of the Chinese ship follows Muizzu’s March 15 deadline for withdrawing Indian troops from the archipelago, which was rightly seen as a lightning rod for fast crumbling New Delhi-Male relations. In fact, Muizzu flung the deadline at us like a gauntlet! It will be outright delusional on India’s part if we think otherwise.

Muizzu’s Extremes

Besides declaring a time limit out of the blue for removing Indian military personnel, he also announced other steps to embarrass and corner India, which haven’t received the publicity they deserve in the storm triggered by the ultimatum to send the troops packing.

For example, he has made it clear that after March 1, choppers and the Dornier aircraft gifted by India, which Indian defence personnel have been operating for years to rescue the sick and dying, will not be used. Instead, a Maldivian Dash 8 aircraft will be deployed as an air ambulance to ferry patients in medical emergencies.

Muizzu has also threatened to stop importing medicines, an essential commodity like food grains, from India. Maldives will henceforth buy medicines directly from Europe and America. Importantly, he described European drugs as “genuine”; implying that Indian drugs are not; and added that ending the practice of buying medicines from a “specific country” will “end our dependence on a particular group of people”.

Read | Maldives two main opposition parties express concern about its government's anti-India stance

Muizzu is choosing his words very, very carefully to send a loud and clear message that the island nation has regained its sovereignty and independence under him, and he will do anything and everything to come out of India’s shadow.

Xi The Puppetmaster

Muizzu is the new ruler of Maldives, whose population is a microscopic half-a-million compared to India’s 1.4 billion people. Yet he is locking horns with regional economic powerhouse and nuclear-armed Big Brother India. His confrontationist policy, or let’s call it brinkmanship, begs the inevitable question: Who is pulling his strings? Which external power is egging him on to take on the resident power? Who has his back?

Muizzu’s blistering “India Out” campaign, which resulted in his stunning victory over “India First” Mohamed Solih, was an exercise in straight shooting. But his shooting from the hip is coming on his return to Male after spending five days in China in President Xi Jinping’s strategic embrace.

The state visit to China, ahead of a trip to India, has brought his confrontationist streak and brinkmanship to the fore, manifested in the permission granted to Xiang Yang Hong 03, the ultimatum to India to withdraw its troops by March 15, shunning India-gifted helicopters and the Dornier, and ending pharma dependence on India. The timing of his barb, “we are small but that doesn’t give you the licence to bully us”, directed at India, is no less significant.

There is no doubt that Xi administered Muizzu a generous dose of anti-India tonic in order to settle scores with New Delhi. China’s strongman wants to avenge recent setbacks China has suffered in Bhutan and Nepal at New Delhi’s hands by cornering India in Maldives.

India’s Bhutan-Nepal Gains

It is crystal clear that an enraged China is using Muizzu as a wind-up toy to marginalise India in Maldives, as New Delhi has dealt Beijing a severe blow in two other theatres of China-India rivalry – Bhutan and Nepal.

The recent elections in the monarchy-turned-democracy held between November 23 and January 24 resulted in the rout of the pro-China ruling Druk Nyamrup Tshogpa Party (DNTP) of ex-Prime Minister Lotay Tshering and the victory of the pro-India People’s Democratic Party (PDP), leading to the appointment of Tshering Tobgay – who is on excellent terms with New Delhi and someone Prime Minister Narendra Modi openly refers to as “my friend” – as the new PM.

As the PDP-Tobgay win is really a win for India, Beijing obviously sees India’s diplomatic-cum-security establishment’s hand in the change of government.

Also read | Chinese Communist party delegation visits Maldives, promises to implement deals signed by Muizzu

The regime change has thrown a spanner in Beijing’s works. As Tobgay is aligned with India, Beijing’s meticulous plans to quickly clinch a boundary agreement with Bhutan are not going to succeed any more. Given Lotay Tshering’s track record of leaning towards Beijing, Bhutan was expected to oblige China, which is now ruled out with Tobgay in the saddle.

Tobgay’s stewardship has put paid to China’s ambitious strategy of snatching Doklam in a territorial swap proposal with Bhutan. If China had succeeded in somehow grabbing Doklam with Tshering’s help, it would have been a big blow to India militarily, as the People’s Liberation Army would have gained a huge operational advantage at the Line of Actual Control.

Besides giving Doklam on a platter to China creating an unimaginably nightmarish security scenario for India, there are some credible reports that Lotay Tshering had promised to give China permission to establish its diplomatic mission in Thimphu after his re-election. Beijing has been dreaming for decades of opening an embassy in Bhutan which India is vehemently and fundamentally opposed to as it doesn’t want an exponential jump in China’s influence in its backyard.

New Delhi has outsmarted Beijing also in Nepal where new airports built in Lumbini and Pokhara by Chinese companies are in the red because of India denying overflying rights to international carriers.  Neither the Gautam Buddha International Airport in Lumbini nor the Pokhara International Airport can ever become commercially viable unless New Delhi allows foreign airlines to fly over India to reach them. India’s capitalisation of its airspace has resulted in a huge loss of face for China in Nepal.

New Delhi has hit for a six Beijing’s plans to consolidate its position in Nepal through the infrastructure route. And in Bhutan, New Delhi harnessed whatever was needed to install a government which wouldn’t compromise with China endangering India’s territorial and economic security. Little wonder then that a rattled China has zeroed in on Muizzu in Maldives to counterbalance India’s clout in South Asia and avenge its losses in India’s neighbourhood.

SNM Abdi is an independent journalist specialising in India’s foreign policy and domestic politics. Views are personal, and do not represent the stance of this publication.