Maritime security challenges on Quad radar

The Indo-Pacific Partnership for Maritime Domain Awareness initiative mooted at Tokyo can provide a very useful 24X7 real-time picture of all surface activity in the Indo-Pacific by pooling existing resources. While platforms such as ships and aircraft are constrained by endurance, the fusion centres combine technology with data-mining to provide visual mapping of specific oceanic spaces.

Under watch: Illegal fishing activity by Chinese vessels has become a cause for concern. AP

C Uday Bhaskar

Director, Society for Policy Studies

The Quad summit held in Tokyo on Tuesday (May 24) had some significant security related strands embedded in the joint statement, though in keeping with the reticence of the US-led four-nation group about ‘security’ per se, the relevant sections were tucked away towards the end of the 3,000 plus word document.

Cybersecurity has been accorded a separate paragraph but the real substance is in the references to the maritime domain and its extrapolation to the composite security lattice of the global oceans that goes beyond the military/naval component.

The last paragraph of the Tokyo joint statement notes: “We welcome a new maritime domain awareness initiative, the Indo-Pacific Partnership for Maritime Domain Awareness (IPMDA), designed to work with regional partners to respond to humanitarian and natural disasters, and combat illegal fishing. (Emphasis added) IPMDA will support and work in consultation with Indo-Pacific nations and regional information fusion centres in the Indian Ocean, Southeast Asia and the Pacific Islands by providing technology and training to support enhanced, shared maritime domain awareness to promote stability and prosperity in our seas and oceans. IPMDA embodies what the Quad stands for: catalysing our joint efforts towards concrete results that help to make the region more stable and prosperous.”

Humanitarian assistance and being able to provide swift relief during natural disasters has been central to the Quad and it may be recalled that the four nations came together organically in December 2004 when a major tsunami ravaged parts of peninsular India and Southeast Asia littoral to the Bay of Bengal/Indian Ocean. At the time, India was the first nation to respond with its naval ships reaching the worst affected areas and this effort was soon complemented by the USA, Japan and Australia. Taking forward the deliberations from the previous (virtual) summit in March 2022, the Tokyo statement announced the establishment of the “Quad Partnership on Humanitarian Assistance and Disaster Relief (HADR) in the Indo-Pacific”. This partnership will anchor the activities of the four Quad nations and their respective navies/coast guard as applicable and while enhancing interoperability, the objective is humanitarian and in keeping with the abiding tenets of the seafarer — provide relief to those in distress, if you have the wherewithal.

However, it is the focus on maritime domain awareness (MDA) as part of the IPMDA that has considerable potential for providing directivity to the naval component of the Quad in a subtle but effective manner. As former naval chief Admiral Arun Prakash notes: “MDA is at the core of all maritime operations and pooling surveillance resources would enable greater and more granular awareness about the vast Indo-Pacific region.” The Tokyo statement highlights MDA in reference to both HADR and illegal fishing and the latter activity is import laden.

Illegal, unreported and unregulated fishing (IUU) is an international maritime security challenge and is the equivalent of rapacious macro poaching of the global commons — the oceans and seas of the world. It is estimated that almost 30 per cent of the global fish catch is obtained through the IUU methodology and this has many negative consequences. Apart from impoverishing the livelihood of communities whose traditional fishing areas are poached, state revenue is also depleted due to illegal and unregulated fishing. Furthermore, mechanised all-weather trawlers poach the Indo-Pacific exclusive economic zone (EEZ) of small states that do not have the capacity to monitor or harvest those areas apportioned to them as part of the UNCLOS (UN Convention on the Law of the Seas).

Various studies have established that the fragile food-chain in the oceans is under dire threat due to the rampant use of vast fishing nets and indiscriminate scooping of the ocean bed. Left unchecked, such IUU can lead to an imbalance in marine life, thereby resulting in irreparable damage to the global marine food chain that can impact millions of human beings dependent in different ways on ocean produce. The FAO cautions that “IUU fishing undermines national and regional efforts to conserve and manage fish stocks and, as a consequence, inhibits progress towards achieving the goals of long-term sustainability and responsibility.”

Chinese fishing vessels have been identified as the most active in IUU fishing globally. A report published in March by the Environmental Justice Foundation (EJF), a UK non-profit organisation concluded that China’s distant water fleet “is frequently associated with illegal fishing” having identified more than 300 confirmed and 240

suspected fisheries offences between 2015 and 2019. China is estimated

to have 3,000 distant water fishing ships and Taiwan is second with 1,150 such vessels followed by Japan,

South Korea and Spain.

The IPMDA initiative mooted at Tokyo can provide a very useful 24X7 real-time picture of all surface activity in the Indo-Pacific by pooling existing resources that include maritime reconnaissance aircraft, ships, satellites and regional information fusion centres (IFC). While platforms such as ships and aircraft are constrained by endurance, the fusion centres combine technology with data-mining to provide a continuous visual mapping of specific oceanic spaces.

India has a dedicated IFC manned by the navy in Gurugram and in 2021, the centre monitored, recorded and analysed a total of 3,411 incidents in the wider Indian Ocean region. These incidents include piracy and armed robbery; smuggling; IUU; irregular human migration, and unauthorised maritime incidents. The IFC monitored 392 IUU incidents in the same period which is an average of 32 per month and this is the tip of the iceberg.

Granular MDA enables tracking of vessels/ships that try to deactivate their identification systems (AIS) and any suspicious activity can be monitored in real-time and this information conveyed to the authorities concerned.

The Tokyo sub-text is that if IPMDA allows Chinese or Taiwanese engaged in IUU to be tracked with precision, much the same degree of surveillance can be applied to Chinese naval platforms. It is instructive that while the Tokyo joint statement brought MDA towards the end of the document, the US released a White House Fact Sheet on May 23 — a day before the Tokyo summit and led with the IPMDA. The document asserted that “This initiative will transform the ability of partners in the Pacific Islands, Southeast Asia, and the Indian Ocean region to fully monitor the waters on their shores and, in turn, to uphold a free and open Indo-Pacific.”

The degree to which IPMDA will succeed in its stated objectives will be a function of collective political resolve, adequate material resources and sustained professionalism.