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On 15 July, Gateway House co-hosted a webcast with Konrad-Adenauer-Stiftung (KAS) on 'Countering China’s Maritime Grey Zone Activities'. The panel discussed the potential strategies that smaller nations in the region can adopt to overcome the challenges of Chinese maritime grey zone activities, and the role of regional maritime powers in capability-building of maritime law enforcement agencies.
Courtesy: Shutterstock
The Quad countries are preparing for an autumn summit in Washington, which will provide an opportunity to discuss multilateral cooperation in various sectors. Four dimensions which merit closer attention and are crucial to the group's future are the Indo-Pacific strategies of European countries and the EU, partnerships with ASEAN and its members, closer India-U.S. ties and maritime security issues in the Pacific.
Courtesy: European Union
The EU’s Indo-Pacific strategy comes better late than never. But it has to step gingerly. It cannot antagonize China, wants to build on the legacy of its members’ colonial past, give the region the infrastructure it needs, and make the trade agreements that it wants. Is it achievable?
The Quad, a grouping of Indo-Pacific democracies, is more relevant than ever. It must now operationalise not just the military exchanges but also formalise economic and technology partnerships that will undergird a meaningful new multilateral, provide it with resilience and appeal in the Indo-Pacific region. In this Webcast, co-hosted by Gateway House and Konrad-Adenauer-Stiftung, the panelists discuss the need to reform Quad, which hosts the four leading global voices, in order for it to become the magnet that attracts like-minded nations, small and big cutting across continents and oceans to converge on the new world order realities.
Courtesy: USGS/Wikimedia
The recent use of geospatial analyses by Indian social and mainstream media for near real-time defence and military intelligence in Ladakh has been made possible because of the lower cost of earth-observation satellite construction, and thereby, easy access to satellite imagery on the internet. While independent analysis is useful, the same intelligence can be also used against the interests of a sovereign nation by an adversary, especially border imagery. India must find innovative methods to reduce this vulnerability of commercial satellite imagery.
Courtesy: MEA/Flickr
India and France have converging interests in the Indo-Pacific – diplomatic, strategic and economic. The 4th Indo-French Maritime Security Dialogue held in New Delhi in December 2019 was an example of major bilateral cooperation. By working together, the two countries became the model for fostering a rules-based, free, open and inclusive region.
Courtesy: Gateway House
This version of the Gateway House Map on China’s Expanding Global Telecom Empire identifies some more telecommunication assets -- optic-fibre and satellite ground stations -- that Beijing is working on in South and Central America, Africa, Myanmar, the Indian Ocean Region and mainland China besides the existing ones, such as the Pakistan East Africa Cable Express (PEACE). It shows the direction China’s investment is taking, its diplomatic overtures and the larger geopolitical implications of its growing telecom empire
Courtesy: Gateway House
China is steadily deploying state-of-the-art communications systems to connect its strategic and economic assets in Asia. It is then linkingthe Asian mainland to Africa, and Africa to South America. The investment spree is rapidly making Beijing a major player in global telecommunications – and ‘informationisation warfare’.
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Indian President Ram Nath Kovind leaves for Africa on his first foreign visit as president on October 3. His first port of call will be Djibouti, which occupies a strategic location in the Horn of Africa. The country has assumed significance for hosting multiple foreign military bases on its territory, the latest entrant being China. This infographic illustrates Djibouti’s ‘military base’ diplomacy.
Courtesy: Western Naval Command
China has expanded its presence in the Indian Ocean Region. President Xi Jinping has abandoned Deng Xiaoping’s conciliatory posture for an aggressive, money-fuelled search for super power status
