India Has Good Reason to Be Concerned About China’s Maritime Research Vessels

In September 2019, the Indian Navy drove away the Shiyan 1, a Chinese language analysis vessel that had been caught working with out authorization in India’s Unique Financial Zone (EEZ) off the coast of the Andaman and Nicobar Islands.

This transfer was undertaken in keeping with Article 246 of the United Nations Conference on the Regulation of the Sea (UNCLOS), which prohibits any nation from conducting marine scientific analysis within the EEZ of a coastal state with out consent. It additionally stipulates that such consent must be ideally granted in “regular circumstances.” However given the context – China’s analysis actions within the South China Sea, in addition to the bigger Chinese language technique of military-civil fusion, which has blurred the road between the scientific and military-related actions of its vessels – the circumstances had been hardly regular.

Extra lately, alarms have once more been sounded in India concerning the potential docking and port name of one other Chinese language “complete analysis and survey ship,” the Xiang Yang Hong 03, in Malé, the Maldives.

The important thing supply of concern is the flexibility of such a survey ship, whereas purportedly conducting peaceable analysis and maritime monitoring actions within the Indian Ocean area (IOR), to map the ocean’s seabed and examine maritime currents and oceanographic traits.

All this collected data can be utilized for navy functions. These makes use of can vary from finding out best seasonal deployment patterns for submarines, to gathering oceanographic information akin to most depth for visualizing a mine warfare state of affairs. Equally, continued assortment of marine wind information could be utilized to extrapolate the ocean wind assets in coastal areas at given occasions, enabling an evaluation of the enemy jets’ take-off and touchdown necessities, in addition to these of China’s personal airpower within the IOR.

Furthermore, Chinese language vessels have a historical past of “going darkish,” which refers to their crew turning off the vessels’ computerized identification system transponders. This will allow the vessels to conduct navy actions with out being recognized or positioned, particularly in continental shelf areas that lie past the EEZs of coastal states.

Three years in the past, round January 11, 2021, the identical vessel that may quickly dock within the Maldives, the Xiang Yang Hong 03, was intercepted by the Indonesian Coast Guard in its EEZ after the vessel had “gone darkish.” The event got here a month after an Unmanned Underwater Car (UUV) resembling the Chinese language Sea Wing (Haiyi) UUV was found near the waters close to the Indonesian coast, the place there are two important maritime chokepoints, the Sunda and Lombok straits.

It may be inferred from the timing of the Xiang Yang Hong 03 incident that when the UUV was found, the Chinese language resorted to deploying a analysis vessel able to conducting comparable defense-related assessments, however with its transponders off.

Each the UUV and the vessel have capabilities to conduct surveillance of ocean options for submarine stealth planning. This may be finished, for instance, by assessing the extent of chlorophyll within the waters; submarine stealth could be in danger if it disturbs chlorophyll.

Previously, comparable Chinese language analysis vessels have even performed collaborative operations with Sea Wing UUVs, dispersing over a dozen comparable underwater gliders within the Bay of Bengal area to conduct a steady evaluation of oceanographic information. Sea Wing UUVs had been launched each in 2017 and 2019 to conduct “cooperative commentary in a chosen sea space.” The worth of the big quantity of hydrological information collected over time, together with temperature, salinity, turbidity, and oxygen content material, is unprecedented.

Additionally it is necessary to notice the navy affiliations of the establishments in command of constructing these vessels and supervising their operations. For instance, the developer of the UUVs launched in 2017, the Chinese language Academy of Sciences’ Shenyang Institute of Automation (SIA), is by title a analysis middle devoted to constructing civilian high-technology tools. Nevertheless, the Institute additionally engages in navy tools constructing, having been awarded a contract in 2020 to develop an “clever self-flying equipment” for the Individuals’s Liberation Military Air Drive, whereas additionally growing a categorised challenge (Mission 912) to develop navy underwater robots. In 2022, SIA was additionally added to the USA’ Entity Checklist for “trying to accumulate American-origin gadgets in help of navy purposes.”

Equally, the Qingdao Pilot Nationwide Lab for Marine Science and Know-how, which has been deeply concerned in sea voyages of the Xiang Yang Hong 03, has additionally collaborated with the Individuals’s Liberation Military on varied naval protection initiatives. Furthermore, its functioning is ruled, amongst different entities, by the China State Shipbuilding Company and the Qingdao Ocean College, each of that are key pillars of China’s military-civil fusion technique, and have often contributed to the PLA Navy’s force-building work.

Since 2019, the actions of Chinese language analysis vessels have overshadowed the maritime survey work being performed by another nation’s vessels within the expansive Indian Ocean Area. Therefore, from a navy strategic perspective, an understanding of their operational procedures and potential dual-use purposes is important to India’s maritime safety pursuits. Additionally it is important for India to make lively efforts at its finish to curtail the docking of such vessels in surrounding waters. On this regard, the Sri Lankan authorities’s January 5 resolution to not allow any Chinese language analysis ship to function inside its EEZ or dock at its ports for a yr, is welcome information.

Though New Delhi has not launched a proper protest with Malé over the potential docking of Xiang Yang Hong 03 within the coming days, the shaky relationship between the 2 sides prior to now few months, along with Maldives President Mohamed Muizzu’s evident pro-China posture, could create hurdles for India’s respectable safety pursuits.