India on alert as China plans to send 'research ship' to Sri Lanka port

India on Thursday tacitly conveyed its concerns over China’s purported plan to send a “research ship” to Hambantota Port of Sri Lanka for about a week, apparently for surveying the northwestern part of the Indian Ocean.

New Delhi is assessing the implications of the proposed visit of China’s scientific research vessel “Yuan Wang 5” to Hambantota Port of Sri Lanka on the security and economic interests of India. A source in New Delhi said that India had also taken up the issue with the new Sri Lankan government led by Ranil Wickremesinghe and Prime Minister Dinesh Gunawardena.

Beijing has since long been known for using its research ships not only for collecting hydrographic data but also for maritime surveillance and gathering intelligence, be it in the South China Sea or the East China Sea, or in other locations in the Indo-Pacific. New Delhi is particularly concerned over China’s bid to build strategic maritime assets around India and its People’s Liberation Army Navy’s repeated forays in the Indian Ocean region.

“We are aware of the reports of a proposed visit of this vessel at Hambantota Port in August,” Arindam Bagchi, the spokesperson of the Ministry of External Affairs (MEA), told journalists in New Delhi. He was responding to a question on India’s view about the proposed visit of the research vessel of China. “The government carefully monitors any developments having a bearing on India's security and economic interests, and takes all necessary measures to safeguard them.”

“I think that should be a clear message,” added the MEA spokesperson.

China’s debt-trap diplomacy had earlier made Sri Lanka lease out its Hambantota Port for 99 years, causing security concerns for India. After the “Rajapaksa Clan” had regained power in Colombo with Gotabaya and Mahinda Rajapaksa taking over as president and prime minister in 2018 and 2019 respectively, China had restarted its attempts to pull the Indian Ocean nation into its orbit of geopolitical influence. Apparently, at the behest of China, the government led by the Gotabaya and Mahinda scrapped a trilateral treaty Sri Lanka had earlier signed with India and Japan for the development of the East Container Terminal of the Colombo Port. It had also got Sri Lankan Parliament pass the Colombo Port City Economic Commission Bill, which would eventually create an overseas colony of China – less than 300 kilometers away from the southern tip of India.

New Delhi, however, had reached out to the Rajapaksa Clan in its bid to claw back the strategic space Xi Jinping’s “Middle Kingdom” had wrested from it in the Indian Ocean nation. It had managed to get Sri Lanka award the contract for the West Container Terminal to Adani Group of India in September 2021.

After Sri Lanka plunged into an economic crisis early this year, India has so far provided assistance worth over US $ 3.8 billion to help the cash-strapped island nation and also sent consignments of food, fuel, medicines, fertilizers and other essentials.

The PLA navy had deployed its 35th Task Force in the Indian Ocean region in April 2020 – just a few days before the military stand-off along the Line of Actual Control (LAC) between India and China in eastern Ladakh had started. China had also deployed a fleet of underwater drones (Unmanned Underwater Vehicles) in the Indian Ocean. The Indian Navy had earlier in September 2019 spotted and chased away China’s research vessel Shiyan 1 in the Exclusive Economic Zone of India near the Andaman and Nicobar islands. The Chinese PLAN had also deployed submarines in the Indian Ocean, including Shang class Type 093 nuclear powered ones. Though Beijing publicly said that the deployment was intended to step up patrolling on the sea lanes to protect vessels from pirates, New Delhi has been suspicious about the PLA Navy’s moves in the region.