An excellent article, timely, well researched and well
written. China's development of I War facilities so
close to India's eastern seaboard and its intention to
dominate the Indian Ocean dictate that India must have
a series of modern outposts outside the Ocean to
protect its interests.
Mandeep Bajwa
--- Ravi VS Prasad <r_v_p@yahoo.com> wrote: > My
article, published in Hindustan Times, edit page,
> Tuesday, 25 November 2003
>
> http://www.hindustantimes.com & click on Editorial
>
> By Ravi Visvesvaraya Prasad
>
> The holding of joint exercises by the Indian and
> Chinese navies caused a
> veteran of 1962 to splutter: “What will Vajpayee’s
> next peace
> initiative lead to? Joint patrolling of the LoC by
> the
> Lashkar-e-Taiba
> and the Indian Army? Joint guarding of Sansad Bhavan
> by the Jaish-e-Muhammad
> and the Black Cats?”
>
> Although the port calls and joint search-and-rescue
> exercises being
> conducted this week in the South China Sea near
> Shanghai, in the
> aftermath of the visits of George Fernandes and
> Vajpayee, are the most
> rudimentary form of naval cooperation, both the
> Chinese and Indian
> governments have heralded them as the dawn of a new
> era of peace.
>
> However, South Block would be acutely aware that
> China
> and Pakistan had
> conducted an extensive joint naval exercise between
> October 18 and 22 in
> the same region just before Pervez Musharraf’s
> state
> visit to China in
> the first week of November. A key element of Chinese
> naval strategy,
> from the days of Admirals Shi Yunsheng and Liu
> Huaqing, is a blue-water
> presence in the Indian Ocean, concomitant with a
> strategic encirclement
> of India through naval cooperation with Pakistan,
> Bangladesh and Myanmar.
> Significantly for India, Operation Dolphin 0310,
> commanded by Vice
> Admiral Zhang Deshun, chief of staff of the East
> China
> Sea Fleet, was
> the first time ever that either China or Pakistan
> had
> engaged in joint
> naval operations with any another nation.
>
> The American naval strategist Alfred Thayer Mahan
> had
> predicted in 1890:
> “Whoever controls the Indian Ocean will dominate
> Asia. This ocean is
> the key to the seven seas. In the 21st century, the
> destiny of the world
> would be decided on its waters.” China’s goal is to
> achieve
> overwhelming military, geopolitical, diplomatic,
> economic and cultural
> dominance over all of Asia, as described in its
> White
> Paper on Defence
> issued in October 2000. Although the Peoples
> Liberation Army Navy
> identifies its primary antagonists as Taiwan, USA,
> Japan and South Korea,
> it has formulated a long-term strategy to establish
> a
> blue-water
> presence in the Indian Ocean, including the Bay of
> Bengal and the
> Arabian Sea.
>
> China is also acutely aware that India strategically
> straddles every one
> of the Sea Lines of Communications (SLOCs) of its
> oil
> imports from the
> Middle East. China is importing about 75 million
> tonnes of oil this year
> from the Persian Gulf, nearly 30 percent of its
> consumption, which is
> expected to increase to 140 million tonnes by 2010.
> China’s oil imports
> would be highly vulnerable to disruption at maritime
> choke-points in
> West Asia such as the Straits of Hormuz and the
> Straits of Bab-El-Mendeb,
> as well as choke-points in East Asia such as the
> Straits of Malacca,
> Sunda, Lombok, and Makassar. Most ships approach the
> East Asian Straits,
> especially the Malacca Straits, through the Ten
> Degree Channel, which
> lies between India’s Andaman Islands and Great
> Nicobar
> Islands.
>
> Admiral Zhao Nanqi asserted, “We do not accept the
> Indian Ocean as India’s
> ocean”. Admirals Liu Huaqing and Zhao Nanqi
> formulated China’s naval
> doctrines of active offshore defense, a blue-water
> navy, and surprise
> guerrilla attacks at sea, and sought to contain
> India’s influence in the
> Indian Ocean through cooperation with Pakistan,
> Bangladesh, and Myanmar.
> China is closely involved with Pakistan’s deep-sea
> port of Gawadhar, as
> well as naval bases in Pakistan's western Makran
> coast. China has also
> offered to develop Chittagong in Bangladesh as a
> deep-water port on the
> lines of Gawadhar.
>
> China has already established an extensive signals
> intelligence facility,
> along with an airstrip and a 100-meter jetty, on
> Myanmar’s Great Coco
> Island, just a few miles from Andamans. This
> facility
> will enable China
> to pose significant ELINT (Electronic Intelligence)
> and SIGINT (Signal
> Intelligence) threats to India’s missile launches
> from
> Balasore and
> Chandipur-on-Sea, as well as to India’s rocket and
> satellite launches
> from Sriharikota. The Cocos signals intelligence
> facility will also
> enable China to monitor India’s recently established
> tri-services
> command in the Andamans. Chinese listening posts in
> Sittwe (Aykab) and
> Zedetkyi Kyun (St. Luke’s) off the Terrasserim coast
> in Southern Myanmar
> enable it to monitor maritime traffic in the
> Straits
> of Malacca and
> Phillips Channel prior to entering South China Sea.
>
> China is also associated with Myanmar naval bases at
> Munaung, Hainggyi,
> Katan Island, and Zadaikyi Island. The naval base at
> Hainggyi Island is
> designed to support docking of Chinese SSN and SSBN
> submarines. Moreover,
> China is constructing road and waterway links from
> its southern Yunan
> province to Myanmar’s Yangon port, which will
> provide
> it direct access
> to the Bay of Bengal, obviating the need to cross
> the
> Malacca-Singapore
> straits.
>
> A major item on the agenda during Vajpayee’s current
> visit to Russia is
> the agreement to purchase the aircraft carrier,
> Admiral Gorshkov, to
> replace the aging Viraat. But Russia, currently
> China’s major arms
> supplier, has already sold China naval equipment far
> more advanced than
> what it is selling to India. Key among these are the
> revolutionary
> Shkval torpedo which uses supercavitation
> technology,
> and the SS-N-22
> Sunburn missile, launched from Sovremenny
> destroyers.
>
> Shkval, Russian for Squall, has a range of over
> sixty
> miles and an
> underwater speed of more than three hundred miles
> per
> hour, more than
> five times that of any torpedo deployed by NATO.
> Even
> if a targeted NATO
> aircraft carrier or submarine detected an incoming
> Shkval, it would not
> have enough time to evade it or launch a
> counterattack. Shkval even has
> the capability to strike the US Navy's Polaris
> submarines before they
> can launch their intercontinental ballistic
> missiles.
>
> According to NATO experts, there is no credible
> defence against Russia’s
> SS-N-22 Sunburn missile either. In her testimony
> before the US House of
> Representatives Armed Services Committee, leading
> defence expert June
> Teuffel painted the following scenario: “Nine feet
> above water,
> traveling at twice the
> speed of sound, with a 200-kiloton nuclear warhead,
> the radar-guided
> Sunburn missile can weave its way through smaller
> ships until it reaches
> its real target - a US aircraft carrier. At the
> last
> instant, it would
> pop up from the ocean's surface, smash into the side
> of the carrier and
> set off a nuclear explosion six times as powerful as
> Hiroshima. The US
> Navy has nothing that can stop it.”
>
> Deliveries already made by Russia to China include
> forty
> Shkvals, four Kilo-class diesel-powered attack
> submarines and two
> Sovremenny destroyers equipped with SS-N-22 Sunburn
> missiles, Sa-17 "Grizzly"
> anti-aircraft missiles and "Helix-A" Ka-28
> antisubmarine helicopters.
> Grizzly flies at 4,000 feet per second and can hit
> an
> airplane flying 15
> miles high, 35 miles away.
>
> India should immediately formulate a long-term naval
> strategy to claim
> the Indian Ocean as India’s Ocean, and ensure that
> its
> blue-water
> hegemony runs from Cape Town in the west to Darwin
> and
> Perth in the east
> to Antarctica in the south. It should leverage its
> strategic position
> straddling all the SLOCs from West Asia to East
> Asia,
> and be in a
> position to influence the West Asian choke-points of
> the Straits of
> Hormuz and the Straits of Bab-El-Mendeb, through
> which
> most of the world’s
> oil shipments pass.
>
> India’s integrated command in the Andaman and
> Nicobar
> Islands is
> excellently poised to control the East Asian
> choke-points of the Straits
> of Malacca, Sunda, Lombok, and Makassar, on which
> the
> economies of
> Singapore, Malaysia, Indonesia, and China are
> critically dependent.
>
> To exert its hegemony over the Indian Ocean, India
> will need at least
> five aircraft carriers, nuclear submarines, and a
> formidable naval air
> presence, supported by oilers, AWACs and refueling
> aircraft. Today,
> Russia has some of the most advanced naval equipment
> and they would be
> available relatively cheaply in view of its ongoing
> financial crisis.
> During Vajpayee’s current visit to Russia, India
> should negotiate for
> manufacture under license of advanced equipment such
> as Sovremenny
> destroyers; Kilo 636 and Victor III submarines;
> Bars,
> Akula, Antyey and
> Oscar class submarines; and Shkvals and Sunburns.
> Along with the
> aircraft carrier Gorshkov, India should immediately
> acquire squadrons of
> SU-33 and MIG 29-k aircraft that can take off and
> land from it,
> especially since our Sea Harriers are nearing the
> end
> of their useful
> life.
>
>
> By Ravi Visvesvaraya Prasad
>
> The author is Advisor, Information Warfare and
> Revolution in Military
> Affairs, Centre for Monitoring Chinese Military
> Activities. He also
> heads a group on C4ISRT (Command, Control,
> Communications and Computers
> Intelligence, Surveillance, Reconnaissance and
> Targetting) in South Asia.
>
>
> Ravi Visvesvaraya Prasad
>
>
> Published in Hindustan Times, Tuesday, 25 November
> 2003
>
>
> =====
>
> Ravi Visvesvaraya Prasad & Associates
> Management Consultants in Information Technology,
> Internet, Telecom, Software
> rvp@r67.net rvp@50g.com rp@k.st
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Received on Tue Nov 25 17:30:10 2003
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