China’s stake in Maldives leaves little room for diplomacy with India

China and the Maldives upgraded their relationship last week to a ‘Comprehensive Strategic Cooperative Partnership’ during a series of bilateral meetings between the top leadership in Beijing and Male.

PREMIUM

The upgrade kicked in amid a New Delhi-Male diplomatic row over bitter and unsavoury remarks made by Maldivian officials against Prime Minister Narendra Modi and his Lakshadweep visit earlier this month.

The India controversy aside, a fresh gust of tropical warmth in Beijing-Male ties was pretty much on diplomatic cards: Newly elected President Mohamed Muizzu, who was on his first State visit to Beijing this week, had fulcrumed his poll campaign earlier this year on India being a threat to the country’s sovereignty and on sending home 75 Indian military personnel deployed in Maldives.

The China-Maldives relationship has now been cemented by the upgrade in ties and 20 new bilateral deals.

Given that Muizzu’s state visit took place in the backdrop of the “Boycott Maldives” call given by Indian social media users, including influencers and celebrities, it was certain that Beijing and Male would make the most of expanding unease in India-Maldives ties.

"China and the Maldives' relations are facing a historic opportunity to carry forward the past and forge ahead into the future," Chinese President Xi Jinping told Muizzu, calling him an “old friend”, according to Chinese state media.

Making no reference to India, Xi said: “China respects and supports the Maldives in exploring a development path suited to its national conditions, and supports the Maldives firmly in safeguarding its national sovereignty, independence, territorial integrity and national dignity”.

China in Maldives

The tussle for influence between India and China over the Maldives, a country of 188 inhabited islands scattered among a total of 1190 on vast, calm swathes of blue-green seawater, is not exceptional. It’s happening across South Asia.

Though India has had deeper historical ties with the archipelagic nation, China made rapid inroads into the islands with its infrastructure projects and loans in the last few decades.

Xi made a high-profile visit to Maldives in September 2014, a visit bunched with Tajikistan, Sri Lanka and India.

The Maldives was quick to embrace Xi’s Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), part of which was the international sea route that the Chinese President had envisaged as a way to expand China’s influence and take care of over-capacity.

“The Maldives welcomes and supports the proposal put forward by China to build the 21st Century Maritime Silk Road, and is prepared to actively participate in relevant cooperation,” a joint statement issued at the end of the visit said.

Broadly, secure access to sea lanes in the strategic Indian Ocean Region (IOR) was a primary requirement for China then and more so now.

“Nearly a decade later, Muizzu's visit to China has once again brought bilateral relations to a new height. The two sides will take this opportunity to jointly build a China-Maldives community with a shared future,” official Chinese news agency Xinhua said in a commentary after Muizzu’s visit.

Under BRI, the “…China-Maldives Friendship Bridge and the Hulhumale housing project undertaken by China have been completed, benefiting the economic and social development of the Maldives and the local people,” the Xinhua commentary said.

It added, quoting statistics from the Maldives' tourism ministry that in 2023, the country received a total of about 187,000 Chinese tourists, and that in 2024, the number of Chinese tourists is expected to return to the top of the list.

Maldives is an Indian Ocean island and an important part of the Maritime Silk Road, said Hu Shisheng, a leading South Indian expert from the China Institutes of Contemporary International Relations in Beijing.

Hu said Male also needs Beijing to develop the country’s fishing economy, build bridges over islands, reclamation of lands from the sea, desalinate seawater and get renewable energies among other things.

“Let me put it this way, no other country in this world can provide what the Maldives' modernisation needs at competitive and affordable costs,” Hu said.

Lin Minwang, deputy director of the Centre for South Asian Studies at Fudan University, told the Hong Kong-based South China Morning Post that for China, engagement with Beijing-friendly Muizzu meant China’s investment could be “viewed objectively”.

“The current government [of the Maldives] has reversed the previous government’s attitude towards China and the [Belt and Road programme] … This is positive for China. At least the new president can regard the project objectively,” Lin told the newspaper.

Maldives’ importance to China “…stems from Maldives’ geographical positioning near crucial sea lanes that are important for China's energy supplies. Thus, to consolidate its influence over the island nation, China has been leveraging its economic largesse to court successive Maldivian administrations,” Mimrah Abdul Ghafoor, a Maldivian expert who writes on the politics and diplomacy of the Indian Ocean, wrote last year for Observer Research Foundation.

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