India Sets Satellite Station In Vietnam to Monitor China

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India will get a strategic toehold in the South China Sea region as its new satellite monitoring station in Vietnam is expected to be activated soon and linked to another existing facility in neighbouring Indonesia, amid China’s growing ambitions in the area.

The space facility will essentially help the Indian Space Research Organisation track satellites launched from India and receive data from them. India has reportedly spent about $23 million to set up the facility.

It will be an important strategic asset for India in the South China Sea region, which has been at the centre of tensions between China and neighboring countries, particularly Vietnam and the Philippines, over the past few years. Some other Southeast Asian nations besides India, the US and Japan have expressed their concerns over China’s aggressive tactic in the area through which is the gateway for a significant portion of global trade. The South China Sea is also rich in natural resources.

Although the conflict has remained mild for some years now over this issue, tensions are once again on the rise after China landed a plane on an artificial island it has built in a contested part of the south China sea, prompting Vietnam to accuse Beijing of “serious infringement” of its sovereignty.

In response to India building its new satellite facility, Gu Xiaosong, an “expert on Southeast Asian studies” at the Guangxi Academy of Social Sciences was quoted by state-run Global Times as saying that New Delhi’s move to set up the satellite tracking station in Vietnam “clearly” indicated its “attempt to complicate the regional dispute”. “India has no territorial disputes with China in the South China Sea. It wants to stir up trouble in the region to serve its own ends, which is to counterbalance China’s influence,” he said.

India, however, states that the South China Sea dispute must be solved through dialogue and in a peaceful manner in accordance with principles of international law, including the 1982 United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea.