It was attended by representatives from 17 states, including Indonesia, Pakistan, Myanmar, Afghanistan, Sri Lanka, and three international organisations.
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According to the Hindustan Times, India was not invited. The Maldives and Australia were invited but did not send government officials to the event, although groups or individuals from the two countries may have attended.
Discussions in the meeting addressed areas such as protection of the marine environment, the climate crisis and disaster and the Covid-19 pandemic.
China proposed to establish a network of think tanks concerned with the blue economy, as well as a “marine disaster prevention and mitigation cooperation mechanism” to give financial, material and technical support to countries in need.
By excluding India from the meeting, Beijing is “making a statement and making a case for a stronger Chinese presence in the Indian Ocean”, according to Jay Maniyar, a researcher at the Indian think tank, National Maritime Foundation.
“The Indian Ocean forum is effectively a soft initiative with a hard message for India,” Maniyar said. “Chinese soft power is basically entwined with a hard power backing in the Indian Ocean, and Beijing expects all of its partners and neighbours to support this initiative.”
Maniyar, who is also an assistant fellow at the Singapore Institute of International Affairs, argued that many recent events had caused a deterioration in Sino-Indian relations, leading to Delhi’s absence.
“India refuses to accede to the Belt and Road Initiative owing to territorial constraints, and differs from China on issues such as terrorism, the reform of the United Nations Security Council, and so on,” said Maniyar, adding that Beijing did not support India’s claims over the Indian Ocean as historical waters of the country.
India and China are both “powerful representatives of the Global South”, and tightening ties between India and the United States, who stop short of labelling each other as allies, have irked Beijing, Maniyar said.
“India and the US are close partners [but] Beijing has warned both sides to stay away from each other … India’s policy of non-alignment has been interpreted as nurturing soft corners for countries such as Russia and the US. India aims to ‘use’, with integrity, such countries [to further] its national interests.”
The reason for Delhi’s absence may also simply be that the specific discussions did not concern India, which may at a later point be included, according to Andy Mok, senior research fellow at the Centre for China and Globalisation, a non-governmental think tank in Beijing.
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“This region is broad and diverse – stretching from the entire eastern coast of Africa to the western parts of Asia – and vitally important for trade with more than 80 per cent of the world’s seaborne oil travelling through the Indian Ocean,” Mok said. “Given its significance, there are many issues to discuss that may or may not involve India.”
“While it’s called the Indian Ocean, it’s important to remember that it’s not India’s ocean,” Mok said, while adding that India was likely to engage with the CIDCA forum in future, given its geographical location and importance.
According to Anirudh Suri, a non-resident scholar with Carnegie India, while India and China have space for cooperation, there are also “significant differences” to smooth out.
“This forum focused on the Indian Ocean could be seen as an attempt to develop an alternative vision and grouping to other existing ones, such as the Quad,” Suri said, referring to the security pact involving India, Japan, Australia and the United States.
Suri added that countries within and beyond the region were shifting their alignments, saying: “It remains to be seen what the fundamental value such a grouping would offer for the region’s economic and security architecture.”
