Chinas Underwater Data Collection Not For Peaceful Purposes Alone Vice Admiral Anil Jaggi

Vice Admiral Anil Jaggi, the Commandant of the National Defence Academy said on Monday said that China has been regularly deploying its large ocean surveying fleet of approximately 64 active research and survey vessels in the Indian Ocean region to collect seabed, hydrographic and oceanographic data, and warned that “these research activities are certainly not for peaceful purposes alone.”

Adm Jaggi was speaking at a seminar titled “Advancing Underwater Domain Awareness Framework for India’s Mahasagar Vision and its Realization”, organised by the Maritime Research Center (MRC), Pune, and the Indian Council of World Affairs (ICWA), New Delhi. Former Chief of the Naval Staff Admiral Karambir Singh, Dr Commander Arnab Das from MRC and Arudra Singh from ICWA were also present on the dais.

VAdm Jaggi said in his keynote address, “There has been a growing realisation of the threats that are being imposed from the underwater domain, especially in the Indian Ocean region, by certain activities and deeds of our adversaries, and also due to the increasing trends of ambiguous exploitation of the strategic domain by extra-regional agencies. China, for instance, has been regularly deploying its large ocean surveying fleet of approximately 64 active Chinese research and survey vessels for collecting seabed, hydrographic, and oceanographic data. One can easily fathom that these research activities are certainly not for peaceful purposes alone. In addition to utilization of the research vessels, Beijing is also deploying autonomous underwater vehicles, or AUVs, and underwater gliders for such other dubious activities. Some of these Chinese-origin gliders and AUVs have been recovered in Indonesia and the Philippines, very close to strategically important sea lanes and choke points of the Indian Ocean. It is no rocket science to comprehend that such data collection and sampling would be of immense value while planning deployment of underwater assets such as submarines and SSBNs by the PLA Navy when the need arises.”

VAdm Jaggi, a Navigation and Direction specialist, further said in his speech, “Another serious grey zone underwater threat, where attribution will always remain contested, is from the vulnerability of undersea cables and critical infrastructure. This was adequately demonstrated through sabotage activities and damages inflicted on the undersea cables in the Baltic Sea during the ongoing Russia-Ukraine conflict. These occurrences have further enhanced the relevance of and the impetus that is being accorded by the Government of India and the Indian Defence Forces to Underwater Domain Awareness (UDA). From a national security and defense perspective, UDA augments our capability to detect and counter underwater threats, protect critical maritime infrastructure, secure our sea lanes of communication, and in an offensive posture, bolster launching of a credible deterrence. As underwater technologies continue to evolve, maintaining complete awareness of the happenings beneath the sea will become equally important, if not more, when compared with the requirement of maintaining adequate surveillance above the surface of oceans. The Indian Navy is therefore vigorously progressing various projects and initiatives linked to UDA.”

‘Must come up with seabed warfare strategy’

Speaking about the possible targets, Former Navy Chief Adm Singh said in his speech, “We have a host of critical infrastructures whether it is undersea telecommunications cables, undersea pipelines carrying oil, gas and green hydrogen, power cables and a bewildering array of offshore installations for resource extractions. As much as 99 percent of intercontinental traffic is on undersea cables. Everytime you pick up a phone to ask ChatGPT something or order something online, you are using an undersea cable. If you don’t have that, the entire economic lifeline of the country can be lost.”

Adm Singh added, “A situation mentioned by the CEO of one of the data communications networks, who says that we are really not too far away from entire countries becoming digitally inaccessible when one or two cables connecting them go down. We have got 24 undersea cables and the number is going to increase. There are countries that have one or two. So this cutting of undersea cables is something that we need to be really worried about. When we say we have 24, what happens if one of the cables gets cut, we reroute to another cable. The point is our undersea cables are already 80 to 90 per cent utilised. And the utilisation is going up. So we will not have the bandwidth to reroute the traffic. So even one cable cut can cause a great deal of damage. That is why the UN General Assembly has designated undersea cables as critical information infrastructure. So my recommendation is that the Royal Navy has started deploying ships, auxiliaries for undersea cable protection, like the French have evolved seabed warfare strategy, as part of the policy we must come up with a seabed warfare strategy on how we are going to protect this critical information infrastructure.”

The Former Navy Chief further said, “There is an initiative by Singapore’s Ministry of Defence called the GUIDE which Guiding Principles for Underwater Infrastructure Defence Exchanges. Basically it is a coordination and cooperation mechanism for protection of undersea infrastructure. I feel that India must join it sooner than later.”

Sushant Kulkarni is a Special Correspondent with The Indian Express in Pune with 12+ years of experience covering issues related to Crime, Defence, Internal Security and Courts. He has been associated with the Indian Express since July 2010. Sushant has extensively reported on law and order issues of Pune and surrounding area, Cyber crime, narcotics trade and terrorism. His coverage in the Defence beat includes operational aspects of the three services, the defence research and development and issues related to key defence establishments. He has covered several sensitive cases in the courts at Pune. Sushant is an avid photographer, plays harmonica and loves cooking. ... Read More