Pledging to provide tangible benefits for nations in the Indo-Pacific region, the leaders of the Quad _ four countries alliance, have launched a maritime surveillance plan to counter China.
The Quad – an informal alliance of United States, Japan, India and Australia – says the Indo-Pacific Partnership for Maritime Domain Awareness (IPMDA) will help the Pacific Islands and countries in Southeast Asia and the Indian Ocean track illegal fishing and other illicit activities in their waters in real-time.
Although the Quad did not mention China by name, the initiative is aimed at addressing long-held complaints from countries in the region about unauthorised fishing by Chinese boats in their exclusive economic zones as well as encroachment by Chinese maritime militia vessels in the disputed waters of the South China Sea.
The Quad did not provide details of the initiative, but an unnamed US official told Britain’s Financial Times newspaper that the group plans to fund commercial satellite-tracking services to provide maritime intelligence to the Indo-Pacific nations free of charge.
By monitoring radio frequencies and radar signals, the initiative will also help countries track boats even when they try to avoid detection by turning off their transponders, known as Automatic Information Systems (AIS). This intelligence will then be shared across an existing network of regional surveillance centres based in India, Singapore, Vanuatu and the Solomon Islands.
Greg Poling, fellow for Southeast Asia at the US-based Center for Strategic and International Studies, described the IPMDA as “ambitious” and said it “could be enormously helpful” to developing states across the Indian Ocean, Southeast Asia and the Pacific Islands. “This effort could seriously lower the cost and increase the capabilities of monitoring illegal fishing and Chinese maritime militia behaviour,” he said.
With an estimated 3,000 vessels, China’s distant water fleet is by far the world’s largest.
