did not benefit his nation enough in terms of compensation for
years of colonial rule and the forced expulsion of the
archipelago’s original inhabitants.
That occurred when the Chagos Archipelago's seven atolls separated
from Mauritius in 1965, and the largest of them, Diego Garcia
(07°18'S 072°27'E) , was leased to the United States to house a
major, highly secretive military base in the Indian Ocean.
But the handover is bound to happen, and there is already talk
about turning the sun-drenched archipelago into a tourist paradise
akin to its closest island neighbor, the Maldives, situated some
500 kilometers away.
Exclusive luxury resorts could conceivably be built, attracting
high-spending visitors from all over the world. Diving, surfing and
so-called “eco-friendly” activities are already being touted on
lifestyle websites referring to the Chagos Archipelago as a “new
Maldives.”
But therein lies the geostrategic problem. Britain has pledged to
provide Mauritius with financial support to develop the islands,
including a partnership to build badly needed infrastructure.
However, Mauritius is a sovereign country and it is hard to imagine
that China will not seek to finance its own projects on the
archipelago – and not just because Beijing is interested in helping
to turn the islands into an attractive destination for
globetrotting Chinese tourists.
That is exactly what has happened in the Maldives, where Chinese
visitors top tourism arrival lists. China has invested heavily in
infrastructure development, including a bridge connecting the
islands of Hulhule and Hulhumale with the capital, Male. That
building has bought political influence, raising concern with the
Maldives’ traditional development partner and strategic ally
India.
The Maldives is strategically important to China because it lies
along the sea routes through which its imported oil from the
Persian Gulf travels.
If China were to gain a strategic foothold in the Chagos
Archipelago through seemingly innocent investment projects, it
would give China a key vantage point to monitor US military
activities at Diego Garcia.
In case of a future conflict, including possible military
confrontation between the United States and China, Diego Garcia
would play a crucial role in America’s defense of its interests in
the Indian Ocean and beyond.
China, on the other hand, is rapidly expanding its political and
economic, and therefore also strategic, influence in the Indian
Ocean at the expense of the United States and India. And that is
why alarm bells are ringing in Washington.
After the deal’s announcement in October, Republican US senators
criticized the British government for ceding control of the Chagos
Archipelago, warning that the move would be “a coup for Chinese
interests.”
Among them was Idaho Senator James Risch, a senior member of the
Senate Foreign Relations Committee, and Texas representative
Michael McCaul, who chairs the House Foreign Affairs Committee.
With Republican Donald Trump headed for the White House, such
concerns may gain louder resonance among the many known China hawks
in his Cabinet.
According to the tentative Britain-Mauritius agreement, the United
States will retain control of Diego Garcia for 99 years after the
handover.
However, certain parallels are already being drawn with Britain’s
1997 handover agreement with China on Hong Kong, where Beijing
pledged to uphold the principle of “one country, two systems” for
50 years and then broke the deal by imposing its authoritarian rule
on the once freewheeling British colony.
To be sure, Mauritius is not China. More than half of the island
republic’s population are descendants of indentured laborers
brought from India by the British during the colonial era to work
on sugar plantations, so naturally, relations with India have
always been close.
Fast forward to the present, China’s influence is growing in the
Indian Ocean and Beijing clearly sees Mauritius as a gateway to
Africa, where China’s interests are growing via its Belt and Road
Initiative and assorted natural resource extraction deals.
Chinese President Xi visited Mauritius in 2018. At a grand ceremony
held in Xi's honor, the Chinese leader said that he looked forward
to exchanging views with Mauritius “on bilateral relations and on
international and regional issues of mutual concern.”
A year later, Mauritius became the first African country to enter
into a free trade agreement with China, which came into force in
January 2021 and has since weighed heavily in China’s favor.
According to the United Nations COMTRADE database on international
trade, Mauritius’ imports from China totaled US$993 million in
2023, while its exports to China, despite annual increases,
amounted to a mere $26.32 million.
China has also invested
liberally in Mauritian finance, real estate, manufacturing and
tourism.
That all means Mauritius is drawing closer to China, allowing it to
diversify diplomatically and commercially from its long-time
partner India.
The Chagos Archipelago has long been sought after by outside
powers. It was uninhabited when Maldivian and European seafarers
visited the islands more than 500 years ago. The French established
coconut plantations on the larger islands and brought in slaves
from its possessions in the region.
The British took over the archipelago in 1815, governing it from
Mauritius which was then also a British colony. Slavery was
abolished by the British in 1840, but the coconut plantations
remained. Nothing remarkable happened there until 1965 when Britain
purchased the archipelago from the then-self-governing colony of
Mauritius.
Three years later, Mauritius was granted full independence from
Britain, but with a major caveat: The British insisted that
Mauritius would not become independent unless it agreed to separate
the Chagos Archipelago from its domains. It thus became known as
the “British Indian Ocean Territory”, and it soon became clear why
London insisted on the separation.
Britain and the United States had agreed to turn the archipelago’s
main island of Diego Garcia into a formidable military base whereby
Britain would remain the colonial power and the United States would
lease the land. At the same time, the entire population of the
archipelago, then consisting of some 1,000 people, was forcibly
evicted and sent to Mauritius and the Seychelles.
Diego Garcia’s strategic location was obvious. In the event of war
or another emergency, it offers the US and UK access to East
Africa, the Middle East, South and Southeast Asia, and oversees
vital shipping lines across the Indian Ocean.
Diego Garcia’s creation was also in line in the time with a new US
policy known as the “Strategic Islands Concept”, where military
bases were to be built away from populous mainland areas where they
could be exposed to anti-Western and anti-American
opposition.
Diego Garcia played an important role as a logistics base in both
Gulf Wars in 1990-91 and 2003 and was also used to support US-led
combat operations in Afghanistan. More controversially, terrorist
suspects who had been captured in Afghanistan and elsewhere were
sent to Diego Garcia where they were subjected far from prying eyes
to so-called “extraordinary rendition.”
The original inhabitants of the archipelago, known as the
Chagossians, have for years fought for the right to return home.
Those demands were rejected repeatedly by the British
government.
However, in 2019, the International Court of Justice issued an
advisory stating that the entire British Indian Ocean Territory
should be handed back to Mauritius. The Chagossians, now in second
and third generations since their removal from the islands, are
reputedly over 10,000 in number.
But the main issue is how Mauritius will govern the archipelago
once it becomes part of its republic and how it will balance
relations with China, the United States and other Indian Ocean
powers. It is not only Washington that is worried about Chinese
expansion into the strategic and increasingly hotly contested
maritime region.
India, which is struggling to maintain good relations with
occasionally hostile Maldives and increasingly unpredictable
Mauritius, has always considered the Indian Ocean “its lake.”
With the departure of the British from their last possession “east
of Suez”—as the saying goes—anything can happen. But it would be
naive to believe that China, with its rising geostrategic interests
in the Indian Ocean, will not seek to play an outsized role in
shaping the Chagos Archipelago’s future.
