An Interview With Lawrence Prabhakar

December 01, 2009

By Madhav Nalapat

So essentially what we see around the Indian Ocean and the South China Sea have been Chinese attempts to build up access facilities. These facilities have dual civilian-military uses and are basically infrastructure facilities that allow Chinese ships to have preferential access. They could possibly also be basing facilities if there was going to be a dedicated China Indian Ocean fleet, though we don’t see any evidence of that.

China is investing in the future in access facilities — much like mercantile powers like the United States and Britain once did. So this String of Pearls could be similar to the calling stations that Britain had in the 19th century. But they are not just about Chinese access — they also symbolize the kind of concrete friendship that China has with many of these South Asian nations.

In recent years the US, Australia and Japan have conducted joint naval operations and Japanese and India officials agreed last month to bolster defence ties. Do you see India’s future as involving deeper defence and security cooperation with Japan and Australia?

Prabhakar: I think with the geopolitical shifts taking place in the Asia-Pacific — including a rising China, with steady growth of its economic potential and the correlative strategic and military modernization — there could actually be a convergence of Japanese and Australian interests very much on the Indian side. This is because we find that India is a pivotal power in the Indian Ocean, and if Australia and Japan want to have to access the region to reach the energy hub of the Gulf in the Middle East, then India will be the only natural partner for them to engage with.

I think the United States under the Bush administration facilitated a lot of this strategic convergence between the United States and India, and India and Japan, and India and Australia. And then of course Malabar 07-02 was one of the very symbolic exercises that took place that involved the navies of the four nations in an exercise in the Bay of Bengal. And the annual US Malabar exercises have been growing in complexity as well as in the scope of operations. This naval interoperability has been symbolic of what is emerging to be a concert of naval powers in the region, which basically is looking to hedge against the possibility of an aggressive China that could come in the future.

So far, China has displayed a lot of restraint and has expressed it dissatisfaction as to why these powers have come together. But nonetheless, there’s increasing bilateral convergence between India and Australia and India and Japan with regard to how they should contend with the future of Chinese naval power in the region — both in the Pacific and Indian Oceans. The Indian navy is one of the most robust naval forces in the region and will continue to play a very important role in what I would call the benign, humanitarian operations there. At the same time, the Indian navy also has the capability for coercive and ‘compellant’ missions.

So there’ll be greater naval convergence between India and Japan and India and Australia — not only out of strategic convergence, but the growing economic ties between them. And I’d say that although there are some differences, the fundamentals between India and Japan and India and Australia are as good as those in the US-India relationship.