By Ankit Panda
Indian cargo vessels will have access to Chittagong port, long seen as one of China’s “pearls” on the Indian Ocean.
Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi is in Bangladesh this weekend, where he signed, among other agreements, a resolution of the long-standing land border dispute between the two countries. Modi and Bangladeshi Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina signed 20 agreements and memorandums of understanding on issues as diverse as infrastructure, energy, health, and education. The two leaders additionally consulted on counter-terrorism cooperation, boosting trade, and people-to-people exchanges between the two countries. Modi and Hasina additionally broached the sensitive issue of Teesta River water-sharing. On the security front, one of the more interesting agreements to emerge from Modi’s trip so far has been a bilateral agreement that will grant Indian cargo vessels use of the China-backed Chittagong port and Mongla port in Bangladesh. This agreement was reportedly under discussion between the two sides and scheduled to have been signed as early as 2011.
There is a popular perception in India of maritime strategic encirclement by China in the Indian Ocean. Symptoms of this were most recently seen in late 2014, when a Chinese submarine was spotted docking in Sri Lanka, drawing vocal protest from India. Additionally, Chinese military exercises in the eastern Indian Ocean have spurred concern among Indian commentators and strategic analysts. In India’s perception, China is establishing a network of civilian port facilities and underwriting Indian Ocean littoral infrastructure projects to boost the ability of its vessels to operate in and around waters that should rightly be under New Delhi’s dominion. A decade ago, a Booz Allen Hamilton report used the metaphor of a “string of pearls” to describe this phenomenon and the term stuck, for better or worse. Since then, it’s become somewhat of an analytical trope for analysts studying maritime security in the context of India-China competition. (Commentators here at The Diplomat, however, have warned against the utility of the construct.)
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