History of Indian Ocean shows how old rivalries can trigger rise of new forces

By Sanjeev Sanyal
After hundreds of years of dominating the Indian Ocean and the broader region, the West is gradually withdrawing. This is allowing the emergence of new geopolitical dynamics. In the Middle East, we see a Sunni alliance led by Saudi Arabia and Turkey pitted against a Shia alliance led by Iran. Meanwhile, China is establishing its footprint in the region with bases in Djibouti and Gwadar, Pakistan.It is simultaneously expanding into Southeast Asia with claims over the Spratly Islands.
Interestingly, both sets of developments echo geopolitical dynamics that played themselves out in the Indian Ocean rim before the arrival of the Europeans. Revisiting this history provides interesting insights into the long-term implications of such rivalries.
Byzantines versus Persians
In the sixth century AD, the Middle East was dominated by two powers — a Christian alliance led by the Byzantine empire and the Sasanian empire of Iran. The main regional ally of the Byzantines was Ethiopia that had recently converted to Orthodox Christianity. One of the factors that drove the rivalry was control over the Yemen-Oman coast as it was key to trade with India. As a contemporary Byzantine put it, “For it is impossible for the Ethiopians to buy cloth from the Indians, since the Persian merchants always locate themselves in the very harbours where the Indians first put in.”
The Ethiopian king Ella Asbeha tried several times to place a Christian on the Yemeni throne. However, each time the Ethiopian army withdrew, the Jewish and pro-Persian factions rose in revolt. Finally, Ella Asbeha left behind a large Ethiopian garrison but the soldiers went rogue and placed their own candidate on the throne. In this way Yemen was devastated by a complicated civil war. Eventually, the Persians intervened and took over the coast.
As if the Byzantine-Persian wars were not bad enough, the region suffered a deadly pandemic. Known as the Plague of Justinian, it spread across the Mediterranean and the Middle East killing an estimated 25-50 million people. Thus, when the seventh century dawned, the northwestern rim of the Indian Ocean was exhausted from war and disease. When the Arabs suddenly rose under the banner of Islam, the Byzantines and the Persians were simply too depleted to respond.
The Yemeni and Omani tribes fighting Persian rule were among the earliest groups to convert to Islam. The Arabs next defeated the Sasanians at the Battle of Qadisiyyah in 637AD and took over their empire. The last embers of Sasanian culture now survive as the tiny Parsi community in India. The Byzantines were similarly forced back into their heartlands in Anatolia (what is now Turkey). Their empire would slowly shrink to a small area around their capital Constantinople till Ottoman Turks captured and renamed it Istanbul.
Chinese treasure fleet
At the beginning of the 15th century, the Ming emperor of China decided to fund a series of grand voyages to the Indian Ocean. Note that these were not voyages of exploration as the routes had been well-known for hundreds of years. Instead, it was a display of geopolitical reach. Remember that the Chinese had only recently overthrown the Mongols and were keen to establish their position in the world; rather like today’s China.
Between 1405 and 1433, the Chinese fleet would make seven voyages that would visit Southeast Asia, India, Sri Lanka, Oman and East Africa. The fleets included giant “treasure ships” accompanied by hundreds of smaller vessels and as many as 28,000 men. The unlikeliest of people led the expeditions — a Muslim eunuch called Zheng He from landlocked Yunnan!
The Chinese would soon use the fleet to re-arrange the geopolitical landscape of the Indian Ocean. They backed the Thai against the Khmers. In India, they seem to have installed a new Samudrin in Kozhikode. They found Sri Lanka in a state of civil war, so one of the claimants to the throne was captured and taken to meet the Ming emperor. He was later sent back as part of a plan to ensure Chinese influence over the island. Zheng He similarly intervened in a war of succession in Sumatra.
Perhaps the most significant intervention was support for the new kingdom of Melaka as a counter-weight to the Majapahit of Java. The Hindu Majapahit were the most powerful maritime power in the Indian Ocean at that time and were opposed to Chinese expansion into their sphere of influence.
The Chinese provided systematic support to Melaka and its king made at least one trip to personally pay obeisance to the Ming emperor. Interestingly, the kingdom was also encouraged to convert to Islam to create a permanent opposition to the Hindus of Java. Melaka prospered under Chinese protection while the Majapahit were steadily pushed back. The Javanese princes who refused to convert eventually withdrew to Bali where their culture is alive to this day.
Back in China, however, the Confucian mandarins were suspicious of power accumulated by the eunuchs through the navy. So they deliberately undermined the navy. The treasure ships were allowed to rot and the records of the voyages were suppressed. China withdrew into centuries of isolationism and left a vacuum in the Indian Ocean that would be filled by an unexpected entrant — the Portuguese.
Twist of history
An important lesson of history is that geopolitical rivalries often have unintended consequences and can trigger the rise of a completely new force. The incessant Byzantine-Sasanian wars created the conditions that led to sudden Arab expansion. The Chinese fleet cleared the Indian Ocean of local powers but, by withdrawing suddenly, it left a vacuum that was filled by Europeans. This would eventually lead to the humiliation China itself suffered at the hands of colonial powers. Of course, history does not repeat itself exactly but, as Mark Twain put it, it often rhymes.
Sanyal is the author of ‘The Ocean of Churn: How the Indian Ocean shaped Human History’