China develops ‘Underwater Surveillance Networks’ in Indian Ocean and South China Sea

China develops ‘Underwater Surveillance Networks’ in Indian Ocean and South China Sea

China has developed a new underwater surveillance network to help its submarines get a stronger lock on targets while protecting the nation’s interests along the maritime Silk Road, which included the Indian Ocean, a media report said.

The system, which has already been launched, works by gathering information about the underwater environment, particularly water temperature and salinity, which the navy can then use to more accurately track target vessels as well as improve navigation and positioning, the Hong Kong-based South China Morning Post reported.

The project, led by the South China Sea Institute of Oceanology under the Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS), is part of an unprecedented military expansion fuelled by Beijing’s desire to challenge the US in the world’s oceans, the Post said.

After years of construction and testing, the new surveillance system was now in the hands of the navy, which reported “good results”, the oceanology institute said in its latest briefing in November, according to the report.

But China still has some way to go before it can compete with the world’s only true superpower, it said.

The Chinese system is based on a network of platforms – buoys, surface vessels, satellites and underwater gliders – that gather data from the South China Sea, and the Western Pacific and Indian oceans, the paper quoted the report by Oceanology Institute.

That information is then streamed to three intelligence centres – in the Paracel Islands in the South China Sea, the southern province of Guangdong, and a joint facility in South Asia – where it is processed and analysed, it said.

In recent years, China has stepped up naval expeditions to the Indian Ocean to fight the pirates in Gulf of Aden.

These expeditions included large naval ships accompanied by submarines. China is silent about the reasons to deploy submarines for anti-piracy operations.

China is also seeking to establish logistic bases in the Indian Ocean, much to the chagrin of India.

The first such base was opened by China in Djibouti last year and it acquired the Hambantota port of Sri Lanka on a 99 years lease for debt swap and currently developing the Gwadar port in Pakistan as part of China-Pakistan Economic Corridor.

China is involved in maritime disputes in the South and East China Seas. It claims almost all of the South China Sea and has also laid claims on the Senkaku islands under the control of Japan in the East China Sea, believed to harbour vast natural resources below their seabed.