India's warships celebrate Independence Day near South China Sea

Two Indian Navy warships celebrated Independence Day – far from the shores of India and near the centre of maritime belligerence of China.

Even before Prime Minister Narendra Modi hoisted the national flag at the Red Fort in Delhi, the celebration started onboard the two Indian Navy warships, INS Ranvijay and INS Kora, currently on port call at Cam Ranh Bay, a deep-water bay on an inlet of the South China Sea and on the southeastern coast of Vietnam.

“With the first rays of the sun at Cam Ranh Bay #Vietnam #MissionDeployed warships of #IndianNavy in the far East, #INSRanvijay & (and) #INSKora mark the commencement of the #historic celebrations of #IndiaIndependenceday,” the Indian Navy posted on Twitter, along with the picture of the national flags flying on the ships.

Independence Day was celebrated on board two other Indian Navy ships -- INS Shivalik and INS Kadmatt -- sailing in the vicinity after participating in a bilateral exercise with warships of the Royal Brunei Navy.

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The South China Sea is a major waterway and the sea lanes in this region account for over US $ 5 trillion of international trade. It has been at the centre of a territorial conflict between China and many of its maritime neighbours.

Though an Arbitral Tribunal constituted under the 1982 United Nations Convention on Law of Sea (UNCLOS) delivered a unanimous decision five years ago rejecting China’s expansive claims on South China Sea, Beijing has been steadfastly refusing to adhere to it.

The INS Ranvijay, INS Kora, INS Shivalik and INS Kadmatt comprise a task force the Indian Navy recently deployed on a two-month-long mission to South East Asia, South China Sea and the Western Pacific.

Apart from the navies of Vietnam and Brunei, the four Indian Navy warships will have bilateral drills with the navies of Philippines, Malaysia, Australia and Indonesia, which all have maritime disputes with China.

It will also sail to Western Pacific to take part in the ‘Malabar 21’, a multilateral drill by the navies of the ‘Quad’ – a coalition forged by India, Australia, Japan and the United States to counter the hegemonic aspirations of China in the Indo-Pacific region.

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The Indian Navy vessels have been holding joint drills with the US Navy’s warships returning from deployment in South China Sea – more regularly since the Chinese PLA’s aggressive move to unilaterally change the status quo along the China-India Line of Actual Control (LAC) in eastern Ladakh and counter-deployment by the Indian Army in April and May 2020 resulted in a stand-off.

India’s warships and fighter aircraft had last month a joint drill with the United States Navy’s Ronald Reagan Carrier Strike Group, which recently conducted “maritime security operations” in the South China Sea, riling up China.

The Indian Navy ships had joint drills with the Nimitz Carrier Strike Group of the US Navy in the Indian Ocean in July 2020. The Indian Air Force’s aircraft joined the Indian Navy ships for another joint drill with the US Navy’s Theodore Roosevelt Carrier Strike Group on March 27 and 28 this year.

New Delhi has been opposing Beijing’s move to press the South-East Asian nations to insert in the proposed Code of Conduct on South China Sea certain clauses that would help China keep its rivals like India, the United States and other nations outside the region away from the disputed waters.