– By Esha Sharma
– Intern IPPCS’21
During the past few years, the strategic and economic relevance of the Indo-Pacific has been attracting the attention of the whole world. But what constitutes the term ‘Indo-Pacific’? If generally defined, it is a region that connects two vast oceans-the Indian Ocean and the Pacific Ocean. However, in this whole Indo-pacific discourse, the definition of Indo-pacific itself poses a problem. Each state has its conception of the region formed to accommodate their interests and foreign policy objectives. It has become a centre of many geo-political, economic, and environmental debates due to its high financial and strategic significance concerning global trade, over 50 % of its transverses through the Sea Lanes of Communications located in this vast region. For oil-importing states, this becomes even more crucial.
For this reason, emerging threats to the region’s peace, stability, and prosperity can have a profound impact on its stakeholders. For many of them, the most significant concerns are rising Chinese dominance in the South China Sea and its continued breach of the international laws governing the maritime sphere. China’s Belt and Road Initiative presents a significant threat to many regional and extra-regional powers in the Indo-Pacific. The two most powerful democratic nations having a considerable presence in the region are India and France. Their respective foreign policy objectives and interests align to a greater extent. India desires to be the net security provider of this region, and France was the first European nation to announce its Indo-Pacific strategy. Therefore, the two states must consider cooperating in the Indo-Pacific region.
For India, Indo-pacific ranges “from the eastern shores of Africa to the western shores of North America”. Threats from rising terrorism, piracy, human and drug trafficking, climate change, and China was establishing its dominance in the Indian Ocean force India to take a formidable step towards consolidating its maritime security. Similarly, France has overseas territories of the islands of Réunion and Mayotte in the Indian Ocean and New Caledonia and French Polynesia in the South Pacific. To uphold the interests and security of its citizens, France is looking forward to exploring ways to cooperate with other regional powers. In this case, both countries offer each other the opportunity to collaborate and mutually benefit. A few indications and verbal commitments are being made from both sides for the designated purpose. However, the fact remains that on-ground efforts are less than satisfactory. In its 2013 white paper, France stated that “France plays a particular role [in the Indian Ocean] reinforced by the development of privileged relations with India”, but the UPA regime made no serious efforts to build upon this statement. In 2014, the change of government in India made some worthwhile improvements in India’s outlook on collaboration with France and other western powers. With this change also came rising Chinese presence and strategic dominance in the Indian Ocean. China already began collaborating with the Pakistani military, particularly the navy, to operate the Gwadar port. Apart from this, it sold submarines to Bangladesh and Thailand to leverage their support and most importantly, it started using its first foreign military base in Djibouti. PM Modi was not hesitant to state that India is willing to take military action to secure its maritime space. For this, he insisted on engaging with other states, including the western powers. The following year of his election, Modi visited three Indian Ocean states- Seychelles, Mauritius and Sri Lanka and announced India’s Ocean policy called Security and Growth for All in the Region (SAGAR). Under this framework, Indians supplied needed medical and food aid to these island nations during the Covid-19 crisis. A further impetus to the growing India-France cooperation was provided with the election of Emmanuel Macron in 2017 as the President of France. The same year Modi flew to Paris to pay a visit to Macron. This was just the beginning of high-level visits and talks, followed by the visits of the chiefs of the Indian air force and Navy to France. India-France signed the White Shipping agreement in January 2017 to enable information sharing on maritime traffic and strengthen maritime domain awareness.
Subsequently, Macron visited India in March 2018, during which the topmost discussed issue was maritime security of the Indo-Pacific. Both sides also signed the “Joint Strategic Vision of India-France Cooperation in the Indian Ocean Region” and the “India-France Joint Vision for Space Cooperation” amongst the fourteen inter-governmental agreements. India and France are also looking forward to cooperating with like-minded countries like Australia and Japan. London held the first India-France-Australia Trilateral Ministerial Dialogue on 4 May 2021. Recently, Indian External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar met his French counterpart Jean-Yves Le Drian on his three-day visit to New Delhi. Issues related to maritime security specifically focused on the Indo-pacific were extensively discussed, signalling greater naval cooperation between India and France. The French minister expressed the willingness of France to join India’s Indo-Pacific Oceans Initiative (IPOI), launched in 2019. France is already a member of the Indian Ocean Naval Symposium (IONS) and has repetitively shown interest in joining the Indian Ocean Rim Association (IORA).
Even though both New Delhi and Paris are making sustained efforts, bilateral cooperation on Indo-pacific has not been materialized in practical terms. To support their respective interests and needs, the nations must engage their navies in joint maritime operations and exercises, interoperability, capacity building and awareness programs to enhance the skills and build deeper and trust between their forces. The most challenging issue at present is environmental degradation and climate change that directly threaten the prosperity and wellbeing of all the parties in the region. As responsible democracies, India and France must join hands to tackle this grave challenge by organizing training and awareness programs at equal intervals. However, this must not hinder infrastructural and developmental projects that should ideally be part of India-France cooperation. Moreover, emerging threats from the cyber domain should also be addressed by both countries’ collective security framework. Tframeworksnumerous other ranges of issues and concerns that can be handled with both states’ consistent and cooperative approach.
To conclude, New Delhi and Paris are progressing towards their desired free, open and inclusive Indo-Pacific. However, the hindering obstacles must be removed immediately to see more progress and cooperation in the coming years.
References
https://www.eoiparis.gov.in/page/president-emmanuel-macron-s-visit-to-india-in-march-2018/
https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/10357718.2019.1693496?src=recsys
https://www.diplomatie.gouv.fr/IMG/pdf/en_a4_indopacifique_v2_rvb_cle432726.pdf
https://jmss.org/article/view/61666
*Mohan_Baruah_Deepening_The_India_France_Maritime_Partnership.pdf
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