NEW DELHI: Despite Maldives’s stated ‘India First’ policy, China will remain the elephant in the room when PM Narendra Modi seeks to address the issue of political instability in the archipelago in a meeting with visiting President Abdulla Yameen on Monday.
While the meeting will come days after inauguration of construction work for a Chinese-funded expansion of the international airport, more worrying for India are reports that the Maldives could allow China to build a port in the southern part of the country – in Laamu atoll – directly impinging India’s interests in the Indian Ocean region.
Talking to TOI, former Maldives foreign minister Ahmed Naseem said while the government had not yet confirmed it, there were indications that Maldives was looking to let the Chinese build a port at Gaadhoo island in the southern atoll.
Naseem said people had already been evacuated from the region and that the Chinese were currently building roads there. The location of the island is significant for India which never tires of describing itself as “net security provider” for Maldives. “This island sits at the entrance to the one-and-a-half degree channel which is a major international shipping passage that crosses the Maldives,” said Naseem.
Naseem is a senior member of incarcerated former president Mohamed Nasheed’s Maldivian Democratic Party (MDP). “I believe Yameen has done irreparable damage to India-Maldives relations and his actions will change the balance of power in the Indian Ocean. The security issues of the region need to be re assessed and appropriate steps taken to keep the sea lanes safe and secure for the benefit of the regional countries,” added Naseem.
China has in the past denied that it was contemplating building a military facility in Laamu but the recent evacuation of inhabitants from Gaadhoo, and Chinese presence there, has again raised questions about China’s intentions. India has always been apprehensive about China’s port-building exercises as the Chinese are known to seek operational control of ports they build.
Maldives, which sees itself as indispensable to China’s maritime silk road, has offered investment opportunities to India too in the north, including into a transhipment port. Naseem said, as things stood, by the end of this year, Maldives could owe 70% of its external debt to China, making itself heavily dependent on Beijing’s largesse. China is investing heavily in infrastructure projects including the Maldives-China Friendship Bridge which will link the airport island with Male. For Modi, who has not yet visited Maldives, the challenge in his meeting with Yameen on Monday will also be to address the political turmoil in the country.
India does not favour imposing sanctions on the country to ensure justice for Nasheed, a friend of New Delhi, and indeed other political prisoners, but, as Naseem said, MDP is hoping Modi will convey the “right message” to Yameen.
