A French-led naval exercise, called La Perouse, kicks off in the Bay of Bengal on April 5, also involving all four members of the so-called Quad, the U.S., Japan, Australia and India. While this isn’t the first time for the La Perouse exercise, it will be the first time that India has participated in it. The last La Perouse exercise took place in 2019 but without India. The three-day exercise “will provide an opportunity for these five like-minded, high-end naval forces to develop closer links, sharpen their skills, and promote maritime cooperation throughout a free and open Indo-Pacific,” the French embassy in New Delhi said in a statement March 31, reported the Nikkei Asia Journal. Both Nikkei and South China Morning Post report that it follows the virtual summit of the Quad on March 12 which was itself followed by U.S. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin’s three-day visit to India. Both reports, written by correspondents in India, are heavily influenced by the Indian attitude (as well that of the U.S.) towards China.
Various commentators consider that China will be taking a keen interest in these exercises, not only because of recent U.S. provocations in the South China Sea, but also because of the role of France.
Both articles also make the point that while China may make noises about the Quad+1 exercise, it’s really ASEAN that China is concerned about. “If France joins Quad plus it doesn’t make much difference to the Chinese, but if Vietnam, Indonesia or the Philippines joins the Quad then it makes a huge difference [to Beijing] because these countries will offer their naval bases [in the region to Quad members],” Srikanth Kondapalli, a professor of Chinese Studies at Jawaharlal Nehru University, told Nikkei Asia.
SCMP also writes that the exercise follows a week in which each of the Quad countries had at least one bilateral military exercise with at least one other Quad partner. On March 28-29, the Indian air force and navy participated in an exercise with U.S. naval warships in the Bay of Bengal, while the Japanese Maritime Self-Defense Force conducted two separate bilateral exercises. One was an exercise with Australian navy warships in the South China Sea from March 29-31 and the other was a day-long exercise with a U.S. navy warship in the East China Sea on March 29.
