Vivetha Jayaseelan
Introduction
The Indo-Pacific is one of the most important regions in the world today. It functions as a vast maritime highway, connecting Asia, Africa, and the Americas through essential trade routes, energy corridors, and sea lanes. Most discussions about the Indo-Pacific tend to focus on major powers such as the United States, China, India, and Japan. In these conversations, Africa is often treated as if it exists only on the margins, a passive continent rather than an active participant. In reality, Africa’s eastern coastline lies at the very heart of the Indo-Pacific and is absolutely essential for the region’s future security and prosperity. For this research, Mozambique serves as the primary case-study.
It is a clear and powerful example of why Africa matters a great deal. The country is strategically positioned along the Mozambique Channel, a critical waterway that connects the Indian Ocean with the Atlantic. This channel ranks among the busiest trade routes globally. Mozambique’s geographic location provides it with significant economic opportunities through the development of ports, rich fisheries, and massive offshore gas reserves. However, this same position also exposes the country to serious risks, including piracy, a devastating terrorism insurgency in its northern Cabo Delgado province, and rampant illegal fishing.
This paper takes Mozambique as a central case study to explain Africa’s vital and active role in the Indo-Pacific. It also examines how India has engaged with Mozambique through an approach that can be termed resilience diplomacy. This concept involves helping partner nations build internal strength to deal with various shocks, encompassing not only military threats but also economic, health, and climate challenges. India’s multifaceted engagement in Mozambique includes substantial investment in the natural gas sector, the training of naval officers, the provision of educational scholarships, swift humanitarian relief, and a generous vaccine diplomacy program during the COVID-19 pandemic.
By focusing on Mozambique, we can clearly see that Africa is not a passive space where large powers merely compete for influence. Instead, it is a continent of active players that make their own strategic choices, carefully balance relationships with various global partners, and significantly shape regional outcomes. India’s resilience diplomacy aligns with Mozambique’s own needs in ways that differ markedly from the more forceful and sometimes coercive strategies employed by other powers. This relationship demonstrates that the Indo-Pacific can be more than an arena for rivalry; it can also be a region of constructive cooperation, shared growth, and mutual respect.
Mozambique’s Maritime Significance in the Indo-Pacific
Mozambique’s physical geography grants it a central place in the Indo-Pacific strategic landscape. The Mozambique Channel, which flows between the Mozambican coastline and the island of Madagascar, is one of the world’s busiest and most strategic waterways. A constant stream of ships carrying oil, liquefied natural gas, and containerized goods from Asia and the Middle East to Europe and the Americas passes through this channel. Consequently, Mozambique sits at the crossroads of major sea lanes of communication. Any significant disruption in this maritime corridor would immediately affect global trade and energy markets, impacting consumers and economies worldwide.
The channel’s importance extends beyond international shipping to regional trade and security. For landlocked countries in Southern Africa such as Malawi, Zimbabwe, Zambia, and Botswana, Mozambique’s ports are indispensable gateways to the global economy. The Port of Maputo is a key hub that connects the wider region to international supply chains. Other ports like Beira and Nacala serve as crucial export points for agricultural products, coal, and other minerals. With proper investment and development, these ports possess the potential to grow into major regional hubs, thereby linking the African continent more closely and efficiently to the dynamic economies of the Indo-Pacific.
Furthermore, Mozambique controls one of the largest Exclusive Economic Zones in Africa. Its national waters are rich in fish stocks that sustain local livelihoods and contribute significantly to national export revenue. Fishing is therefore both a critical economic and a fundamental food security issue for the nation. However, the country faces a severe problem with illegal, unreported, and unregulated fishing. Foreign fishing fleets often take advantage of Mozambique’s limited surveillance and enforcement capabilities to plunder its waters. This illicit activity not only causes direct economic losses but also undermines the country’s sovereignty and the sustainability of its marine resources. Strengthening maritime governance is therefore a key priority for Maputo.
The most significant economic development in Mozambique’s recent history has been the discovery of vast offshore natural gas reserves in the Rovuma Basin. These reserves are among the largest natural gas finds globally. Extraction projects led by international consortia, which include major Indian firms such as ONGC Videsh, promise to transform Mozambique into a top-tier exporter of liquefied natural gas (LNG). This development has major implications for global energy markets. For India, one of the world’s fastest-growing energy consumers, Mozambique’s LNG offers a vital opportunity to diversify its energy supply away from the Middle East. For European nations, Mozambican gas could potentially become a reliable alternative to Russian energy in the future.
Yet, these tremendous opportunities arrive alongside serious and pervasive risks. The ongoing insurgency in the Cabo Delgado province has already severely disrupted gas projects and displaced hundreds of thousands of people. Brutal attacks on towns and key infrastructure have delayed investments by years and raised costs exponentially. Offshore gas installations remain vulnerable to sabotage or terrorist attacks from the shore. Moreover, the insurgency has created a profound humanitarian crisis, with vast displaced populations requiring urgent aid and protection.
These interlinked developments demonstrate that energy security in Mozambique is utterly inseparable from broader issues of domestic stability, governance, and human security. Piracy presents another persistent challenge. While piracy in the western Indian Ocean has declined significantly since its peak off the coast of Somalia, the risk of its resurgence remains ever-present. Criminal networks are highly adaptable and quickly exploit areas with weak security. If substantial security gaps appear in the Mozambique Channel, it could rapidly become a new hotspot for piracy, directly threatening the global shipping that depends on this route.
In summary, Mozambique’s maritime significance is built upon three foundational pillars. The first is its strategic location along a global sea lane of paramount importance. The second is its endowment of resource rich waters, containing both valuable fisheries and world-class offshore gas reserves. The third is its vulnerability to a complex set of security threats that have both local and global ramifications. Together, these factors elevate Mozambique from a regional African actor to a country of central importance to the entire Indo Pacific region.
External Actors in Mozambique’s Maritime Space
Given its strategic and economic importance, Mozambique has attracted significant attention from a diverse array of external actors. Each of these powers views Mozambique through its own distinct strategic lens, but the Mozambican government itself actively engages with these relationships to maximize its own national advantage.
China has emerged as a major partner for Mozambique, primarily through its sprawling Belt and Road Initiative. Chinese financing has been instrumental in building critical roads, railways, and port projects throughout the country. These investments address genuine and pressing infrastructure gaps within Mozambique, but they also generate considerable concern regarding debt sustainability and long-term dependency. China’s growing naval presence in the western Indian Ocean, underscored by its first overseas military base in Djibouti, indicates that its interests are not purely economic but also possess a strong military and security dimension.
Numerous reports and maps produced by Western analysts often depict African coastlines covered in Chinese flags, creating a powerful impression that China already dominates the region. However, this simplistic view fails to capture the agency of African states. Nations like Mozambique actively negotiate terms, diversify their international partnerships, and strategically play external powers against one another to avoid over-reliance on any single patron.
The United States and the European Union have focused their engagement more intently on security cooperation. Their primary concern has been the destabilizing insurgency in Cabo Delgado and the protection of multi-billion dollar LNG investments. The EU has explicitly expanded its Indo-Pacific strategy to include enhanced maritime security cooperation, capacity-building programs, and sustained support for African coastal states. For Mozambique, this external support provides essential resources, training, and intelligence. However, this assistance often arrives with conditions and is framed according to the strategic priorities set by these external actors, which may not always perfectly align with Mozambique’s own long-term development goals.
Regional actors also play an indispensable and often overlooked role. South Africa maintains a direct and compelling stake in Mozambique’s stability due to shared borders, deep historical ties, and intertwined economies. It has taken a leadership role in SADC military operations aimed at stabilising the Cabo Delgado region. Other regional and Gulf states, such as the United Arab Emirates, have also invested heavily in Mozambican port infrastructure and energy projects.
These overlapping engagements demonstrate that Mozambique is not merely a passive site for global competition but also a key node within regional African and Middle Eastern security and economic networks. Despite the intense interest from these numerous external powers, Mozambique has consistently demonstrated that it is not a weak or helpless player. Its political leaders have skilfully balanced relations with China, India, the United States, the European Union, and regional partners like South Africa. By astutely leveraging its strategic geography and immense natural resources, Mozambique has successfully exercised its sovereign agency to make choices that serve its perceived national interest, navigating a complex geopolitical landscape with notable deftness.
India’s Resilience Diplomacy in Mozambique
India’s relationship with Mozambique offers a compelling example of how New Delhi has sought to build influence and partnership in Africa without resorting to the establishment of military bases or the use of coercive economic pressure. Instead, India has pursued a strategy best described as resilience diplomacy. This approach focuses on strengthening a partner nation’s inherent capacity to withstand and recover from a wide spectrum of shocks, whether they are security-related, economic, health-based, or environmental. India’s economic role in Mozambique is most visible and significant in the energy sector.
Indian state-owned firms, including ONGC Videsh, Bharat Petroleum, and Oil India, have invested several billion dollars in the massive Rovuma Basin LNG projects. These strategic investments help India secure future energy supplies for its own growing economy while simultaneously contributing to Mozambique’s economic development and fiscal revenue. Crucially, and in contrast to China’s often loan-heavy model, India’s investments are typically framed as equity partnerships and joint ventures, fostering a sense of shared risk and reward rather than creating a creditor-debtor dynamic.
Beyond commerce, India has played a vital and valued humanitarian role. During the peak of the insurgency in Cabo Delgado and in the aftermath of destructive natural disasters like cyclones, India provided timely support for evacuations and delivered essential relief supplies to affected populations. Perhaps most notably, during the devastating COVID-19 pandemic, Mozambique was among the many African nations that received life-saving vaccines under India’s Vaccine Maitri (Vaccine Friendship) initiative. These concerted efforts significantly strengthened India’s image as a reliable and compassionate partner that values human security and welfare as much as strategic or economic gain.
Capacity-building forms another critical pillar of India’s engagement. India has extensively trained Mozambican naval officers, offered numerous scholarships for Mozambican students to study in India, and donated patrol vessels to enhance maritime domain awareness. Joint naval exercises conducted in the western Indian Ocean have further improved interoperability and enhanced Mozambique’s own maritime security capabilities. Importantly, India’s approach deliberately avoids seeking permanent military bases. The core objective is to strengthen Mozambique’s own innate capacity to secure its territorial waters and exclusive economic zone. This philosophy aligns perfectly with India’s broader SAGAR vision, Security and Growth for All in the Region, which emphasizes cooperative security and collective prosperity.
Resilience diplomacy also encompasses digital and broader development cooperation. India has supported the establishment of IT training centers, shared expertise in agricultural development, and contributed to infrastructure projects. These initiatives assist Mozambique in building resilience against economic shocks and bridging technological gaps. They also help reduce the nation’s vulnerability to potential coercion by other, more powerful external actors. Collectively, these multifaceted engagements reflect India’s distinctive approach to the Indo-Pacific.
While other global powers often project influence through hard military power or overwhelming financial investment, India’s model seeks to empower partners from within, respect national sovereignty, and patiently build long-term, organic resilience. Mozambique has responded very positively to this collaborative model precisely because it aligns closely with its own paramount needs for stability, sustainable growth, and independent agency.
Findings
• The detailed case study of Mozambique reveals three paramount findings that have broader implications for the Indo-Pacific. First, Mozambique is not a marginal or peripheral state but a crucial geographic and economic connector between the African continent and the wider Indo-Pacific. Its strategic location and immense natural resources endow it with genuine global significance, making it a country that great powers cannot afford to ignore.
•Second, the Mozambican government is not merely a passive recipient of external pressure or a pawn in a grand strategic game. It is an active agent that makes conscious and calculated choices, adeptly balancing its relationships with a diverse array of partners to advance its own national goals and evelopment objectives. This demonstrates a high degree of diplomatic skill and strategic autonomy.
• Third, India’s resilience diplomacy provides a distinct and compelling alternative to more traditional, and often more coercive, forms of international engagement. By focusing on holistic capacity-building, mutual economic benefit, and inclusive growth, it offers Mozambique a partnership model that actively supports and reinforces its national sovereignty rather than undermining it. This approach stands in stark contrast to strategies that can create dependency or compromise a nation’s ability to make independent choices.
Recommendations
• For India, there exist several clear avenues to deepen and enhance its productive engagement with Mozambique. First, maritime security cooperation should be expanded in both scope and scale. This could include initiatives such as shared maritime surveillance systems, advanced training for the Mozambican coast guard, and coordinated joint patrols specifically within the Mozambique Channel to deter piracy and illegal fishing.
• Second, India should strive to balance its substantial energy sector investments with more visible and impactful support for Mozambique’s broader blue economy. This could involve providing expertise and technology for sustainable fisheries governance, supporting the development of environmentally friendly port infrastructure, and investing in coastal community development projects that ensure local populations benefit from oceanic resources.
• Third, India should actively pursue collaboration with other like-minded partners, such as the European Union and Japan, in trilateral cooperation formats. Such partnerships could focus on strengthening security around Mozambique’s critical LNG infrastructure without making the country dependent on the military presence of a single external power, thereby preserving its strategic autonomy.
For Mozambique, the priorities should be equally clear. The government should strengthen its coordination with African institutions such as the African Union and the Southern African Development Community (SADC). This will ensure that its national maritime strategy is not fragmented or solely influenced by outside powers but is instead aligned with broader continental frameworks and priorities, giving it greater collective bargaining power. Mozambique should also continue its prudent strategy of deliberately diversifying its international partnerships. Maintaining strong ties with a wide range of partners, including China, India, the US, the EU, and regional actors,is the best way to avoid becoming overly dependent on any single external power and to maximize its negotiating leverage.
Finally, the Mozambican government must promote sustainability and good governance as the central principles of its blue economy development. Ensuring that fisheries, hydrocarbon extraction, and coastal resources are managed transparently and sustainably is absolutely essential for supporting long-term economic resilience, social stability, and environmental health.
Conclusion
Mozambique’s story powerfully demonstrates why Africa must be placed at the very center of all serious debates about the Indo-Pacific. Its geographic location, its natural resource wealth, and its complex security challenges directly shape not only regional trade and energy flows but also have a tangible impact on global security architecture. For India, its engagement with Mozambique through the innovative framework of resilience diplomacy shows that it is indeed possible for a major power to build substantial influence and forge strong partnerships without resorting to coercion or creating dependency.
This cooperative model prioritizes capacity development, respects national sovereignty, and champions inclusive growth. By consciously placing African agency at the centre of its policy and offering a visible alternative to zero-sum power politics, India’s deepening engagement with Mozambique provides a hopeful vision for the Indo-Pacific, one that is more balanced, cooperative, and mutually beneficial. If sustained and deepened over the long term, this resilience diplomacy could help both Africa and Asia collaboratively shape a regional order founded on the enduring principles of partnership, dignity, and shared futures.
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About the contributor: Vivetha Jayaseelan is a student and practitioner of International Relations. She is a fellow of DFPGYF Diplomacy, Foreign Policy & Geopolitics Youth Fellowship- Cohort 2.0.
Disclaimer: All views expressed in the article belong solely to the author and not necessarily to the organisation.
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Acknowledgement: This article was posted by Shivashish Narayan, a visiting researcher at IMPRI.
