Re-emergence of the Bay of Bengal in 21st Century Geopolitics

Abstract

The re-emergence of the Bay of Bengal as a central pivot of sub-regional connectivity has been concurrent with the rise of the Indo-Pacific as an integrated geopolitical region. While the South China Sea and the Taiwan Straits continue to grab attention as major geopolitical hotspots over which a future US-China armed confrontation could take place, maritime spaces like the Bay of Bengal require much more attention in their prospects for regional growth and the potential for great power rivalry that might derail such a vision. India’s strategic push to link its eastern economic space to Southeast Asia through its Act East Policy has also brought the Bay of Bengal into sharper policy focus, lending more currency to sub-regional institutions like the Bay of Bengal Initiative for Multi-Sectoral Technical and Economic Cooperation (BIMSTEC). This paper will assess the re-emergence of the Bay of Bengal as a central maritime node of connectivity and a theatre of the Indo-Pacific competition-cooperation dynamic. Then, the paper will analyse how sub-regionalism for regional growth and prosperity is being re-imagined keeping the Bay of Bengal as a fulcrum and the role of India in the same. 

Introduction

The Bay of Bengal stands at the interface between South Asia and Southeast Asia, and hence, occupies a central place as the role of the Indian Ocean grows in the Indo-Pacific theatre of U.S.-China dynamics. The rise of China and its strategic ramifications is a major driving factor of this sub-regional churning. Threat perceptions and securitisation is a double-edged sword in inter-state engagements, whether bilaterally or multilaterally. While common concerns of emerging threats can bring countries together and give agency to new spatial constructs with greater incentives for cooperation, they can also create problems of fragmented and competing visions of regionalism, hampering the initiation and implementation of tangible projects on the ground. There is no denying the vitality of the Indian Ocean routes for ocean trade, transit and transport and the strategic re-linking of the Indian and the Pacific Oceans, have several connotations. There is, of course, the military power projection between the United States and China, particularly focussed on the Western Pacific Ocean but one that is extending into the Indian Ocean littorals. China’s entry into the Indian Ocean is unmistakable and the Bay of Bengal at its northeastern tip is taking centre-stage in regional geopolitics. Washington’s view of the Bay of Bengal and its littorals is largely determined by the China factor, and by corollary, the New Delhi-Beijing dynamic in this space.

The waters of the Bay of Bengal are extremely important for the transport and transit of energy, raw materials and the emerging maritime security dimensions in the region as well. America’s proclamation of the Free and Open Indo-Pacific Strategy (FOIP) inevitably makes the politico-economic issues of the region and its littorals a factor in its growing strategic rivalry with China. On the other hand, China’s ambitious and controversial Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) clashes with the FOIP on the ground of ideological values as well as implementation with implications on how the littoral states would respond to these grand narratives.[i] The growing security and economic interests of Asian maritime powers as well as extra-regional powers with inherent aspirations in the region will play an instrumental role in how competition for strategic influence will co-exist with the call for institutionalising habits of cooperation for building viable and sustainable infrastructure and connectivity in the region.[ii]

Leveraging the Indo-Pacific Dynamic for Sub-regional Growth

The growing geopolitical tension in the U.S-China relationship is apparent, and while Western Pacific remains the maritime bowel of this competition, other regional water bodies like the Bay of Bengal will witness the manifestation of global geopolitics. For instance, how to navigate increasing Chinese presence in the Bay of Bengal littorals and the broader Bay of Bengal community as envisioned through the BIMSTEC is imperative for growing India-U.S. partnership in the Indo-Pacific. The call for more focus on the economics and security of the Indian Ocean besides the maritime trouble spots of the Western Pacific has implications for how the competition-cooperation dynamic among regional and extra-regional players play out in the Bay of Bengal.[iii] The engagements and deliberations among the Quad countries (India, U.S., Japan and Australia) for instance, not only in terms of transparent and sustainable connectivity but also coordination in humanitarian disaster relief operations amplifies the significance of the region in the permutations and combinations of the economic and security architecture of the Indo-Pacific. Besides, the involvement of the Quad countries individually as well, through their respective development-oriented mechanisms and the growing attention of multilateral institutions like the Asian Development Bank (ADB), the World Bank and the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB) in this regional sub-system adds new layers of assessment.[iv]

Washington’s reorientation towards the Asia-Pacific at the start of the Obama administration and the consummation of its Indo-Pacific era in the Trump administration has found increasing resonance across all agencies of the U.S. government. The Indo-Pacific basket literally covers diverse issue-areas cutting across the traditional and non-traditional or the military and non-military divide. The U.S. government has already designated the developments in the Indo-Pacific region as being more consequential than any other strategic region and one that will demand more vision and cooperation between America, its allies and partners. America’s FOIP strategy envisions “a region that is open, interconnected, prosperous, secure, and resilient.” As the latest U.S. national security strategy contended:

“As we work with South Asian regional partners to address climate change, the COVID-19 pandemic, and the PRC’s coercive behavior, we will promote prosperity and economic connectivity across the Indian Ocean region. The Quad and AUKUS will also be critical to addressing regional challenges, and we will further reinforce our collective strength by weaving our allies and partners closer together—including by encouraging tighter linkages between like-minded Indo-Pacific and European countries.”[v]

The Bay of Bengal is perhaps the strategic space where the ASEAN centrality in America’s FOIP and its South Asia focus, primarily through its partnership with India, finds a meeting ground. The non-security-centric vision and engagement of the United States in South and Southeast Asia find growing resonance along with its military force posturing vis-à-vis China’s growing naval ambitions in the Indo-Pacific waters. The asymmetry in demand and supply for quality infrastructure in the region is where the United States will find a more concerted relevance, through the implementation of visionary initiatives like the Blue Dot Network, through its partnership with regional and extra-regional actors.[vi] China’s BRI is a reality in the region and is an inevitable component in the development strategies of the littoral countries, except India. The tangibles that these countries see in being a part of Beijing’s extravagant plans and its economic largesse cannot be ignored. Despite controversies and the opacity surrounding it, there is no denying that China’s BRI projects have disrupted the politico-economic landscape of the Indo-Pacific region and created deep interdependencies.[vii] China’s assertive rise and its strategic ramifications are at the heart of the Indo-Pacific era and the only way to counteract such designs is through proactive alternatives by the United States and its allies in partnership with like-minded regional leaders like India.[viii]

The G7 countries during their most recent summit in Hiroshima contended on this issue and expressed their intent to narrow “the infrastructure investment gap in low and middle-income partner countries, including by delivering financing for quality infrastructure, supporting efforts to advance policy reforms needed to attract investment, operationalizing country-led partnerships, and promoting upstream support including project preparation support.” Reaffirming commitment to the G7 Partnership for Global Infrastructure and Investment (PGII), they resolved to “continue strengthening global partnerships for public and private investments in sustainable, inclusive, resilient and quality infrastructure with partner countries.”[ix]

Primal geopolitics prods countries to engage with distant powers to navigate its dynamic of symmetry and asymmetry with a proximate power. China is a proximate power to the Bay of Bengal littorals, and this is where the role of a distant power like the United States becomes relevant. The growing need for infrastructure and connectivity in the region is evidently palpable, and this growing development demand creates opportunities for the littoral states to attract major powers’ investment. However, economic investments do not transpire in a political vacuum, and the competition inherent between China and the U.S. becomes a part of this dynamic.[x]

Infrastructure building and connectivity projects are the new prime areas of the competition-cooperation dynamic among major powers and the Bay of Bengal sub-region is at the centre of this dynamic. The strategic importance of the Bay has come a full circle from its centrality during the pre-colonial and colonial times to an era of lost promise during the Cold War to its new eminence. Many factors such as the rise of China and its outward security and economic projection, India’s own trajectory of regional and global aspirations, the role of extra-regional powers like the United States and the development patterns of the littoral countries have brought the Bay of Bengal back to business. The rise and fall of regions in geopolitics and international relations has been an intriguing one. The fall of otherwise vibrant regions to oblivion, the conception and reconceptualization of new regions, and the reimagining of older regions for newer patterns of diplomacy have caught the attention of both policy planners and academic scholars.

Therefore, the rekindling of land and maritime connections between South and Southeast Asia lies at the very heart of a thriving Bay of Bengal sub-region. It also undercuts the politics of shared economic and security spaces among neighbours and the interface between regional security complexes.[xi] Regions gain new prominence and move from the perceived periphery to the core of geopolitics and geo-economics and the Bay of Bengal has certainly become a hub of promise and potential of intra-regional and inter-regional economic integration, amidst challenges owed to inter-state competition and non-state threats.[xii]

India, as a leading power in the region, needs to take the lead in shaping the contours of geopolitics and geo-economics among the Bay of Bengal littorals. However, this has to be done in a way that is consultative and cognizant of the agency of the littoral states. Building regional resilience and cooperation is one of the best ways to navigate the storms of great power rivalries and their regional implications.[xiii] Incentivising cooperation among the Bay of Bengal littorals amidst rising competition for strategic influence and commercial benefits is a task cut out for Indian policy mandarins. While India may lack the size of China’s BRI, New Delhi has much to offer in terms of combined capacity and experience that it can bring with partnerships. India is rapidly developing mutuality of interest with several partnering countries and the willingness is evident in the Indian political leadership as well as the concerned bureaucracies to scale up India’s role in the infrastructure and connectivity ecosystem in its neighbourhood.[xiv]

The growing currency of BIMSTEC as an institution of choice for sub-regional growth and prosperity combines India’s purpose and goal of its Neighbourhood First Policy, its Act East policy and the broader approach to the Indo-Pacific region. Moreover, the imperatives of the Bay of Bengal region also provide a connective tissue of institutional linkage between the BIMSTEC and the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN). Washington’s investment in sub-regional integration like that of the Bay of Bengal flows out of its own Indo-Pacific strategy and the growing centrality of partnership with India, to reduce the littorals’ reliance for security and economics on China. Such an objective is largely congruent with India’s own strategic concerns and pathway for countering China’s further ingress and strategic footprints in South Asia and the Indian Ocean region.[xv] The latest U.S. Indo-Pacific strategy contended that “India is a like-minded partner and leader in South Asia and the Indian Ocean, active in and connected to Southeast Asia, a driving force of the Quad and other regional fora, and an engine for regional growth and development.”[xvi]

Conclusion

That the Bay of Bengal has re-entered the strategic mapping and policy considerations for intra-regional and inter-regional integration and that the scramble for Indo-Pacific has a pivotal role to play in this dynamic is evident. The question remains as to how cooperation can be incentivised among the Bay of Bengal primary littoral states, the larger Bay of Bengal community, and the extra-regional stakeholders amidst the prevailing strategic uncertainties. Negotiating the expectations of the stakeholders to evolve a win-win ecosystem should be a primary objective of all concerned. If the quest for a “free, open, inclusive and rules-based” order in the Indo-Pacific is a destiny that is worth investing in, better infrastructure and connectivity, and enhanced economic integration is a task worth cooperating and collaborating. Infrastructure building and connectivity are not an end in themselves but should be propagated as routes to prosperity enhancing the lives of the people inhabiting the region.

The Bay of Bengal is now squarely in the midst of the emerging security and economic architecture of the Indo-Pacific and the primary stakeholders will have to find ways of absorbing the shocks of strategic rivalries and leverage the opportunities for cooperation. Therefore, institution-building and institutional linkages have long-term implications for regional peace and stability. Institutions create relative certainties amidst uncertainties and lend a modicum of predictability of intent and implementation. Navigating the opacity of China’s involvement in South Asia and the Indian Ocean region will remain a challenge for littoral states and extra-regional players. India is an undoubted leader in the region in terms of material capabilities and will have to scale up its role as a provider for the region, in partnership with like-minded partners. India needs to ensure plurality and inclusivity of vision, interest and implementation in the Bay of Bengal region in the quest for a “free, open, inclusive and rules-based order” in the Indo-Pacific and counteract any unilateral designs.