Why Maldives matters to China?

China-aided projects in the Maldives have given rise to a lot of security concerns for India, the US and its allies. China is paying to woo India’s Indian Ocean island neighbours, particularly the Maldives and Sri Lanka.

By Col R Hariharan | Column| India Legal | February 11, 2022

https://www.indialegallive.com/why-maldives-matters-to-china/

 

China’s use of the PLA regiment commander involved in the 2020 Galwan clash as a torchbearer for the Winter Olympics had drawn flak from not only India but also its QUAD ally—the US. India regretted the incident as China’s attempt to politicise the Games, while the US described it as “shameful” and deliberately “pro­vocative.” The use of the PLA commander at a global meet is not merely China’s provocative gesture to needle India. It is a small sample of the “war by other means” (“non-contact war” in military jargon) China is currently progressing in the Indo Pacific theatre.

While China’s misuse of the PLA commander in the torch relay garnered enough publicity, probably few noticed the torchbearer, who exchanged the flame with the final torchbearer Thomas Bach, president of the International Olympic Committee. He was Abdulla Shahid, foreign minister of Maldives and president of the 76th session of the UN General Assembly. It was probably a heart-warming moment for the Maldives, one of the tiniest countries in the world with barely 300 sq m of land, to see its foreign minister given this honour at an Olympic Games. No doubt Shahid’s position as the current president of the UN General Assembly helped the Chinese decision. But it showed the close attention China is paying to woo India’s Indian Ocean island neighbours, particularly the Maldives and Sri Lanka.

Maldives is a chain of 26 atolls, stretching from Ihavandhippolhu Atoll in the north to Addu Atoll in the south, spanning 90,000 sq km of territory across the Equator, and has few resources. Maldives archipelago is located on the Chagos-Lakshadweep Ridge, a vast submarine range in the middle of the Indian Ocean. It is located 750 km South­west of India and Sri Lanka. Historically, Maldives has ethnic, religious and cultural connectivity with India and Sri Lanka. Maldives’ language Dhivehi is a dialect of Sinhala and with a script derived from Arabic. In fact, Minicoy the southernmost and second largest island in the union territory of Lakshadweep, has around 12,000 Mahl people of Maldives ethnicity. 

Maldives-India relations have been close since colonial rule ended in 1965 and Maldives became a republic. It was India that responded first to President Maumoon Gayoom’s call for assistance to thwart a coup attempt in 1988. After Mohamed Nasheed came to power in 2008, Maldives signed a defence cooperation agreement with India in 2009. Under the agreement, India would install 26 radars on all the atolls to link up with the Indian coastal command. Indian Navy and the Maldives National Defense Force (MNDF) carry out joint surveillance and patrolling activities. India had been swift to provide help and succour during the 2004 tsunami and when the country faced a drinking water crisis in 2014.

After Prime Minister Narendra Modi adopted “neighbourhood first” policy when he came to power in 2014, India-Maldives relations got a further boost. India is involved in a number of projects like the Greater Male Connectivity project, cargo vessel services and capacity building and training of MNDF and Maldivian civil servants in India and the Gulhifalhu Port Project. Indian defence forces and MNDF regularly hold joint exercises. Even during Abdulla Yameen’s rule which was skewed in favour of China, he played down his anti-India rhetoric to visit New Delhi and sign the Indo-Maldivian Action Plan for defence. India has supplied a Dornier surveillance aircraft to Maldives to keep an eye on Chinese vessels as well as casualty evacuation from isolated islands and prevent poaching and drug smuggling in Maldivian waters. The US military base located at the atoll of Diego Garcia in Chagos archipelago, 1713 km from Maldives, was used during the US operations in Afghanistan. Its strategic importance has increased after the Quadrilateral framework for Indo-Pacific security came up.

The Indian Ocean’s strategic importance has gone up after President Xi Jinping’s Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) was launched in 2013 to increase China’s strategic outreach across continents. The 21st Century Maritime Silk Road (MSR) forms the oceanic part of BRI infrastructural connectivity. It enables China to secure passage for its international maritime trade to pass through bottlenecks in the Indian Ocean. Maldives and Sri Lanka are important pivots for the success of the MSR, more so after the Quad framework started taking shape.

President Xi Jinping was the first Chinese head of state to visit Maldives since the two countries established diplomatic relations in 1972. His visit to Maldives on May 15, 2014, on his way to Sri Lanka and India, underlined the island nation’s importance in Xi’s strategic outreach under BRI.

Though Chinese companies had been involved in project contracting in Maldives since 1985, it made a quantum jump after President Yameen, with a strong pro-China stance and marked hostility towards India came to power in 2013. Not only has Yameen responded to Xi’s invitation to join the MSR during his visit but also signed a free trade pact with China a few months later.

During Yameen’s tenure as President till 2018, a number of Chinese infrastructure and investment projects were executed. Male-Hulhumale bridge conceived in 2007, was constructed by China Harbour Engineering Company at a cost of $210 million. Similarly, Beijing Urban Construction Group replaced Indian contractor GMR, to complete the stalled Male international airport expansion project at Hulhumale in 2018.

An unnamed Chinese company acquired Feydhoo Finolhu, a tiny islet with half a square mile area, located three nautical miles from the Maldivian capital, Malé, on a 50-year lease for a price of $4 million in December 2016. However, the Finolhu beach resort with 125 private villas with a wharf for ferrying guests built on the property is now fully functional. Similarly, the CJL Investment promoted a joint venture of Guangdong Beta Oceans and a Maldivian partner, has taken the Kunaavashi island in Vaavu atoll, 35 nautical miles from Malé, on a 50-year lease to build a resort. An Australian company is now managing the La Vie Hotels and Resorts there. 

However, the opaque process of Chinese aided projects and widespread corruption in Maldives have given rise to a lot of security concerns to India, the US and its allies. A case in point is the Joint Ocean Observatory project at Makhunudhoo, the western most is­land, finalised in 2017 by China’s State Oceanic Administration. India was concerned that China would use it to observe more than ocean conditions. At India’s urging, Maldives dropped the project in 2019.

The 2018 election was marred by President Yameen’s misuse of state resources, police interference during opposition campaigns and manipulations by electoral officials in favour of Yameen’s Progressive Party of Maldives (PPM). After former president Nasheed was disqualified on an unproven 2015 terrorism charge, the Maldivian Democratic Party (MDP) nominated Ibrahim Mohammed Solih. He secured 58% of the votes, with Yameen scoring less than 42%. Now Maldives is ruled by a coalition of MDP, the Jumhooree Party, the Maldivian Reform Movement (MRF) led by former president Maumoon Gayoom and the conservative Adhaalath Party.

Solih came to office with a debt of $1.4 billion accumulated by the Yameen government, mainly to the Chinese. He is trying to work out ways to service this debt. He has tried to improve accountability, weed out corruption, tone up the judiciary and improve gender equity with some success. He is yet to tackle the lingering Islamist extremist threat. Solih has signed a defence deal with the US and another agreement with Japan to strengthen the MNDF coast guard. Both India and the US have helped the Maldives with vaccine supplies and medical equipment to fight the Covid-19 pandemic; so, did China. China’s foreign minister Wang Yi made a whistle stop trip to Maldives in January 2022 and looked at some of the BRI projects. 

Yameen was sentenced to five years imprisonment in a case of money laundering in November 2019. However, the Maldives Supreme Court has set aside his conviction. Days after his release, the PPM, the main opposition party, launched the “India Out” campaign. Though Yameen has explained that it was aimed at only the presence of Indian security forces in Maldives, it is probably a political curtain raiser for the year 2022.

China has firmed up its presence in Maldives. With India reasserting its presence in the Indian Ocean region now, how China will step up its role in Maldives during 2022 is an open question.

The Writer is a Military Intelligence specialist on South Asia, associated with the Chennai Centre for China Studies

 

யாழ் வருகையால் சீனாவிற்கே ஆபத்து! இந்திய முன்னாள் கேணல் ஹரிகரன் அதிர்ச்ச...

Sri Lanka: Gearing up for UNHRC meeting

Sri Lanka Perspectives January 2022| South Asia Security Trends February 2022| www.security-risk.com

In a well-orchestrated move, spearheaded by Sri Lanka’s foreign minister Prof GL Peiris​, Sri Lanka​ launched its PR exercise to highlight the progress it has made in fulfilling its commitment to the UN Human Rights Council (UNHRC) with a diplomatic briefing of the consular corps in Colombo on January 26, 2022.

How much the briefing will impact the members at the UNHRC’s 48^th Regular Session to be held from February 28 to April 1, 2022 is an open question because President Gotabaya Rajapaksa had disowned the commitment made by the Sirisena-Wickremesinghe government, which had co-sponsored the UNHRC Resolution 30/1 co-sponsored by the Sirisena government and adopted in 2015.

The Resolution 30/1 had called for wide ranging reforms in the accountability process with international involvement. It wanted Sri Lanka to establish a credible judicial process, with the participation of Commonwealth and other foreign judges, defence lawyers and authorised prosecutors and investigators to investigate alleged rights abuses.

President Rajapaksa speaking at the opening of the 8^th Parliament on January 3, 2020, was explicit about the difficulties in reconciling his vision to the UNHRC’s way of “promoting reconciliation, accountability and human rights in Sri Lanka.” The President’s vision included respecting the aspirations of the majority of the people because “only then sovereignty of the people will be safeguarded.” He said he will defend the unitary status of our country and protect and nurture Buddha Sasana, “whilst safeguarding the right of all citizens to practice a religion of their choice.”

This triggered a core group of UNHRC members led by Britain to adopt the Resolution 46/1 at the UNHRC’s 46^th Regular Session on February 22, 2021 to advance accountability for past rights violations and war crimes committed in Sri Lanka. The resolution also called upon the Sri Lanka government to revise the Prevention of Terrorism Act (PTA), which rights groups have warned was being used as a weapon of targeting dissidents and minorities in the country.

The PTA was enacted in parliament in 1979, to arm the law enforcing agencies and security forces to combat the LTTE separatist insurgents. However, civil society groups at home and abroad have time and again, pointed out how state agencies have continued to grossly misuse the provisions of PTA even after the LTTE insurgency was crushed in May 2009. The Act was also used to target Muslims after the Easter Sunday attack carried out by Islamist jihadi terrorists on churches and luxury hotels in Colombo on April 21, 2019. A prominent Muslim lawyer Hejaaz Hizbullah arrested on April 14, 2020 along with six others has continued to languish in custody.  Similarly, concern has been raised about the continued detention of Ahnaf Jazeeem, poet from Mannar.

The UN Working Group on Arbitrary Detention, after a two-week visit to Sri Lanka in December 2017 had called for the immediate repeal of the PTA, referring to it as “one of the key enablers of arbitrary detention for over four decades.”

A few examples of PTA’s draconian provisions are given below:

·      Where a statement made by a suspect, orally or in writing, in the course of an investigation, or not, may be proved against such person.

·      A statement made at an identification parade by a person, who is dead or who cannot be found, against a suspect shall be admissible in evidence.

·      Any document found in the custody, control or possession of a person accused of any offence or an agent or representative of such person may be produced in court as evidence against such person without the marker.

·      A police sub inspector, authorised in writing by him, may without warrant (a) arrest any person, (b) enter and search any premises, (c) stop and search any individual or any vehicle, vessel, train or aircraft and (d) seize any document or thing connected with or concerned in or reasonably suspected of being connected with or concerned in any unlawful activity [unlawful activity not defined in the Act]. A police superintendent may order that such person be remanded until the conclusion of the trial.

·      Every person who commits an offence under this Act shall be triable without a preliminary inquiry, on an indictment before a high court judge sitting alone without a jury or before the high court at Bar by three judges without a jury as decided by the Chief Justice.

Perhaps the worst provision under the Act is that a suspect can be detained for 18 months.

A day after the foreign minister’s briefing, a Bill to amend the Prevention of Terrorism (Temporary Provisions) Act No 48 of 1979 was gazetted. It seeks to amend some of the salient features of existing PTA including the reduction of the period of detention of a person from 18 months to 12 months. Already, the amendments in the Bill are being debated in the media and by political leaders. It will be debated in parliament before its final form is approved. Counter terrorism laws are perhaps a requirement in countries the world over​ as terrorism threat has become universal. However,​ what matters more is the spirit with which it is applied. This is what is lacking in the present dispensation in Sri Lanka.

Speaking to the diplomatic corps, Prof Peiris touched upon the progress made by Sri Lanka since the last UNHRC meeting. These included the payment SL Rs 100 millions as reparations to persons affected by war in Northern Province through mobile programmes; interviews carried out by Presidential Commission of Inquiry to review the findings of the Commissions and Committees on violations of human rights and international humanitarian law.

At length he dwelt upon access to judicial systems and expounded on how the present government led by President Rajapaksa and PM Mahinda Rajapaksa regard this whole country as one. “We don’t truncate it. We don’t think in terms of North and South, East and West. Whatever programmes we devise are for the wellbeing of all our people without any distinction as to religion, ethnicity or caste.” These are fine statements. As the cliché goes, the proof of the pudding is in eating it. And it is high time the Sri Lanka government lived up to its own orations, to convince the people.

After the 25^th session of the UNHRC, in March 2014 India’s External Affairs Minister, while talking to Sri Lanka media representatives listed out a few things for Sri Lanka to ponder in its approach to the ethnic reconciliation process and the war crimes allegations. According to Sri Lankan media of that period, these were:

•        No isolation: Sri Lanka should not isolate itself from the world and find ways to communicate its ‘compulsions and limitations’ and find a greater understanding with the world. He stressed that accountability and justice are now more pervasive in the world than before as the world is increasingly interconnected and open.

• Show commitment first: “For India to help Sri Lanka in Geneva, Sri Lanka should address local concerns so that India would be able to lobby on behalf of Sri Lanka. For us to help, you should be doing things that we would be able to tell the world.”

• Ego: He advised that ego should not be allowed to get in the way: He advocated a much saner approach “in contrast to the local proclivity to slander the visiting UN and US officials.

• Sensitivity: Sri Lanka should not be too sensitive and the world should not be over-reactive.   He referred to the government orchestrated demonstrations against the US and the UN in Colombo when the resolution was brought before the UNHRC earlier. Rights activists and journalists were subjected to character assassination.   

These suggestions may come in handy for President Rajapaksa, who claims Sri Lanka’s “humanitarian war” liberated the people from three decades of LTTE tyranny. He has to recognise the UN forum is asking him to account for alleged violation of universal humanitarian laws. He has to seriously introspect on the present approach to UNHRC’s allegations of human right violations.

[Col R Hariharan, a retired MI specialist on South Asia and terrorism, served as the head of intelligence of the Indian Peace Keeping Force in Sri Lanka 1987-90. He is associated with the Chennai Centre for China Studies. Email: haridirect@gmail.com  Website: https://col.hariharan.info]