Holy Alliance

India, Japan Expected to Increase Maritime Activity Aimed at China
By Ralph Jennings
Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, right and Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi wave during the ground breaking ceremony for high speed rail project in Ahmadabad, India, Sept. 14, 2017.

TAIPEI, TAIWAN — India and Japan, anxious to keep Asia’s dominant power Beijing in check, may send patrols into the contested South China Sea or sell arms to rival states following a pair of high-level meetings this month, experts say.
Both Asian countries could sell or donate more weapons to China’s rival maritime claimants, such as Vietnam, so they can build a defense against Beijing.

Japan may also use coast guard or naval ships to patrol the sea to show it’s open despite China’s claim to some 90 percent of it.
India will probably continue joint exploration with Vietnam for oil and gas under the 3.5 million-square-kilometer sea, analysts say.
“Delhi and Tokyo have both been stepping up their capacity-building efforts in the region, with Japan focused mainly on providing patrol vessels and training for Southeast Asian states and India selling arms to and training the Vietnamese navy,” said Gregory Poling, director of the Asia Maritime Transparency Initiative of the American think tank Center for Strategic and International Studies.

Two High-Level Talks in a Week
Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe met counterpart Narendra Modi in India Sept. 13-14 to discuss “enhancing maritime security cooperation,” according to a foreign ministry statement from Tokyo.
On Monday their foreign ministers met at the United Nations with U.S. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson to talk about freedom of navigation and respect for international law, the Indian external affairs ministry spokesman said.
Analysts understood both discussions to be aimed at China, including its expansion in the contested sea since 2010.
Neither India nor Japan claims the South China Sea, but the two have warily eyed China’s ascent to being the largest economy and military power in Asia. 

And despite the meeting with Tillerson in New York, the U.S. government is seen as preoccupied by the militarization of North Korea.

Arms for China’s Smaller South China Sea Claimants
Japan as well as India could sell more weapons to the four Southeast Asian states whose coastal waters overlap China’s claim to the sea, analysts say.
Japan indicated in January it would give Vietnam six patrol boats to help with maritime security. Vietnam has clashed three times since the 1970s with Chinese vessels. 

In August last year, Japan began giving the Philippines 10 coast guard boats through a soft loan agreement.
India has talked to Vietnam about supplying it BrahMos supersonic cruise missiles, which are co-developed with Russia, among other missiles, leading a state-backed Chinese media outlet earlier this year to accuse India of causing trouble. 

India in September 2016 offered Vietnam a $500 million line of credit to buy defense hardware, including patrol boats.

Sending Patrol Missions into the Disputed Sea
Japan may test China with low-key patrols of the sea, said Le Hong Hiep, research fellow with the ISEAS Yusof Ishak Institute in Singapore. 

In May it sent an Izumo helicopter-carrying warship into the sea for port visits in Southeast Asia en route to joint exercises with the United States.
“What they have done is they send a ship to Gulf of Aden and on the way back they do kind of patrol in the South China Sea and do port calls to Vietnam, et cetera,” Le said. 

“But they do not intentionally design any kind of (freedom of navigation) program in the South China Sea as it may provoke China.
“But in the future I’m not sure, because Japan obviously has some interest in containing China’s ambitions in the South China Sea as well,” he said.
Patrols would show the sea, also packed with fisheries, is open to other countries despite Beijing’s claim of sovereignty to the waterway off its south coast. 

China has strengthened control and angered rival claimants by using landfill to build artificial islands ready for combat aircraft and radar systems.
Brunei, Malaysia, Vietnam and the Philippines claim all or part of the same sea.
India and Japan might patrol the sea together with coast guard ships, said Andrew Yang, secretary-general of the Chinese Council of Advanced Policy Studies think tank in Taiwan. 

They would occasionally send naval vessels, he added.
“Maybe they will increase the momentum of their joint activities in order to demonstrate that Japan and India are closely cooperating in terms of regulating the so-called rule-based behavior in the South China Sea and the region,” Yang said.

India’s Overtures in Southeast Asia
India, as part of a fast-growing trade and investment relationship with Vietnam, can further assert itself in the South China Sea by working with Vietnamese firms on exploration for oil and gas, Le said.
For the past three years, the overseas subsidiary of India’s government-run ONGC has worked with PetroVietnam Exploration Production Corporation to search for oil and gas in the South China Sea. That cooperation helps Vietnam improve its "bargaining power" with China, Le said.
Since losing a world arbitration court verdict over its claim to the South China Sea last year, China has sought favor with Southeast Asian countries through economic aid and investment. 

Malaysia, Vietnam and the Philippines are accepting China’s overtures -- along with the same from other major nations.
The Philippines, for example, welcomes Japanese aid because the public and the China-friendly government have long trusted Tokyo, said Maria Ela Atienza, political science professor at University of the Philippines Diliman. 

Filipinos know less about India, she said, but Japan could bridge the gap.
“At least people are not so aware of possible positive relations with India,” Atienza said. 

“But if it’s an alliance, maybe if Japan can vouch for India, perhaps that can build confidence in terms of the partnership.”

Wary of China, India offers Akash surface-to-air missile systems to Vietnam

By Rajat Pandit

NEW DELHI -- India is now actively discussing the possible sale of the indigenously developed Akash surface-to-air missile systems to Vietnam, even as the two countries steadily crank up their bilateral military ties with a watchful eye on a confrontational China in the Asia-Pacific region.

With Beijing continuing to thwart New Delhi's bid to join the 48-nation Nuclear Suppliers Group and get Jaish-e-Muhammed chief Masood Azhar designated a terrorist by the UN, while also stepping up its naval forays into the Indian Ocean Region, India is responding by fast-tracking military ties with countries in China's own backyard. 

The expanding "strategic and military partnership" with Japan and Vietnam, in particular, has emerged a major thrust area.
Sources say the discussions under way with Vietnam on the Akash area defence missiles, which have an interception range of 25-km against hostile aircraft, helicopters and drones, come after India earlier offered BrahMos supersonic cruise missiles and Varunastra anti-submarine torpedoes to the country.
India, of course, will also begin training Vietnamese fighter pilots on its Sukhoi Su-30MKI fighter jets from this year, much like it has been tutoring sailors from that country on the intricate art of operating Kilo-class submarines for the last three years, as reported earlier by TOI.
Defence minister Manohar Parrikar says Vietnam "is a close friend" and several initiatives are in progress to further boost bilateral defence cooperation, ranging from help in upgrade of military equipment of the Vietnamese forces to training them on fighters and submarines.
All this comes in the backdrop of India and Vietnam deciding to "elevate" their "strategic partnership", which was established in July 2007, into a "comprehensive strategic partnership" during PM Narendra Modi's visit to Hanoi in September 2016.
Sources said Vietnam has shown "deep interest" in the acquisition of Akash missiles, asking for transfer of technology and joint production of the air defence system.
India, however, thinks it has to be an incremental process, with an initial off-the-shelf purchase followed by transfer of technology in maintenance and other areas.
"Talks are in progress to arrive at a common plan. It's relatively easier on the Akash front since the missile system is 96% indigenous," said a source. 

The two defence secretaries, incidentally, are slated to meet soon to identify the military projects and equipment under the new $500 million defence line of credit announced by Modi in September.
But it will be more complicated to sell the 290-km range BrahMos — or transfer technology — to Vietnam because the missiles are produced here under a joint Indo-Russian venture. 

BrahMos missiles still have an import content of over 60% from Russia.
On other fronts, however, India is fast expanding its military training, technology sharing, joint exercises, visits and exchange of experts with Vietnam. 

Faced with a belligerent China, Vietnam too has been strengthening its military capabilities by inducting Kilo-class submarines and Sukhoi fighters from Russia, both of which have been operated by Indian armed forces for years.
It was in 2013 that India had kicked off the training of a large number of Vietnamese sailors in "comprehensive underwater combat operations'' in Navy submarine school INS Satavahana, Visakhapatnam.
Now, the training on Sukhois is all set to take off.