Only China has the resources and motivation to build military installations on a group of Myanmar islands near a strategic Indian archipelago, analysts said, after a report by a British think tank unveiled major upgrades around the islands.
London-based policy institute Chatham House last month released a report that assessed new satellite images of the Coco Islands, located in a strategically important zone in the Bay of Bengal that is 55km north of India’s Andaman and Nicobar Islands, where it has air and naval bases.
The images show that Myanmar’s islands have over the years experienced “a steady makeover, with telltale signs of military modernisation and facilities to support aircraft”, said the report titled “Is Myanmar building a spy base on Great Coco Island?”.
Satellite pictures of Myanmar’s Great Coco Island show a runway has been extended in recent years and new facilities built. Photo: Google Earth
China on Monday hit back at the report, with the foreign ministry in Beijing calling it “sheer nonsense” in response to a question by Bloomberg on WeChat.
A spokesman for Myanmar’s ruling State Administration Council earlier called the allegation that China was building the facility on the islands absurd.
The report said a major extension of the island’s runway in the past decade was among the most visible changes in the area. The satellite pictures, taken in January by US space technology firm Maxar Technologies, also showed new hangars, a radar station and a large pier, while a causeway appeared to be under construction in the southern part of Great Coco where 1,500 people live.
Philippines ‘seriously concerned’ by more South China Sea island building21 Dec 2022
Troy Lee-Brown, a research fellow at the University of Western Australia Defence and Security Institute, said the images suggested “a fairly significant build-up in infrastructure development” on the archipelago from “what used to be a pretty rudimentary radar station”.
Swaran Singh, a political-science professor at the University of British Columbia in Vancouver, said Myanmar had neither the motivation nor the financial or technical capabilities to launch infrastructure projects on the Coco Islands to monitor India’s activities.
“Given their close relations with India, Myanmar’s other major partners like Japan or Asean also have no intention of monitoring India from the Coco Islands,” said Singh, referring to the Association of Southeast Asian Nations.
China is bound to be a natural suspect as … it has secured access to the Coco Islands for the last 30 yearsSwaran Singh, University of British Columbia
“China is bound to be a natural suspect [for the installations] as it has both the intention and the wherewithal and, above all, it has secured access to the Coco Islands for the last 30 years,” he added.
Latest news, analysis and opinion on politics in Hong Kong, covering Legco, John Lee’s administration and handling of the Covid-19 pandemic.
China has acquired footholds around the Indian Ocean in recent years, with Chinese companies taking control of commercial ports in Sri Lanka and Pakistan, and the country acquiring its first overseas military base in Djibouti in 2016.
Singh said China’s aim with the installations would likely be to monitor India’s army, navy and air force, including major missile testing sites.
The Andaman and Nicobar Islands are home to the Indian armed forces’ first and only so-called tri-service theatre, established around 2001. The archipelago stretches over some 750km in the Bay of Bengal, giving New Delhi commanding oversight over the so-called sea lines of communication – economical and safe routes taken by cargo ships – and the significant maritime traffic that passes between the Indian and Pacific Oceans through the Malacca Strait.
Lee-Brown, who conducts research on regional and maritime security and international relations focusing on the Indo-Pacific, said even if the recent construction work was entirely driven by Myanmar, not China, there would still be concerns in India due to the strategic importance of the Andaman and Nicobar Islands.
Timothy Heath, an international defence researcher at the Rand Corporation, a US think tank, said if evidence came to light that Beijing was indeed behind the new constructions, it could pose a threat to India.
China-India row over ‘spy ship’ sends ripples through the Indian Ocean24 Aug 2022
If China’s armed forces ever operated from Myanmar’s islands, “they could carry out surveillance, reconnaissance and intelligence collection along the coast and possibly harass Indian ships”, he said.
But he added that if tensions escalated into a full-blown conflict, Chinese aircraft and ships based near Coco Islands would be “easily wiped out” by the Indian military’s presence on the Andaman and Nicobar Islands.
Since Myanmar’s military rulers seized power in a February 2021 coup and overthrew the elected government of Aung San Suu Kyi, the cash-strapped junta has been ostracised by many nations in the global community and faces a wide array of sanctions.
Myanmar junta chief Min Aung Hlaing at a parade in March. The cash-strapped junta has been ostracised by many nations since its 2021 coup. Photo: Xinhua
Before the coup, India was in close alignment with Myanmar’s National League of Democracy, the Suu Kyi-led party that emerged from a pro-democracy uprising against military rule in 1988 and won general elections in 2015 and 2020.
Singh said there had been little contact in recent decades between India and Myanmar’s military, with China becoming “the only country engaging with” the junta after 1988, as well as being their major defence supplier.
Chatham House said in its report that if China were to further apply pressure on the Myanmar junta, “leveraging naval intelligence acquired from surveillance flights from Great Coco for desperately needed economic investment, it would give Beijing a key regional advantage over New Delhi”.
scmp.com