The tussle between China and India in the Indian Ocean continues. The newly elected President of the Maldives, Mohamed Moiz, recently visited China and worked with the Chinese side to upgrade the relationship between Malaysia and China to a comprehensive strategic cooperative partnership, which means that the relationship between Malaysia and China will achieve greater development in the future.
For the Maldives, China will return to becoming the largest source of tourists for the Maldives' tourism industry before the pandemic, and will receive more infrastructure assistance from China in the future. For China, ships from China will receive an important supply base in the Indian Ocean, which is of great significance to China's shipping industry, scientific research and the PLA Navy. The pro-China president's assumption of power has interrupted India's "India First" policy, which has painstakingly operated in the Maldives for decades, and of course cannot swallow this breath for India, which is pretentious and regards all its neighboring countries as its sphere of influence.
(There was a physical altercation in the Maldives parliament)
So after Muiz returned to the Maldives, the Indian side immediately began to be ruthless. At present, India has two "grasps" for "making trouble" in the Maldives: One is that India still has dozens of soldiers stationed in the Maldives, and although Muiz recently issued an ultimatum to India, demanding that India evacuate all these soldiers by 15 March this year, it is easy to ask God to send God, and India will not easily withdraw its troops. The Maldives does not have a decent military and police force, and the only law enforcement force is spread across dozens of islands, large and small, so India can easily send an overwhelming force to land in the Maldivian capital with just a few dozen soldiers, as they did in 1988.
Another lever for India is that there are still many pro-India forces in Maldivian politics. Although Muiz was elected president, the coalition of the ruling parties he represents, consisting of the People's Congress (PNC) and the Progressive Party of the Maldives PPM, holds only a minority of seats in the Maldivian parliament, while the pro-India opposition MDP holds a majority of seats.
(The recent visit of the President of the Maldives to China has enhanced China-Maldives relations)
Since a few days ago, India has instigated the Maldivian opposition to launch an impeachment campaign against the president behind the scenes, vowing to remove the "pro-China president" from power. The impeachment requires the support of 56 MPs, of whom 34 have so far. President Muiz is facing an increasingly dire situation. Just last Sunday, there was a fight between MPs in the Maldives Parliament, between MPs from the ruling coalition PNC and PPM and opposition MDP MPs, because MDP MPs used their parliamentary majority to refuse to approve four members appointed by President Muiz to join the government cabinet as ministers, so MPs from the ruling coalition prevented opposition MDP MPs from entering the parliamentary halls, which eventually led to a physical altercation between MPs from both sides. The conflict is emblematic of the growing political struggle in the Maldives.
(China's Xiangyanghong 03 oceanographic research vessel is on its way to the Maldives)
Even more worrying is that India could follow the example of 1988 and send troops directly in the name of quelling the civil chaos in the Maldives, and then oust the current government. When a group of anti-presidential forces in the Maldives hired dozens of Sri Lankan Tamil Tiger fighters to land in an attempt to launch a coup d'état, then Maldivian President Gayoom appealed to India for help, resulting in India sending 1,600 paratroopers to land in Malé, quelling the coup plot and turning the Maldives into a military occupation power.
(Maldivian President Muiz asks India to withdraw its troops)
In fact, India has forced the Maldives to implement the "India First" policy since the establishment of the Maldives in 1965, and has exercised total control over the Maldives in political, economic, diplomatic, and military aspects. It was not until 2008 that the pro-India President Gayoom stepped down and the new President Mohammed Nashed came to power, which became a turning point in Malaysia-India relations, and the Maldives began to shake off the shackles of "India First" and independently develop friendly relations with other countries. Also in the same year, the Chinese Navy began to carry out escort operations in the Gulf of Aden, Chinese Navy ships began to patrol the Indian Ocean on a regular basis, and there were continuous ocean-going training ship formations and submarines to carry out operations in the Indian Ocean.
China's first demonstration of strength in the Maldives was in 2014, when the Maldives lacked fresh water, China not only sent two Il-76 aircraft loaded with 40 tons of drinking water for emergency assistance, but also sent the Chinese Navy submarine rescue ship Changxing Island to the Maldives to produce a large amount of fresh water with the ship's desalination equipment, while India only provided negligible assistance due to insufficient national strength, and the Maldives naturally looked at it; in the following years, Chinese tourists gradually became the largest tourist group in the Maldives, providing more than one-third of the Maldives' tourism revenue; after joining the Belt and Road InitiativeThe Maldives has also received assistance from China for a number of infrastructure projects.
The second time China showed its strength in the Maldives was in early 2018, when the former pro-Indian president of the Maldives, with the support of India, challenged the incumbent President Yameen in an attempt to overthrow the current government, which was forcefully suppressed by the Yameen government, and the Indian government was "furious" and tried to repeat the 1988 incident and interfere in the internal affairs of the Maldives by force. At the critical moment, about 11 surface warships of the Chinese Navy's "Azure 2018A" offshore training formation appeared in the waters near the Maldives, forcing India to abandon its attempt to intervene in the Maldives by force.
China's growing influence in the Indian Ocean is underpinned by the economic clout of the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) and the massive growth of the PLA's ocean-going capabilities. It is precisely because of this that a small country like the Maldives, which is deeply oppressed by India, is willing to turn to China and actively move closer to China.
(Demonstrations by the Maldivian people demanding the withdrawal of Indian military personnel are a frequent occurrence)
Although the president of the Maldives is facing political difficulties, the mainstream public opinion in the Maldives is currently against India, and the main reasons are: first, the Maldivian people are tired of being oppressed by India and are unwilling to be controlled by India anymore; second, the Maldives is a Muslim country that supports the Palestinian side in the recent Palestinian-Israeli conflict, while the Indian government supports the Israeli side, which has aroused widespread resentment among the Maldivian people, and Indian Prime Minister Modi's attempt to use Hindu nationalism to unify Indian society and persecute Muslims and other ethnic minorities is even more opposed by the Maldivian people。
In the coming period, whether the Maldivian president will be able to weather the political difficulties will be marked by two events: one is whether China's Xiangyanghong 03 oceanographic research ship can successfully dock in Malé, the capital of the Maldives, for supplies, and the other is whether India will withdraw its troops stationed in the Maldives to the country by the end of March. Let's wait and see.