Posted on 11/30/2004 4:09:24 AM PST by Srirangan
30 November 2004: Two Chinese ships have been seized in and around the Andamans last week.
More than forty Chinese sailors with suspicious identities were carrying navigation equipment on board the ships.
They were also conducting a survey of the magnetic resonance of the seabed in the vicinity of the islands on which India plans to station a part of its strategic forces.
So far, the arrested sailors have said they are fishermen, who mistakenly entered into Indian territorial waters.
Officials said that the ships came from either the East China Sea or the South China Sea, a distance of more than two-thousand miles, which makes it not a case of casual, mistaken intrusion.
When informed about the seizures, the Chinese embassy in New Delhi buttoned up, and its officials refused to meet the arrested sailors.
Since some Taiwanese nationals were identified among the arrested, the Taiwanese diplomats were summoned, who promptly reached the island, confirmed their citizens, and exposed some of the Chinese with fake travel documents who were posing as Taiwanese.
While the intelligence agencies are investigating the spying, the government is keen to play down the incident.
Magnetic resonance of the seabed sheds light on its condition, its capacity to accept submarines, and the kind of weapons that can be used in case of hostility.
Busy, busy, busy little ChiComs. Now coming to a neighborhood near you, armed with state of the art missle and nuclear technology sold to them by the Clintons and the Democrat Party.
This latest version of fish finders sure do have advanced techologies.
And a growing super quiet littoral submarine force.
I was surprised to find out that the Andamans belong to the India at all. But, given their location, you can understand why the ChiComs would be interested.
You need to map the magnetic signature of the seabed in order to make optimal use of Magnetic Anomoly Detectors if you are trying to track hostile submarines. Given that it looks like the Indians are going to post strategic missile submarines (possibly nuke carrying) at the Andamans, I would wager the US is looking closely at this area as well. But we're better at this sort of thing, so we won't get caught...
Hmm.. The Andamans and Nicobar Islands are a legacy of the British Raj for India. Majority of inhabitants sent there by the Brits were Indians hence decided to join the Indian Union after 1947.
The Indian Navy and US Navy have been jointly patrolling the straits for close to two years now. The Straits of Malabar being a very critical trade route for China, Korea's and Japan; and India and US too.
Hopefully the US will assist India in containing the maritime capabilities of China. India's like the most unfortunate country regarding location, stuck betw commies and islamic extremists.
I think if we handle things well the Indians can be a good ally for us. They are a working democracy and having them as a counterbalance to the Chinese in SE Asia would be helpful. They also share a common enemy with us, islamic fascists.
I think if we handle things well the Indians can be a good ally for us. They are a working democracy and having them as a counterbalance to the Chinese in SE Asia would be helpful. They also share a common enemy with us, islamic fascists.
You're absolutely right about that. India is not interested in being a client state of anybody. They were one of the founders of the Non-Aligned Movement, after all. But I think they would be more than happy to cooperate with any nation willing to treat them as an equal.
I think the US is very serious about having a mature relationship of equals with India. This would be to the great benefit of both nations.
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