The Maldives has signed a “military assistance” deal with China after ordering Indian troops deployed in the small but strategically-placed archipelago to leave, officials said yesterday.
India’s 89 military personnel in the country will be gone by May 10 after having been previously ordered out by pro-China Maldivian President Mohamed Muizzu, who came to power last year on an anti-India platform.
The Maldivian Ministry of Defense said they signed an “agreement on China’s provision of military assistance” with Beijing late on Monday, saying the agreement was “gratis,” or without payment or charge, but gave no further details.
Photo: EPA-EFE
It said on social media platform X the deal was to foster “stronger bilateral ties.”
India is suspicious of China’s growing presence in the Indian Ocean and its influence in the Maldives, a chain of 1,192 tiny coral islands stretching about 800km across the equator, as well as in neighboring Sri Lanka.
Both South Asian island nations are strategically placed halfway along key east-west international shipping routes.
Relations between Male and New Delhi have chilled since Muizzu won elections in September last year.
New Delhi considers the Indian Ocean archipelago to be within its sphere of influence, but the Maldives has shifted into the orbit of China — its largest external creditor.
Muizzu, who in January visited Beijing, where signed a raft of infrastructure, energy, marine and agricultural deals, has previously denied seeking to redraw the regional balance by bringing in Chinese forces to replace Indian troops.
Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs spokesperson Mao Ning (毛寧) yesterday told reporters that Beijing was doing “its utmost to jointly build a comprehensive strategic cooperative partnership” with the archipelago.
“Normal cooperation between China and the Maldives does not target any third party and does not undergo any interference by third parties,” she added.
India last week said it was bolstering its naval forces on its “strategically important” Lakshadweep islands, about 130km north of the Maldives.
The Indian naval unit based on the island of Minicoy is to boost “operational surveillance” of the area, the navy said.
Addressing a public rally north of the capital on Monday, Muizzu vowed there would be no Indian troops on Maldivian soil after May 10, when they are expected to complete a withdrawal.
The Indians had been deployed to operate three reconnaissance aircraft New Delhi had gifted Male to patrol its vast maritime boundary.
India is expected to replace the military personnel with civilian staff to operate the aircraft, and the Maldivian defense ministry last month announced last month that Indian civilian crew had begun arriving in the atoll nation.
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