Maldives' Minister Says Hi-tech Chinese Research Ship's Activity Unrelated To His Country

The Maldives government does not believe that a hi-tech Chinese ship conducted any research related to the archipelagic nation despite docking in Male twice and skirting its territorial waters for three months before departing, a senior minister said on Wednesday.

Fisheries Minister Ahmed Shiyam was talking about the 4,500-tonne high-tech Chinese research ship Xiang Yang Hong 03′ that returned to Maldivian waters, two months after it spent a week docked at different ports in this nation. It docked at Thilafushi Industrial Island’s harbour on April 25.

This ship is currently in the Java Sea near Indonesia, Adhadhu.mv reported on Wednesday, quoting the satellite AIS tracking. We don’t know that they did anything that would have affected us. Or else we weren’t unaware that the research vessel did anything related to us and I don’t believe that they did, Shiyam told the news portal.

If the Chinese vessel conducted such research, Shiyam said he believed it would have been done in collaboration with the Maldives government and added that he would share further information after clarification. In February, a Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman said the research ship’s activities complied with the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS).

China’s scientific research activities in relevant waters are for peaceful purposes and aimed at contributing to humanity’s scientific understanding of the ocean, he said, adding that the vessel’s activities are in strict compliance with the terms of UNCLOS. Meanwhile, Shiyam said, The current government previously cancelled a hydrography agreement with India for underwater research.

His statement comes on a day when Maldives’ Foreign Minister Moosa Zameer left on his first official visit to India. Xiang Yang Hong 03, described as the most modern research vessel in the Chinese fleet, had begun its journey to the Maldives on January 14, barely 24 hours after President Mohamed Muizzu concluded his state visit to China.

The Chinese ship arrived near the Maldives on January 29 and docked in Male’ for the first time on February 22. After heading back to the boundary of the Maldives’ Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ), the vessel returned after a month and docked in the Thilafushi harbour on April 25.

The Foreign Ministry had earlier confirmed that Xiang Yang Hong 03 was visiting Maldives for the replenishment of stocks and the rotation of its crew. However, according to Adhadhu.mv’s report on April 26, the Maldives government had not disclosed the reason for its return.

Muizzu rode to power last year on an India Out’ promise and his People’s National Congress (PNC) won a landslide victory in the parliamentary polls on April 21, further consolidating his position. The Maldives’ proximity to India, barely 70 nautical miles from the island of Minicoy in Lakshadweep and 300 nautical miles from the mainland’s western coast, and its location at the hub of commercial sea lanes running through the Indian Ocean Region (IOR) gives it significant strategic importance.