March 11, 2025 • 13 mins
Mauritius and neighboring islands in the Indian Ocean are at the center of a great-power chess match involving the US, China and India. All want to use them as bases to protect shipping lanes and project military might in the region.
On today’s Big Take Asia Podcast, host K. Oanh Ha is joined by Bloomberg correspondent Peter Martin to discuss the power struggle, and the implications of China’s growing clout in the region.
Further listening: The Shadowy Fleet of Tankers Moving Iranian Oil to China
Watch, from Originals: The Illicit Shipping Trade Hiding in Plain Sight
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Speaker 1 (00:02):
Bloomberg Audio Studios, podcasts, radio news.
Speaker 2 (00:09):
Mauritius, an island in the Indian Ocean, is increasingly becoming
a popular travel destination.
Speaker 1 (00:16):
It's the greenest green like I've ever seen.
Speaker 2 (00:20):
Peter Martin is a Bloomberg correspondent covering Africa in the
Middle East. He's based in Nairobi, Kenya, in East Africa,
and last month he hopped on a four hour flight
to Mauritius.
Speaker 1 (00:31):
I'm from the countryside in England and the plants growing
in this volcanic soil on the side of these dramatic
mountains and then surrounded by these perfect blue waters and
coral reefs. It's really a strikingly beautiful place.
Speaker 2 (00:48):
But Peter wasn't in Mauritius to take a vacation. He
was there because the tiny island nation is now front
and center of an increasingly tense and vital global power play.
Speaker 1 (01:00):
It's one of those parts of the world that after
the Cold War was a little bit forgotten, and it's
largely known for its perfect beaches and as a tax pavement,
but it's also the merged as a kind of crucial
theater for competition. This kind of interesting three way tussle
between China, India, and the United States.
Speaker 2 (01:21):
Mauritius and its neighboring islands in the Indian Ocean are
strategically important for these global powers. They use the islands
as basis to protect shipping lanes in the Indian Ocean
and to project military power throughout the region, and China's
growing presence and influence in the Indian Ocean is raising
(01:41):
alarm in India.
Speaker 1 (01:43):
India looks at the whole of the Indian Ocean region
as something akin to its backyard. Deli sees the region
as a place which is crucial to its ability to
do trade, to procure energy, and is non negotiable part
of its path to great power status. And so the
(02:04):
idea that any foreign power, but especially Beijing, could threaten
that is profoundly worrying for policymakers in Delhi. I think
it's fair to say that it keeps them up at night.
Speaker 2 (02:18):
Welcome to The Big Take Asia from Bloomberg News. I'm Wanha.
Every week we take you inside some of the world's
biggest and most powerful economies and the markets, tycoons and
businesses that drive this ever shifting region. Today on the
show How Mauritius and its island neighbors got caught in
a power tussle between the world's biggest economies. And what
(02:40):
does China's growing cloud in the Indian Ocean mean for India,
the US and the rest of the world. Mauritius is
a tiny volcanic island about fifteen hundred miles from the
East African coast in the Indian Ocean. It has a
population of about one point three million people, and its
(03:02):
ties with one of its biggest neighbors, India, runs deep.
Speaker 1 (03:07):
Mauritius had no indigenous population when Europeans showed up. The
island was primarily populated by Britain, taking ethnic Indians from
the subcontinent there as indentured laborers. About seventy percent of
the population are ethnic Indian and Mauritius doesn't have a
(03:27):
standing military, so it relies on India for that external security.
Speaker 2 (03:32):
But in recent years the island has started to see
new influences emerge, especially in the island's capital, Port Louis.
Speaker 1 (03:40):
China has poured infrastructure investment into the island. It's built
a substantial dam, invested in the Special Economic Zone. It's
built radio stations, shopping malls a long list of projects,
and you can see the way that the United States,
for example, has responded to it. The US embassy was
(04:00):
based or is still based in a kind of cramped
office building in downtown Port Louis, but Washington is pouring
three hundred million dollars into building a new mega embassy there.
Speaker 2 (04:12):
The maneuvering by these global powers has put Port Louis
onto the map of global geopolitical hotspots. This week, Indian
Prime Minister Norendra Modi traveled to Mauritius for a two
day state visit to reinforce the island's importance to his country.
Speaker 1 (04:27):
So the Modi administration, partly because of China's increased presence
in the region, has spoken for many years about a
neighborhood first policy. Delhi very much sees Mauritius as part
of its extended neighborhood and wants to show that it
is going to put in the work to show Mauritius
that it's valued in Delhi and to make sure that
(04:48):
its voice is being heard in the tolls of power
in Port Louis.
Speaker 2 (04:51):
Peter spoke to the Foreign Minister of Mauritius for this story,
and he said, while the government welcomes the investment, politicians
are also very much much aware of the tight rope
it has to walk with all of these competing interests.
Speaker 1 (05:05):
He was very frank that in the past, small nations
like Mauritius feel like they've been ignored by major powers,
and that's changing, and it's changing to the advantage of Mauritius.
He was very explicit about that. I think you see
like a strong recognition there that there's a lot to
be gained from engaging with China, but if you go
(05:25):
too far down that path, it creates problems for your
relationship with the US and India. So the country is
really trying to sort of balance itself there between these
three competing powers.
Speaker 2 (05:36):
Peter says, what's happening on Mauritius with these three global
powers is playing out all across the Indian Ocean on
different islands and surrounding coastal countries. One big reason for
all this jockeying trade the Indian Ocean sits in the
middle of major shipping routes and key maritime choke points
that allow oil to move between Europe, Asia, Africa, and.
Speaker 1 (05:59):
The Middle East. This region is essential to global trade.
It's essential to global energy flows. It's home to something
like forty percent the world's offshore petroleum, and historically India
is overwhelmingly dependent on maritime trade as a lifeline for
its economy. It's something like eighty percent of India's oil imports,
(06:23):
ninety five percent of its trade by volume come in
through the Indian Ocean, so it's really crucially significant.
Speaker 2 (06:31):
But trade is only half the reason these global powers
have their eyes on the Indian Ocean. It's strategically vital
for India for maybe obvious reasons, but it's also become
strategically important to China.
Speaker 1 (06:45):
China's first overseas military base was constructed in Djibouti on
the Horn of Africa, opened in twenty seventeen and gives
China potential to project power across the Middle East. And
if you look at the Pentagon's list of places where
the US believes that China is interested in establishing overseas bases,
(07:07):
they more or less draw a ring around the Indian
Ocean region. And if you're looking at this from Delhi,
it's profoundly threatening.
Speaker 2 (07:13):
For decades, India focused on threats that would come by land.
When it came to security. India shares a border with China,
and thousands of troops from both sides have engaged in
ten standoffs along the disputed frontier since the nineteen sixties.
Peter says China's growing quest for influence on land and
(07:33):
sea has forced India to think of its namesake Ocean
as a second border with China.
Speaker 1 (07:39):
When we were reporting this story, we talked to Indian
policymakers and one of the things that they said to
us was that India's attitude toward overseas basing has changed.
It now recognizes the fact that it's going to need
to project military power further overseas, and it's going to
need to contest China's influence in the region in a
much more.
Speaker 2 (08:02):
It's not just China in India that have a horse
in this race. The US is a big player in
these waters too. That's after the break. India and China
(08:24):
are jockeying for control in the Indian Ocean, and Bloomberg
reporter Peter Martin says that tussle is being closely watched
by the US.
Speaker 1 (08:34):
If you think about the issues and areas that matter
to the US most, what does it need to maintain
its future as a superpower. At the center of that
is its ability to continue to be a global trade
player and to have access to global international markets. So
if you're an American strategist looking at how do we
(08:55):
keep global trade flowing, then maintaining freedom of navigation in
the Indian Ocean region, ensuring that energy and goods can
continue to go back and forth, is crucial to America's
ability to continue to be a global trading partner.
Speaker 2 (09:11):
One other major reason the US cares so much about
the region security. The US has a major military base
that it runs with the UK on a remote island
in the Indian Ocean called Diego Garcia, a British territory.
Speaker 1 (09:25):
So if you look at a map of the Indian Ocean,
Diego Garcia is right in the center of it. Used
historically to monitor maritime communications, to monitor submarine activity, used
later in the War on terraf by the US to
launch bombing raids on Afghanistan and Iraq, and so really
(09:46):
important strategic location there.
Speaker 2 (09:49):
Last year, the UK drafted a deal to hand back
Diego Garcia and some other islands to Mauritius in order
to comply with the UN Court ruling. There's some uncertainty
where their president Donald Trump will sign off on the deal,
which includes a provision to keep the military base on
the island for at least another ninety nine years. But
the US needs more than an island air base in
(10:12):
the Indian Ocean to counter China's growing influence in the region.
It needs other partners to help, with India at the
top of the list.
Speaker 1 (10:21):
Washington is very much aware that it needs to support
India as a potential partner in that competition with China.
Washington would very much like India to beat the sheriff
in the region. I've heard Washington policymakers use that phrase
as it confronts the reality that it can't be everywhere
all the time with the same amount of resources.
Speaker 2 (10:41):
So you've got China and India throwing money into development
and infrastructure projects in the region, in Mauritius and in
other places, while the US is pulling back on foreign aid.
I mean, USAAD has been gutted. Is the US at
a disadvantage because it's not funding projects the way Indian
and China are Is that part of the conversation.
Speaker 1 (11:02):
It's definitely part of the conversation. Washington was the world's
largest aid spender, and lots of that aid went to
countries across the Indian Ocean region. There are commentators, especially
if you talk to former Biden officials, who say that
this opens a potential door for Beijing, but it's not
clear cut and.
Speaker 2 (11:22):
Do we have a sense of how this jocking for
power in the Indian Ocean will play out?
Speaker 1 (11:27):
I think when you look at the Indian Ocean from
the perspective of Beijing and New Delhi, China fears that
its access to Middle East oil could be cut off
and feels the need to position military assets in the
region and to gain diplomatic influence in the region. India
looks to the region as its backyard, as the first
(11:49):
place that it needs to assert itself as a rising power,
and it feels like Beijing is encroaching on its ability
to do that. Washington doesn't feel a threat in quite
the same direct way, but President Trump has been very
clear about his identification of China as a major economic threat.
(12:09):
So it's really about Washington looking to keep his own
voice in the conversation, but then looking at how can
it partner with other countries to make sure that China
doesn't become the dominant voice in the region.
Speaker 2 (12:23):
This is The Big Take Asia from Bloomberg News. I'm wanh.
This episode was produced by Nameing Young Young and Jessica Beck.
It was edited by Patty Hirsh and Neil Munschi. It
was fact checked by Young and Naomi, mixed by Alex Sugira,
and sound designed by Jessica. Our senior producer is Naomi Shaven.
Our senior editor is Elizabeth Ponso. Our executive producer is
(12:46):
Nicole Beemster Bower. Save Bauman is Bloomberg's head of podcasts.
If you like this episode, make sure to subscribe and
review The Big Take Asia wherever you listen to podcasts.
It really helps people find the show. Thanks for listening.
See Next Time, MHM.
Bloomberg Audio Studios, podcasts, radio news.
Speaker 2 (00:09):
Mauritius, an island in the Indian Ocean, is increasingly becoming
a popular travel destination.
Speaker 1 (00:16):
It's the greenest green like I've ever seen.
Speaker 2 (00:20):
Peter Martin is a Bloomberg correspondent covering Africa in the
Middle East. He's based in Nairobi, Kenya, in East Africa,
and last month he hopped on a four hour flight
to Mauritius.
Speaker 1 (00:31):
I'm from the countryside in England and the plants growing
in this volcanic soil on the side of these dramatic
mountains and then surrounded by these perfect blue waters and
coral reefs. It's really a strikingly beautiful place.
Speaker 2 (00:48):
But Peter wasn't in Mauritius to take a vacation. He
was there because the tiny island nation is now front
and center of an increasingly tense and vital global power play.
Speaker 1 (01:00):
It's one of those parts of the world that after
the Cold War was a little bit forgotten, and it's
largely known for its perfect beaches and as a tax pavement,
but it's also the merged as a kind of crucial
theater for competition. This kind of interesting three way tussle
between China, India, and the United States.
Speaker 2 (01:21):
Mauritius and its neighboring islands in the Indian Ocean are
strategically important for these global powers. They use the islands
as basis to protect shipping lanes in the Indian Ocean
and to project military power throughout the region, and China's
growing presence and influence in the Indian Ocean is raising
(01:41):
alarm in India.
Speaker 1 (01:43):
India looks at the whole of the Indian Ocean region
as something akin to its backyard. Deli sees the region
as a place which is crucial to its ability to
do trade, to procure energy, and is non negotiable part
of its path to great power status. And so the
(02:04):
idea that any foreign power, but especially Beijing, could threaten
that is profoundly worrying for policymakers in Delhi. I think
it's fair to say that it keeps them up at night.
Speaker 2 (02:18):
Welcome to The Big Take Asia from Bloomberg News. I'm Wanha.
Every week we take you inside some of the world's
biggest and most powerful economies and the markets, tycoons and
businesses that drive this ever shifting region. Today on the
show How Mauritius and its island neighbors got caught in
a power tussle between the world's biggest economies. And what
(02:40):
does China's growing cloud in the Indian Ocean mean for India,
the US and the rest of the world. Mauritius is
a tiny volcanic island about fifteen hundred miles from the
East African coast in the Indian Ocean. It has a
population of about one point three million people, and its
(03:02):
ties with one of its biggest neighbors, India, runs deep.
Speaker 1 (03:07):
Mauritius had no indigenous population when Europeans showed up. The
island was primarily populated by Britain, taking ethnic Indians from
the subcontinent there as indentured laborers. About seventy percent of
the population are ethnic Indian and Mauritius doesn't have a
(03:27):
standing military, so it relies on India for that external security.
Speaker 2 (03:32):
But in recent years the island has started to see
new influences emerge, especially in the island's capital, Port Louis.
Speaker 1 (03:40):
China has poured infrastructure investment into the island. It's built
a substantial dam, invested in the Special Economic Zone. It's
built radio stations, shopping malls a long list of projects,
and you can see the way that the United States,
for example, has responded to it. The US embassy was
(04:00):
based or is still based in a kind of cramped
office building in downtown Port Louis, but Washington is pouring
three hundred million dollars into building a new mega embassy there.
Speaker 2 (04:12):
The maneuvering by these global powers has put Port Louis
onto the map of global geopolitical hotspots. This week, Indian
Prime Minister Norendra Modi traveled to Mauritius for a two
day state visit to reinforce the island's importance to his country.
Speaker 1 (04:27):
So the Modi administration, partly because of China's increased presence
in the region, has spoken for many years about a
neighborhood first policy. Delhi very much sees Mauritius as part
of its extended neighborhood and wants to show that it
is going to put in the work to show Mauritius
that it's valued in Delhi and to make sure that
(04:48):
its voice is being heard in the tolls of power
in Port Louis.
Speaker 2 (04:51):
Peter spoke to the Foreign Minister of Mauritius for this story,
and he said, while the government welcomes the investment, politicians
are also very much much aware of the tight rope
it has to walk with all of these competing interests.
Speaker 1 (05:05):
He was very frank that in the past, small nations
like Mauritius feel like they've been ignored by major powers,
and that's changing, and it's changing to the advantage of Mauritius.
He was very explicit about that. I think you see
like a strong recognition there that there's a lot to
be gained from engaging with China, but if you go
(05:25):
too far down that path, it creates problems for your
relationship with the US and India. So the country is
really trying to sort of balance itself there between these
three competing powers.
Speaker 2 (05:36):
Peter says, what's happening on Mauritius with these three global
powers is playing out all across the Indian Ocean on
different islands and surrounding coastal countries. One big reason for
all this jockeying trade the Indian Ocean sits in the
middle of major shipping routes and key maritime choke points
that allow oil to move between Europe, Asia, Africa, and.
Speaker 1 (05:59):
The Middle East. This region is essential to global trade.
It's essential to global energy flows. It's home to something
like forty percent the world's offshore petroleum, and historically India
is overwhelmingly dependent on maritime trade as a lifeline for
its economy. It's something like eighty percent of India's oil imports,
(06:23):
ninety five percent of its trade by volume come in
through the Indian Ocean, so it's really crucially significant.
Speaker 2 (06:31):
But trade is only half the reason these global powers
have their eyes on the Indian Ocean. It's strategically vital
for India for maybe obvious reasons, but it's also become
strategically important to China.
Speaker 1 (06:45):
China's first overseas military base was constructed in Djibouti on
the Horn of Africa, opened in twenty seventeen and gives
China potential to project power across the Middle East. And
if you look at the Pentagon's list of places where
the US believes that China is interested in establishing overseas bases,
(07:07):
they more or less draw a ring around the Indian
Ocean region. And if you're looking at this from Delhi,
it's profoundly threatening.
Speaker 2 (07:13):
For decades, India focused on threats that would come by land.
When it came to security. India shares a border with China,
and thousands of troops from both sides have engaged in
ten standoffs along the disputed frontier since the nineteen sixties.
Peter says China's growing quest for influence on land and
(07:33):
sea has forced India to think of its namesake Ocean
as a second border with China.
Speaker 1 (07:39):
When we were reporting this story, we talked to Indian
policymakers and one of the things that they said to
us was that India's attitude toward overseas basing has changed.
It now recognizes the fact that it's going to need
to project military power further overseas, and it's going to
need to contest China's influence in the region in a
much more.
Speaker 2 (08:02):
It's not just China in India that have a horse
in this race. The US is a big player in
these waters too. That's after the break. India and China
(08:24):
are jockeying for control in the Indian Ocean, and Bloomberg
reporter Peter Martin says that tussle is being closely watched
by the US.
Speaker 1 (08:34):
If you think about the issues and areas that matter
to the US most, what does it need to maintain
its future as a superpower. At the center of that
is its ability to continue to be a global trade
player and to have access to global international markets. So
if you're an American strategist looking at how do we
(08:55):
keep global trade flowing, then maintaining freedom of navigation in
the Indian Ocean region, ensuring that energy and goods can
continue to go back and forth, is crucial to America's
ability to continue to be a global trading partner.
Speaker 2 (09:11):
One other major reason the US cares so much about
the region security. The US has a major military base
that it runs with the UK on a remote island
in the Indian Ocean called Diego Garcia, a British territory.
Speaker 1 (09:25):
So if you look at a map of the Indian Ocean,
Diego Garcia is right in the center of it. Used
historically to monitor maritime communications, to monitor submarine activity, used
later in the War on terraf by the US to
launch bombing raids on Afghanistan and Iraq, and so really
(09:46):
important strategic location there.
Speaker 2 (09:49):
Last year, the UK drafted a deal to hand back
Diego Garcia and some other islands to Mauritius in order
to comply with the UN Court ruling. There's some uncertainty
where their president Donald Trump will sign off on the deal,
which includes a provision to keep the military base on
the island for at least another ninety nine years. But
the US needs more than an island air base in
(10:12):
the Indian Ocean to counter China's growing influence in the region.
It needs other partners to help, with India at the
top of the list.
Speaker 1 (10:21):
Washington is very much aware that it needs to support
India as a potential partner in that competition with China.
Washington would very much like India to beat the sheriff
in the region. I've heard Washington policymakers use that phrase
as it confronts the reality that it can't be everywhere
all the time with the same amount of resources.
Speaker 2 (10:41):
So you've got China and India throwing money into development
and infrastructure projects in the region, in Mauritius and in
other places, while the US is pulling back on foreign aid.
I mean, USAAD has been gutted. Is the US at
a disadvantage because it's not funding projects the way Indian
and China are Is that part of the conversation.
Speaker 1 (11:02):
It's definitely part of the conversation. Washington was the world's
largest aid spender, and lots of that aid went to
countries across the Indian Ocean region. There are commentators, especially
if you talk to former Biden officials, who say that
this opens a potential door for Beijing, but it's not
clear cut and.
Speaker 2 (11:22):
Do we have a sense of how this jocking for
power in the Indian Ocean will play out?
Speaker 1 (11:27):
I think when you look at the Indian Ocean from
the perspective of Beijing and New Delhi, China fears that
its access to Middle East oil could be cut off
and feels the need to position military assets in the
region and to gain diplomatic influence in the region. India
looks to the region as its backyard, as the first
(11:49):
place that it needs to assert itself as a rising power,
and it feels like Beijing is encroaching on its ability
to do that. Washington doesn't feel a threat in quite
the same direct way, but President Trump has been very
clear about his identification of China as a major economic threat.
(12:09):
So it's really about Washington looking to keep his own
voice in the conversation, but then looking at how can
it partner with other countries to make sure that China
doesn't become the dominant voice in the region.
Speaker 2 (12:23):
This is The Big Take Asia from Bloomberg News. I'm wanh.
This episode was produced by Nameing Young Young and Jessica Beck.
It was edited by Patty Hirsh and Neil Munschi. It
was fact checked by Young and Naomi, mixed by Alex Sugira,
and sound designed by Jessica. Our senior producer is Naomi Shaven.
Our senior editor is Elizabeth Ponso. Our executive producer is
(12:46):
Nicole Beemster Bower. Save Bauman is Bloomberg's head of podcasts.
If you like this episode, make sure to subscribe and
review The Big Take Asia wherever you listen to podcasts.
It really helps people find the show. Thanks for listening.
See Next Time, MHM.
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