Maldives’ Growing Proximity with China: Gain or Loss for India?

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Since Mohamed Muizu became the elected president of the Maldives in September 2023, a series of anti-India sentiments has been sweeping the country. Evidently, the allegiance of President Muizzu’s clearly lies in China. President Muizzu has earlier given the deadline for withdrawing Indian troops from the country, which will be an eventual move, accepted by India. A few days earlier, the two maritime neighbourhood countries got into a spat after a reference from a Maldivian minister to call India a ‘bully’ of the smaller countries of the region. New Delhi reacted by reminding the amount of aid, $4.5 billion, that the Maldives accepts from India.

Furthermore, while Maldives wants ‘India out’, the withdrawal of military personnel in any form in the island country, and the signing of defence ties with China creates a wary situation for the region. Maldives and China have had diplomatic and economic agreements with China in the past. In January, when President Muizzu visited China to meet with China’s President Xi Jinping and signed 20 agreements. However, this is the first time that Beijing and Male have formally established defence ties. Scholars have pointed out that this was a surprising and very quick move by Maldivian’s newly elected president and obviously will upset New Delhi.

Geography of Maldives is a Strategic Advantage

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All the views and opinions expressed are those of the author. Image Credit – Al Majalla.

About the Author

Sanchaly Bhattacharya is a teaching assistant at the Jindal School of International Affairs (JSIA). She is a contributing writer for various think tanks and news media outlets such as Organisation for Research on China and Asia (ORCA), Defence and Security Alert Magazine and Modern Diplomacy. She is currently pursuing Master of Arts (MA) in Diplomacy, Law & Business from O. P. Jindal Global University (JGU) and Master of Public Administration (MPA) in Governance & Public Policy from Netaji Subhash Open University, Kolkata. She holds a Bachelors degree in Geography & Economics from West Bengal State University.

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