Maldives Civil-Military Issues

[SSridhar]

http://www.latimes.com/world/asia/la-fg ... story.html
China appears to have loans near $3bn!

Prasad, by some estimates in c. 2017, over 70% of Maldives’ external debts is to China alone. In late November 2017, the Maldivian Parliament hurriedly passed the FTA with China in an extraordinary late evening sitting without any debate at all and within a matter of one hour (over a 1000 pages FTA document with no copy being made available to any MP at all!!). This exempted 95% of bilateral trade from tariffs and this will make the much skewed trade balance even more so in favour of China. This is the first FTA for Maldives with any country.

One of the first things that the new Government has to do is to scrap this FTA.

[hnair]

Prime Minister Modi will be landing to help cheer new govt being sworn in

[Supratik]

PM at oath taking ceremony.

https://youtu.be/7JZHOAGE5mU

[nam]

Prasad, by some estimates in c. 2017, over 70% of Maldives’ external debts is to China alone. In late November 2017, the Maldivian Parliament hurriedly passed the FTA with China in an extraordinary late evening sitting without any debate at all and within a matter of one hour (over a 1000 pages FTA document with no copy being made available to any MP at all!!). This exempted 95% of bilateral trade from tariffs and this will make the much skewed trade balance even more so in favour of China. This is the first FTA for Maldives with any country.

One of the first things that the new Government has to do is to scrap this FTA.

This is one of the reason I am against bailing out Maldives very easily. If the MPs themselves don't care for their nation, why should India care?

Bailing them out easily, will set a precedent where countries take Chinese money and we bail them. Next in line is Nepal.

We should ask Maldives to default on their loans to China, for any financial help from us. Our money should not be used to pay off Chinese loans and China and Maldives both get away without a scratch.

A new government will then repeat the cycle.

[abhijitm]

Prime Minister Modi will be landing to help cheer new govt being sworn in

I watched the ceremony. Modi and Nasheed have close bond. He is probably our backup guy if Solih betrays.

Yameen was absent.

[Arima]

Maldives to Pull Out of Free Trade Deal with China, Terms Signing of Pact a 'Mistake'

https://www.news18.com/news/world/maldi ... _top_pos_3

[chetak]

Prasad, by some estimates in c. 2017, over 70% of Maldives’ external debts is to China alone. In late November 2017, the Maldivian Parliament hurriedly passed the FTA with China in an extraordinary late evening sitting without any debate at all and within a matter of one hour (over a 1000 pages FTA document with no copy being made available to any MP at all!!). This exempted 95% of bilateral trade from tariffs and this will make the much skewed trade balance even more so in favour of China. This is the first FTA for Maldives with any country.

One of the first things that the new Government has to do is to scrap this FTA.

This is one of the reason I am against bailing out Maldives very easily. If the MPs themselves don't care for their nation, why should India care?

Bailing them out easily, will set a precedent where countries take Chinese money and we bail them. Next in line is Nepal.

We should ask Maldives to default on their loans to China, for any financial help from us. Our money should not be used to pay off Chinese loans and China and Maldives both get away without a scratch.

A new government will then repeat the cycle.

From my wanderings on the net

Not many know that the agreements between the Governments and China are not with the Chinese Governments but with individual companies in China and that any dispute for arbitration under BRI will have to be in the BRI Court in Xian in China and under Chinese Laws!

[chetak]

Prime Minister Modi will be landing to help cheer new govt being sworn in

I watched the ceremony. Modi and Nasheed have close bond. He is probably our backup guy if Solih betrays.

Yameen was absent.

Nasheed and Yameen are half brothers, they grew up in the same house and family. They are related by blood.

The ONLY word that readily comes to my mind is taqiya.

[Malayappan]

Maldives: Solih Takes Over- The Challenges ahead

The third challenge would to manage the high debt already incurred under the Belt and Road Initiative of China. It was earlier thought that the debt burden was around 1.5 billion dollars. It was later learnt by Solih that debt burden was around 3 billion dollars, a sum that is more than what the Maldivian Government raises in three years!.

[Lisa]

From my wanderings on the net

Not many know that the agreements between the Governments and China are not with the Chinese Governments but with individual companies in China and that any dispute for arbitration under BRI will have to be in the BRI Court in Xian in China and under Chinese Laws!

Chetakji,

Let's say the Chinese court rules against the borrower. How will they enforce the ruling? To the best of my knowledge, China is not a member to the Paris Club, correct? IMHO, the contract is not worth the paper on which it is written as China lacks the ability to enforce its will for it lacks the internationality necessary for enforcement.

[jaysimha]

http://pib.nic.in/newsite/PrintRelease. ... lid=184770
Press Information Bureau
Government of India
Ministry of Defence
15-November-2018 16:54 IST
Indian Navy completes refit of Maldivian Coast Guard Ship Huravee

[anupmisra]

After building spree, just how much does the Maldives owe China?

One week after taking power, the new government of the Maldives says it has no idea how much it owes China, which has led a construction spree in the tiny Indian Ocean nation, but fears the debts run up in the past five years could be unsustainable.

Mohamed Nasheed, a former president now serving as advisor to new President Mohamed Ibrahim Solih, said that the Chinese ambassador to the Maldives, Zhang Lizhong, handed the government an invoice for $3.2 billion - equivalent to around $8,000 for every inhabitant of the archipelago. China denies that, however, and says the number is closer to $1.5 billion.

“It was an invoice. It just had a figure, $3.2 billion. It was shocking,” said Nasheed. “It wasn’t just a conversation, it was a written note handed over, it was clear, you owe us this much.”

Zhang gave Solih the note at a meeting on Oct. 6, days after his stunning election victory over former President Abdulla Yameen.

After taking office at the weekend, Solih’s administration has said the country’s finances are in worse shape than expected, and that it will take weeks or months to untangle details of all the deals struck with Chinese firms.

“We are at a loss to understand how much we really owe to China,” said Nasheed.

With annual revenues of $1.5 billion and an annual gross domestic product of around $3.9 billion, it would be hard for the Maldives to service such a high debt

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-mald ... SKCN1NS1J2

[Arima]

billion dollar debt for 300k people??
let them sink in debt before they sink from rising ocean.

[chetak]

billion dollar debt for 300k people??
let them sink in debt before they sink from rising ocean.

String up the previous creep.

Let him answer publicly what he did with the money and how much of it is actually padded and/or deposited abroad.

This is the true meaning of BRI/OBOR/CPEC.

Let the world see and understand the true nature of the cheeni perfidy.

[Singha]

we should ask maldives to tear up the repayment invoice and just declare bankruptcy, and tell the chinese to get out, and ask for indians help if the chinese attempt to physically take over any assets.

surely in spirit of peace and brotherhood of OBOR, cheen can write off 1.5 billion no? their GDP is 13 trillion

[nam]

Maldives is asking for 200-300 million in aid to deal with the loan!

Nice bakra is been made out of us...

[Dumal]

Maldives is asking for 200-300 million in aid to deal with the loan!

Nice bakra is been made out of us...

Well, if that’s what we need to do, we should get one of their islands for perpetual use in return.

[Arima]

Maldives accuses China of pushing small nations into debt; Male minister says Beijing executed infrastructure projects at inflated prices

https://www.firstpost.com/world/maldive ... 22891.html

[Singha]

giving us a naval base on a 1000 yr lease and a treaty to clear all strategic projects with Delhi first is a must before we extend any money

maldives is a long archipelago of nearly 1000km length - we need to ask for 3 islands and esp the safe naval anchorage of Gan(Addu) - the southernmost point ...this is where the british fleet that ran away from trincomalee ahead of the japanese attack sheltered until the japanese moved away from bay of bengal.

we need to lock down the ins and outs of that whole area with multiple coast guard bases and airstripes.

they should also be offered chance to join the indian union as a autonomous protectorate kind of like puerto rico - part of the govt and economy but cannot vote.

[anupmisra]

India could legally absorb the Islands of Maldives as a union territory (with a similar status as Andaman & Nicobar Islands) by a vote.

After all, Maldives are an extension of the Lakshadweep Islands and the largest ethnic group is called Dhivehis, (who are also to the island of Minicoy in Union territory of Lakshadweep).

If so, it would be a legal absorption similar to Sikkim and all of Maldives' debts would become Indian. In exchange, India would get to extends its economic and military territorial rights. Build a few artificial islands.

If and when Maldives were to submerge in 30 years, its people as Indian citizens would have the mainland of India to go to.

Just an idea.

[Karthik S]

Long lease of an island sounds better idea.

[chetak]

Long lease of an island sounds better idea.

Not one island but a few with room for expansion, should it be required.

[Singha]

without looking at map its hard to realize Maldives is nearly 1000km from north to south consisting of several groups of atolls. people see only Male airport and nearby resort islands mostly. the lizard must have sneaked into other groups to keep a low(er) profile. now we have to shake the entire tree from root to canopy to flush these cats out.

pic of A320 handling Gan international airport in southern tip of chain https://www.google.com/maps/place/Gan+I ... d73.155678

I used to think of indonesia as "just a bunch of islands" until I took a globe and found that both sumatra and java are more than 1000km long end to end and papua new guinea and the little known kalimantan (the indonesian part of borneo) is also more than 1000km ... indonesia is bigger than TSP and about same size as Iran. its a meaty thickly populated fertile country(esp java) and the next growth hotspot in ASEAN.

[Singha]

this is next to gan airport

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Addu_Atoll

Unlike other atolls of Maldives, Addu city possesses a natural anchorage within the city basin, as the atoll is land-locked with large islands surrounding the atoll. This results in a natural harbor that is very calm and safe for sea vessels at all times, and is not affected by seasonal changes. The atoll possesses four channels which lead into the lagoon.



https://www.iwm.org.uk/collections/item ... /205159785

[Karthik S]

Realistically can we buy off an island ? An island with land reclamation can be turned into a big naval base. Is such purchase possible?

[Kashi]

We have the Minicoy islands, why not use them?

[Singha]

Minicoy is just same latitude as trivandrum so does not offer reach into the IOR.

Addu(Gan) on other hand is 1000km further south.

Diego garcia is just similar to Addu layout. just compare side by side . it is another 800km or so south of Gan = but with UK selling it to uncle there is no chance of us getting our paws on it....we can get Addu if we push hard now.

the diego ring of atolls is 2X thats of addu thats all. fine, so are our assets vs the kabila in diego. we need a naval FARP base, a coast guard station and a expanded Gan airport housing CG C295, Do228 and IN P8 on rotational duty. we need to reclaim some land inside the lagoon and make it big and high.
as compensation the natives of Addu or even all of Maldives could be offered free medical care and govt sponsored higher edu and rights to work and reside in India. we need to use our ample soft power to make it profitable to be in our camp.

https://www.google.com/maps/place/Minic ... d73.049586

https://www.google.com/maps/place/Minic ... d73.049586

[Arima]

My mind voice telling already cheen will have in mind deigo garcia type facility in one of these island for a long time.
just that they have made Maldives sit in debt pit. one step closer or who knows already deals would have been signed.

[hnair]

Those drooling over Addu et al - Insha-Ayappa, I intent to do a recon in the next few weeks of the said place with a small posse That place is considered their second largest city and has substantial investment from Maldivian govts over years in social infra. It has a pretty thriving cultural scene (a surprise to me for a small bunch of islands) and Indian businesses do well there.

In general, posters in this thread show a revulsion towards non-baki Indian Sub-continent nations, without realizing that these nations DONT want to join us and we dont want them in too. Despite our growth et al, we are not that cool in their world's eyes. They used to land up here in Trivandrum for medical treatment, child birth, kids education etc. Infact when there was football match as part of SAF games here, we joked that the whole of Kumarapuram (a suburb where a large number of maldivians used to stay due to proximity to hospitals and has a consulate) vs Nepal is being played.

But that situation has changed and the hangers on who come to escape island life etc has almost disappeared. Except for those that need medical treatment and education, the hanger-ons among Maldivians prefer Sri Lanka more nowadays, as they allow them some Spitting-lion-puram kind of ownership (99 year lease) of apartments, which India dont. In return, srilankan real estate guys get some assured clientele who want to escape the scaremongering over rising water levels etc. This was a big loss of revenue for local small lodgings in Trivandrum, but fortunately the uptick in IT jobs are covering it

About the previous govt: I checked with three separate businessmen, who together does a significant amount of business over at the atolls and they all are gungho since Nov 17th. Their old contacts are back and cheen is being smacked by those the other guy earlier put in jail. The previous moron used to take hefty cuts out of all, including our businessmen. Only cheeni dudes paid up without complaining, because they are used to such shyte in PRC. He used to use some entities in Spitting-lion-puram, to channel these. Finally it reaches the financial septic tank of the world.

So despite our reassuring Econ-threads, we are not exactly khanland kind of paradise they want to come over to and thrive under our umbrella or being open to annexation. So such talk as "let us send a gunboat/brigade/squadron over and show them" is not going to get any traction in New Delhi. Not under any government. Everyone here thought Prime Minister Modi will send in troops, but he did not. Instead he allowed the boys in slacks and dark glasses to do their jobs. They are the ones that is needed to enforce the writ of India and its interests. Not uniforms. And a terrific job they did. They really pulled cheen's trousers down for world to see their frilly Ling-Choo's undies.... One only hope they will be rotated around other parts of sub-continent too

[Singha]

well cheen will surely punish Maldives by diverting their ample number of tropical tourists to other parts like mauritius, bali, SL etc. other then begging the saudis, how else will the maldives earn money but from rich euro tourists and trade with india? they can catch fish, but rice kaha se milega ? from kumarakom onlee
china southern flies to male for sure , maybe others. dubai DXB as usual flies everywhere. i think hainan airlines and china eastern too either direct or via colombo.

rich euros can fly to other places which offer the same decadent comforts. they have the hard currency to take their business elsewhere. if we tar n feather the maldives as a unstable islamist den

cheen has been flooding the IOR with tourists to sweeten their economic plans

[hnair]

Cheen tourists are raggedy with poor reputations and were herded to specific resorts. That will continue as long as cheen wants to maintain a semblance of ech-undie. The snootier resorts (with better quality reefs) are mostly run by oiropean/oz gora managerial staff and owned by Indians (either in India or in Gelf). Rest of the space is owned by PEs out of Spitty-lion. So Cheen tourists wont matter. It is the Ruskies and other mainland oiros that flood the place with high-end tourists. Some of the weddings these guys host are legendary for the millions they blast. Margins are high, but so are the operating costs, due to the salt in the air. Every fixture needs an annual maintenance.

Pound for pound, Maldives provides the finest pristine island experience anywhere else in the world and if not for a close second which is slightly closer to home land(Tahiti), them khanlanders too would have made a beeline. Plus due to the isolation of each island in an atoll, snootiest of the goras get firewalled from the dirty. unwashed masses in other places like Carribean or Ibiza or Mayoooorcaas etc. They get whisked via seaplanes straight from airport and they done see squalor et al unlike other places. Well tuned machinery for wringing cash out of borderline racist but rich goras - use goras as managerial staff

[Singha]

sounds like a good play - if sea levels can be kept in check.

[ramana]

Singha, Take a look at the map. Maldives is closer to Equator than Sriharikota. I think an ISRO launch pad for heavy satellites for Geosynchronous orbit would be viable.
I wish someone could do a calculation for the weight delta between SHAR and Maldives taking into account the closeness to Equator and avoidance of dog leg maneuver needed to by pass Sri Lanka.

[Supratik]

We will need some kind of security arrangement with Maldives - may be a small naval detachment (base we will most likely have in Mauritius and Seychelles). Expect China to sooner or later try to smuggle in like in Sri Lanka using its proxies. This needs to be prevented.

[disha]

Dog leg maneuver is for Polar launches. For that a space port in Gujarat will help. The other is Balasore, but that is now not civilian.

For GTO/LEO, a space port at Maldives will surely help in terms of payload. However cost of setting up infrastructure & risks losing it far outweighs the costs saved from those launches.

A better option will be Andamans.

If GOI were to soend money for a new spaceport, it is better spent on sites within India.

[Singha]

even if a launch pad, there is no space for a french guiana type setup there. so a non-starter.

[ramana]

Disha hopefully it will be part of greater India.
Singha how much land is needed?

[ramana]

India could legally absorb the Islands of Maldives as a union territory (with a similar status as Andaman & Nicobar Islands) by a vote.

After all, Maldives are an extension of the Lakshadweep Islands and the largest ethnic group is called Dhivehis, (who are also to the island of Minicoy in Union territory of Lakshadweep).

If so, it would be a legal absorption similar to Sikkim and all of Maldives' debts would become Indian. In exchange, India would get to extends its economic and military territorial rights. Build a few artificial islands.

If and when Maldives were to submerge in 30 years, its people as Indian citizens would have the mainland of India to go to.

Just an idea.

First great idea in this thread....

[ArjunPandit]

Playing devil's advocate here. What does maldives have to offer us in long term
1. strategic access: As people say will be gone in next 30 years
2. People: Well the demography is not the best suited for us given their possibility of already infiltration with Chinese or pakistanis
3. Economic benefit: well their debt will come along with them.

[disha]

Disha hopefully it will be part of greater India.
Singha how much land is needed?

More than a spaceport, what will help is actually a submarine base.

Maldives coming into orbit of India as union territory will be a multi-decade process. Through it all, Maldivians must feel that they need to be part of India. Then they can start in motion resolutions to be part of India in their parliament and become union territory.

For that to happen, P5 also has to "agree" (by not interfering)., otherwise we will have a ukraine/crimea on hand.

Comparisons from Maldives to Sikkim end even before it begins.

And why do we need Maldives to be part of Indian union territory?