Has China’s growing naval presence in the Indian Ocean prompted New Delhi to reassess its anti-submarine warfare (ASW) capabilities? Indian Navy has taken to plug its ASW gaps and what it needs to do next.
How to deal with Chinese submarines in the Indian Ocean has become a practical question for India. In December 2013, China let it be known that one of its nuclear attack submarines would sail through the Indian Ocean over the following two months. It was the first time that China confirmed such a transit. At the time, many thought it would be a relatively rare occurrence. But over the last couple of months, two more submarines appear to have made similar transits, after they were spotted making five-day long port calls in Sri Lanka.
Either way, the two port calls suggested that China might send more submarines (and with greater frequency) into the Indian Ocean in the future. Naturally, that has heightened Indian concerns about Chinese power in the region. But even more troubling to India was Sri Lanka’s readiness to welcome those submarines, in spite of Indian reservations. After the first port call, New Delhi expressed to Colombo its concerns about such submarines visiting Sri Lankan ports. Colombo dismissed India’s qualms, contending that Chinese submarines were no different than the other 230 foreign warships that visited Sri Lanka this year. Many Indian observers saw the rebuff as a sign that Sri Lanka had decided to cozy up to China. A few even argued that Sri Lanka had violated the 1987 peace accord between it and India in which Colombo agreed that its ports would “not be made available for military use by any country in a manner prejudicial to India’s interests.”
On September 19, a Chinese Song-class diesel-electric attack submarine and its attendant Type 925 submarine support ship, the Changxing Dao, docked at the Colombo International Container Terminals for refueling and crew refreshment before the submarine set sail for the international anti-piracy effort in the Gulf of Aden. Six weeks later, on October 31, there was another port call by a Chinese submarine and the Changxing Dao at the same facility. Whether that port call was made by the same Song-class submarine which visited earlier or by a Han-class nuclear attack submarine, as some reports have indicated, remains unclear due to a lack of photos associated with its visit to Colombo.
No one said that oceanic ASW was going to be easy or inexpensive. But Asia’s changing strategic environment has begun to force India to reassess the kinds of resources that it will need to maintain its naval position in the Indian Ocean. Given the pace of China’s military modernization, India would do well to mobilize those resources faster. - isn.ethz.ch
