India, US, Japan, Australia start naval drill amid China's growing aggression

Two warships, an aircraft and a submarine of the Indian Navy on Tuesday joined the naval vessels of Australia, Japan and the United States in a drill in the Bay of Bengal, amid China’s continued build-up along the entire stretch of its disputed boundary with India.

The drill, according to the Indian Navy, is "reflective of the commitment” of the four participating nations to support a “free, open, inclusive Indo-Pacific as well as a rules-based international order” – a euphemism to oppose the expansionist moves of China. It ironically commenced exactly two years after Prime Minister Narendra Modi had hosted Chinese President Xi Jinping at a resort on the shore of the Bay of Bengal itself near Chennai in October 2019.

Indian Navy chief Admiral Karambir Singh also hosted the US Chief of Naval Operations, Admiral Michael Gilday, in New Delhi. “India is one of our closest strategic partners, and our relationship is a stronghold of a free and open Indo-Pacific,” said Gilday, who discussed with Singh ways to enhance interoperability between the Indian and American navies “for decades to come” as well as to “maintain security, stability and prosperity” in the region.

Gilday will visit the Indian Navy’s Western Naval Command in Mumbai and the Eastern Naval Command in Visakhapatnam. He will later embark the USS Carl Vinson, an aircraft carrier of the US Navy, off the east coast of India along with a delegation of the Indian Navy.

The USS Carl Vinson along with two destroyers, USS Lake Champlain and USS Stockdale, is representing the US Navy in the second phase of the Malabar 2021 exercise, which commenced in the Bay of Bengal on Tuesday. The Indian Navy deployed its INS Ranvijay and INS Satpura as well as its P8I Long Range Maritime Patrol Aircraft and a submarine for the exercise. The Japanese Maritime Self Defence Force is being represented by JS Kaga and JS Murasame. The Royal Australian Navy sent its HMAS Ballarat and HMAS Sirius for the drill.

Modi had hosted Xi at a sea-side resort near Chennai on October 12, 2019 – for a sequel to the first “informal summit”, which they had held at Wuhan in central China in April 2018 to mend ties that was hit by the 72-day-long military stand-off at Doklam in western Bhutan the previous year. Though Modi and Xi had displayed picture-perfect bonhomie during the summit on the shore of the Bay of Bengal, the relationship between India and China worsened after another military stand-off started along the Line of Actual Control (LAC) between the two nations in eastern Ladakh in April-May 2020 and proved to be much more serious and widespread than the one in 2017. The negotiations to resolve the 18-month-long stand-off hit an impasse on Sunday.

The drill in the Bay of Bengal will continue till October 15. Its first phase was conducted in the Philippines Sea from August 26 to 29.

The Malabar turned into a four-nation naval exercise in 2020 as Australia joined Japan, India and the US for the drill amid growing belligerence of China, not only in the Himalayas, but also in the South China Sea, East China Sea and the Taiwan Strait.

New Delhi, however, insists that the naval exercise is not related to the Quad, apparently to drive home the point that the four-nation coalition, which had its first in-person summit in Washington D.C. last month, is not a ‘security bloc’, unlike the AUKUS – the trilateral grouping recently launched by Australia, the United Kingdom and the US.

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