What Was China Doing Underneath The Indian Ocean Recently?

They were usually known to be coming from the skies, to unleash hell here upon the face of the earth. Just that now it appears that drones are being parked down at underwater bodies to perhaps cater to some possibly threatening developments. Chinese drones are as much the truth of our times as is the outbreak of the Coronavirus!

A famous saying in the world of espionage quotes the former CIA Chief James Jesus Angelton, “Surveillance is a state of the mind and the mind of the state!”

Well said there Mr. Angleton. But then if you were to flip the statement and wrap a Chinese context to it, what would you find? Perhaps, this could lead to a question central to China, one that must be asked and asked with utmost seriousness.

Is Surveillance the state of the Chinese mind and the mind of the Chinese state? Surely, Mr. Xingping has better things to do than answer this burning question, which one feels must concern the powers in Asia and in the rest of the world.

We knew that through mobile software, state-directed HUMINT activities and the increasing Reconnaissance around the sphere of American defense, China was up to something. But surely, a question that’s often gone unanswered, rather unanswered with sufficiency is the one that now hinges on another misdeed that points to the great Oriental land.

What were 12 Chinese drones recently doing underneath the Indian Ocean? What was the real purpose of the XI Jinping-led country sending as many as 12 Chinese drones down an important vertex that links several countries geographically- India, Pakistan, and others to boot.

Revered international publication Forbes recently shared that the silent deployment of 12 Chinese drones was to fundamentally monitor an important domestic program of China’s own Ministry of Natural Resources, that had been running a Joint Ocean and Ecology Research Project.

Originally, the program was supposed to install 14, not 12 Chinese drones that had been launched by the Xiangyanghong 06, which parked the drones back in December.

But then technical abnormalities saw the cancellation of 2 Chinese drones. The launch vehicle has since then returned to Rizhou in China.

If you were to follow updates pertaining to this rather interesting piece of development then you’d find out that the drones deployed by the Chinese Mainland are similar to what the US Navy uses on a regular basis, thereby suggesting some parities in the art of Underwater Surveillance Warfare, also a dominant discourse of our times.

Thus far, the 12 Chinese drones have reverted back with as many as 3,400 observations.

An important type of famous Uncrewed Underwater Vehicles, the Chinese drones were basically a kind of Sea Wing Gliders.

Interestingly, they can operate for months together without a constraint. That said, Mr. H I Sutton, one of the noted writers in the sphere of Underwater Surveillance notes the following insights on the subject:

The Sea Wing isn’t a case of reverse engineering, however. It was reported in Chinese sources in September 2016, months before the U.S. Navy incident. But the American type is a clear influence and they are generally equivalent.

The case in point being the rather similar design patterns and styles between the Chinese sea glider (Haiyi) and the US Navy’s Littoral Battlespace Sensing Glider. Back in 2016, the former was just about to be recovered by the US Navy’s Bowditch when a Chinese vessel that had been shadowing the Navy vessel plucked it under highly unlikely circumstances.

So the question one needs to introspect with greater interest and cohesion is this: are the games of espionage changing altogether in this age where sophisticated high-tech mechanisms can obstruct even from under the surface? Well, there doesn’t seem to be a doubt about that.