Writer: Troy Lee-Brown, UWA

The yr 2022 marks the thirtieth anniversary of the strategic partnership between ASEAN and India, however there are new alternatives for mutually useful cooperation. Southeast Asian states ought to strengthen their regional maritime safety by cooperating with the Bay of Bengal Initiative for Multi-Sectoral Technical and Financial Cooperation (BIMSTEC) — a world organisation supporting financial cooperation between seven South Asian and Southeast Asian nations — India, and the littoral states of the Bay of Bengal.

The Bay of Bengal is the most important bay on the earth. Because it continues to develop in strategic significance, Southeast Asian states ought to look and act to their quick west to assist bolster regional maritime safety and governance. Maritime safety points in Southeast Asia usually concentrate on the east of Malacca, however different maritime areas additional west warrant the identical degree of consideration. With rising strategic linkages between the South China Sea and the Bay of Bengal, these two essential sub-regions must be seen as a coherent entire.

The Bay of Bengal is residence to round 1.4 billion individuals. Its littoral states host a couple of quarter of the worldwide inhabitants, whereas its strategic geography is more and more essential to a number of the world’s nice powers. Whereas India has solid itself as a ‘internet safety supplier’ within the Indian Ocean, China has a number of financial and safety pursuits within the area, and Japan, Australia and the United States are intently focussed on the maritime space.

The ‘Indo-Pacific’ is a strategic area that envisages a union between the Indian and Pacific oceans. Complementing the continental ‘belt’ in Beijing’s Belt and Highway Initiative, there’s a maritime ‘silk street’ sea route linking China’s coast with Southeast Asia, South Asia and past.

Maritime competitors between a extra expansive China and India is converging on the Bay of Bengal. China has quite a few strategic pursuits within the littoral states of the Bay of Bengal, resembling port tasks in Sri Lanka and a port and rail undertaking linking the Chinese language metropolis of Chengdu to Yangon in Myanmar. India is creating nearer safety ties with South China Sea states, together with the current provide of patrol vessels to Vietnam and the sale of the Brahmos missile system to the Philippines.

The non-traditional maritime safety challenges confronted by states within the South China Sea might equally affect states like Malaysia, Singapore and Indonesia. Unlawful, unreported and unregulated fishing, piracy, terrorism and insurgency, human trafficking, undocumented migration and different transnational crimes are more and more interrelated within the Bay of Bengal and the South China Sea.

Environmentally pushed maritime safety issues will likely be more and more troublesome to differentiate within the coming years. Local weather-induced disasters and the provision of catastrophe restoration sources warrant a linked maritime house by which states can cooperate to satisfy shared challenges.

Institutional adjustments may help navigate a few of these points. BIMSTEC is a regional organisation with overlap between Southeast and South Asia and a membership together with Myanmar and Thailand. The growth of BIMSTEC to incorporate different Bay of Bengal states resembling Malaysia, Singapore and Indonesia would assist the discussion board tackle points throughout the complete bay.

BIMSTEC might additionally broaden its remit to strengthen its concentrate on maritime safety. India has taken the lead on the grouping’s safety pillar whereas in search of to enhance maritime safety within the broader Indian Ocean Area. It has additionally invested important effort in bolstering maritime area consciousness (MDA) capabilities. MDA is a necessary enabler of maritime safety operations, and up to date efforts by India embrace the growth of operational platforms, improved littoral infrastructure and elevated cooperation in regional information-sharing.

There’s additional scope for Southeast Asian states to strengthen their cooperation with Indian-led maritime safety initiatives. Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi has pressured the centrality of ASEAN to India’s Safety and Development for All within the Area (SAGAR) — New Delhi’s imaginative and prescient for the Indian Ocean area — however extra maritime diplomacy, resembling elevated joint workouts and maritime patrols, could be accomplished to strengthen engagement with particular person Southeast Asian states.

The 28 October 2021 announcement of cooperation between India’s Indo-Pacific Ocean’s Initiative (IPOI) and ASEAN’s Outlook on the Indo-Pacific is encouraging, however deepening this institutional relationship is the subsequent and most essential step. Singapore and Indonesia already have interaction with the Indo-Pacific Ocean Initiative’s pillars, with Vietnam and the Philippines additionally displaying curiosity.

Southeast Asian states can bolster maritime safety by bettering cooperation with India and different Bay of Bengal states. The India–Indonesia Coordinated Patrol — a joint naval patrol by the Indian and Indonesian navies that has been held frequently since 2002 — supplies a reputable blueprint for methods to conduct bilateral maritime safety cooperation throughout the area.

Trilateral patrols between Indonesia, Malaysia and the Philippines have proven some preliminary indicators of success within the Sulu and Sulawesi Seas, so an analogous maritime-focussed minilateral initiative within the Bay of Bengal might be viable. To efficiently navigate the rising variety of maritime safety points from the South China Sea to the Bay of Bengal, deeper strategic routes have to be plotted throughout the straits.

Troy Lee-Brown is Analysis Fellow on the Defence & Safety Institute, College of Western Australia.

Disclaimer: This text is a part of the ‘Blue Safety’ undertaking led by La Trobe Asia, College of Western Australia Defence and Safety Institute, Griffith Asia Institute and UNSW Canberra. Views expressed are solely of its authors and never consultant of the Maritime Trade, the Australian Authorities, or collaboration companion nation authorities.