27-05-2025
Starmer has just handed China a massive victory
Britain is going ahead with the handover of the Chagos Islands to Mauritius. Despite intense legal challenges, Starmer has agreed to pay Mauritius 3.4 billion pounds for the privilege of surrendering a critical group of Indian Ocean atolls.
While supporters of the Chagos Islands handover hail it as the endpoint of British colonialism in Africa, its critics rail against the agreement's devastating impact on Britain's status as a world power. As the UK wants to be a powerful bridge state between the US and Europe and views the East of Suez strategy as a critical component of Global Britain, this loss of prestige is detrimental for Britain's post-Brexit foreign policy vision.
Outrage over Britain's Chagos Islands handover is about more than imperial nostalgia or concerns about geopolitical decline. It also stems from a righteous indignation about Britain's empowerment of its primary great power adversaries.
Mauritius's foreign policy orientation makes Starmer's Chagos Islands handover a dangerous proposition. In 1972, Mauritius became the first African country to establish an embassy in Beijing. It has since become a valuable beachhead for Chinese economic influence in Africa's Indian Ocean littoral region. In October 2019, China and Mauritius signed a free trade agreement which ensconced a trade imbalance that is highly beneficial for Chinese exporters. Even though Mauritius's entire GDP is just over $14 billion, China exports $1 billion to the country each year.
Mauritius is also strengthening its partnership with Russia. In April 2023, Mauritius's Ambassador in Moscow Heswar Janke declared that Russia had grown in prominence as a 'player' for the island nation. Mauritius is deepening cooperation with Russia in the fisheries sector and has mulled granting access to Russian Mir credit cards.
Mauritius's tightening partnerships with China and Russia amplify its role as a force multiplier for the Indian Ocean strategies of both countries. Since its first anti-piracy deployment to the region in 2008, China has markedly increased its hard power footprint in the Indian Ocean. From 2022-25, China carried out four trilateral maritime exercises with Russia and Iran, which signifies the region's rising strategic importance for Britain's most dangerous adversaries.
Mauritius's Prime Minister Navin Ramgoolam has countered these critiques by insisting that he will not enable China's purported military ambitions in the Chagos Islands. This narrative has been implicitly amplified by Starmer's government which insists that the Chagos Islands handover would guarantee the long-term sustainability of the UK-US Diego Garcia base.
These claims are less reassuring than they seem. Mauritius's negotiations with Britain over the Chagos Islands were fraught with heated disagreements. Mauritius expressed concerns about Britain's unilateral ability to extend the original ninety-nine-year lease for Diego Garcia without its input. It argued that the lease did not adequately account for inflation or currency exchange rates. While Britain's final offer to Mauritius made compromises on key areas of objection, frustrations with the past negotiations still linger.
These grievances raise questions about the sincerity of Mauritius's willingness to abide by Starmer's Chagos Islands deal. Minister of State for Europe, North America and the Overseas Territories Stephen Doughty justified the negotiations with Mauritius by warning that international legal courts could deny Britain sovereignty over the Chagos Islands.
With China and Russia's tacit backing, Mauritius could be tempted to renege on what it sees as an undesirable agreement and disrupt the Diego Garcia base's operations. As China sees its military presence in the Indian Ocean as a potential enabler of its aggressive designs in the Indo-Pacific region, this scenario could unfold during a conflict over Taiwan or the South China Sea. This would neuter Diego Garcia's effectiveness and Western power projection to counter China when it is needed most.
To forestall this outcome, India is strengthening its ties with Mauritius and leveraging this relationship to counter Chinese influence in the Indian Ocean. In March, Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Ramgoolam announced that the India-Mauritius relationship had been upgraded to the status of an 'enhanced strategic partnership.' India's praise of Britain's Chagos Islands handover deal reflects its glee at its elevated geopolitical role.
Starmer's handover of Chagos Islands is an unforced error that reduces the autonomy and efficacy of British defence policy. An increasingly insecure Indo-Pacific theatre just got much more parlous.
