China in no position to control Arabian Sea
The Maldives crisis in 2018 clearly showed that PLAN cannot even dream of interfering in support of any mala fide intentions of Communist Govt of China, within the Indian Ocean.
The nearest Chinese naval base is the Yulin naval base near the town of Sanya of Hainan province, a distance of roughly 3,500 km from India’s southernmost point as the crow flies in a straight line.
In order to be effective in the Indian Ocean, PLAN has to bring in a extremely large naval task force to play any assertive role against the Indian Navy. Chinese warships will have to take a long circuitous route covering nearly 6200 km or more to come near the Nicobar Islands. For this they have to enter one of the major Choke points of Malacca Strait or Sunda Strait or Lombak Strait.
So while negotiating the choke points they will be in the Periscope views of Indian or may be AUKUS submarines. Next, much before reaching Nicobar islands, it will have to plan a major refuelling of its naval ships during which they will be sitting ducks for IAF fighters armed with 800km supersonic BRAHMOS cruise missiles.
Therefore, it is rumoured that China which maintains a naval port facilities in Djibouti is now scouting for more such berthing facilities and trying for even a full fledged naval base. It is working to establish a full fledged naval base at Gwadar in Pakistan and it is eyeing a berth location in Mauritius where its naval ships can refuel to keep an eye on the events on the Indian Ocean Region. It is said that the PLAN is actively scouting a place in Mauritius in lieu of the massive financial debt that the tiny country has to repay to a country that is likely to upstage the US as the global power of the world in the near time.
The news about Mauritius and even Sri Lanka permitting any naval base to China can be totally discounted in view of their close relationship with India. Rumour mongers tend to confuse the peacetime port facilities given to visiting naval ships of any country with providing as “ base facilities “. A naval base means that not only ships are berthed there but they can be repaired / refitted,refuelled and. rearmed. It means the base has fuel, naval repair facilities,ammunition and missile depots and is well defended too.
In fact the Chinese Djibouti berth is meant to provide facilities for humanitarian and UN peacekeeping / anti piracy missions only. Adjoining areas have similar facilities for the navies of USA, Japan, Italy and France. Even India has these facilities there.
China even if it manages to build and operate its naval berthing facilities from all these three places in the future, then it will be in NO POSITION to control the entire Arabian Sea overlooking India’s western and southern borders. Though in coordination with Pakistan’s Navy, it may surely cause certain amount of headache to the Indian Navy.
During the 1971 war with Pakistan and later during Kargil Operations, Indian Navy had bottled the Pakistan Navy by attacking the Karachi port, Pakistan navy’s base and its economic trade hub. This option will surely be exercised over Karachi if there is next war / major crisis with Pakistan or when India decides to liberate Pakistan Occupied Kashmir.
So if PLAN has an actual naval base at Gwadar then the Indian Navy and the IAF will have to plan for additional opposition. Therefore now Pakistan or any other Country permitting construction of a Chinese Naval Base should be clearly warned.
China, in the last few years has been focusing heavily on modernizing the Pakistan navy. In 2017, China had handed over two maritime patrol vessels (MPVs) to the Pakistan navy that were to be based at Gwadar. Two more were later handed over to the Pakistan navy later. In January last year, Pakistan navy received PNS Tughril, one of the four frigates that it had ordered from China. This was followed by the arrival of PNS Taimur in August.
In 2016, Pakistan had announced that it was going to buy eight Yuan class submarines from China, the first four of which were to be delivered by the end of 2023 and the next four by 2028.In July 2022,the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) Navy and the Pakistan Navy (PN) held the “Sea Guardians-2” exercise in the waters off Shanghai in which the two focused on, among other things, neutralizing maritime security threats, securing strategic sea lanes, anti-submarine, anti-aircraft and anti-missile drills. This came after the first of such exercises, Sea Guardians-1, was held in January 2020 in the North Arabian Sea off Karachi, Pakistan.
Even the self-styled Khalifa Erdogan of Turkey is helping Pakistan to add more teeth to its naval forces. Turkey has so far supplied three Corvettes to Pakistan in the last four years.
So Just as USA viciously objected to Soviet missiles in Cuba and recently Russia took action against Ukraine over joining NATO, India must also object/act over any such base. In this both the Indian Navy and the IAF have clear edge over PLAN. However we need at least three more Squadrons of IAF fighters (Jamnagar, Karwar and Andamans) armed with BRAHMOS NG 800km missiles. Also we need a sister ship to INS VIKRANT that is VIRAT and its keel should be laid down immediately. Next within three years keel for 75000 ton VISHAL should also be laid down. The planned expansion of Indian Navy must continue at fast pace.
