Related ongoing thread:
Ask HN: What happens to ".io" TLD after UK gives back the Chagos Islands? - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41729526 - Oct 2024 (153 comments)
I'm a citizen of the Republic of Mauritius and, when this news was announced today, there was a general sense of relief.
Mauritius has been fighting for its sovereignty over the Chagos Archipelago (with Diego Garcia being the largest island) for 56 years.
Today, the Chagos Archipelago is part of Mauritius again and a treaty will (hopefully) soon be signed between the UK and Mauritius.
From there, Mauritius will sign a lease agreement of 99 years with the USA so that the military base there can continue to operate.
Of course, there will surely be a lot of money involved but we don't have the details yet.
What exactly is the Mauritian connection to the Chagos Archipelago?
Is it just because a lot of Chagossians went to Mauritius after getting kicked out? Obviously Mauritius and Chagos were ruled by the same people previous (French, then British), but is there a deeper history there?
I ask this because the Chagos archipelago is like 1500 miles away from Mauritius - the Maldives, Seychelles, and even Sri Lanka and India are all closer than that. And to my untrained eye, the Chagos archipelago looks like an extension of whatever process created the Maldives.
There isn’t one, as you say it’s over 2000km between them, the only link is that when Britain was administrating them it did so as a single territory. This is not some reunification of a country separated by a colonial power.
> From there, Mauritius will sign a lease agreement of 99 years with the USA so that the military base there can continue to operate.
Seems to be a lease with the UK (which then 'sub-leases' to the US?):
* https://www.reuters.com/world/britain-agrees-chagos-island-s...
Curious to know if there will be extension provisions: people think 99 years is a long time (which isn't wrong), but Hong Kong went back to China after that period of time.
Legally that makes the most sense as it leaves everything where it is. The whole place is a weird combination of US/UK culture and standards.
It's easier to move a single military base at the end of a lease than an entire country
AFAIK, the US and UK value Diego Garcia because currently there aren't geographical alternatives for that base. Where else could they put it that would have the same benefits?
The lease expires in 2123. The militarily strategic landscape then is pretty much unknowable.
To a 1925 (99 years ago) military force, the Diego Garcia airfield would have had zero importance.
I wonder if they would have anticipated its value. I can anticipate a moon base would be valuable in 2123 even though it has little present value.
in 99 years, most of the island probably will be underwater due to climate change.
There are multiple islands and archipelagos in the region.
Close to Africa/ME: Maldives, Seychelles, Comoros, Mayotte
Close to SE Asia: Cocos and Christmas Island
Diego Garcia just happened to be forcibly depopulated by the British, so was a convenient choice.
Close to Africa/ME: Maldives, Seychelles, Comoros, Mayotte
Close to SE Asia: Cocos and Christmas Island
I mean, what current option is equivalent to Diego Garcia? Are any of those options realistic right now?
Possibly. The treaty has not been signed yet.
Things will become clearer in the coming weeks.
Yeah, but Mauritius isn't China. If the UK had reneged on the Hong Kong lease, there were economic and military options for China to potentially enforce it.
A lot can happen in 99 years, but even assuming a serious decline in US economic/military might I don't see a scenario where Mauritius could successfully enforce the lease on its own.
If the treaty is UK law, they can take the case to UK courts. It's not guaranteed to work, it depends on the legal technicalities, but the government has no say in the findings of UK courts.
A lot can happen in 99 years, but as Hong Kong shows, the UK has a decent track record on long term legal continuity.
Mauritius isn't China today. In 99 years time it could be part of a China. Or a future country that is more powerful than China.
Well someone more powerful would not care about the lease agreements anyway so if the U.S can’t fight back the lease agreement won’t help them anyway. See Russia-Ukcraine and the agreements that were signed. They are not worth their paper
Congratulations! Would you be willing to go into more depth on why you feel relieved? You've spelled out the terms; I'm asking if you might connect the dots between those terms and your feelings about the whole thing.
Also, are you concerned that Diego Garcia might be a target in a war?
How does this affect fishing territory and economic zones for Mauritius?
I imagine whoever got the 99 year lease is feeling pretty pleased about it - that's basically forever as far as they can tell.
On the other hand, I bet the UK in 1997 would have hoped for a longer lease on Hong Kong.
Hong Kong island was ceded to the British in perpetuity. The 99 years lease of the New Territories (not Hong Kong, technically) was an additional unequal treaty that the Qing were forced into on top of it, after they also had to give up Kowloon. The British could have asked for 150 years too, who'd have stopped them?
Now the same happens to Britain in reverse. There is no benefit for any state to give up territory for nothing in return, why would they be "pretty pleased" about it? Also not only is Britain ceding its territory but they're actually paying rent to keep a base on what was previously their own land! It almost feels like China is involved in this because the number doesn't sound like something Mauritius would come up with on their own. See other 99 year leases the CCP is involved in, they're obsessed with this number:
https://ceylontoday.lk/2023/08/31/over-1200-acres-of-sri-lan...
https://www.reuters.com/world/asia-pacific/australia-says-no...
https://www.japantimes.co.jp/news/2018/05/25/asia-pacific/ch...
Even if that lease was permanent I doubt the PRC would just let it be. The time limit just meant they could just wait instead of having to negotiate or invade.
Sea level rise may mean that a 99 year lease is longer than the island will be habitable.
At what point does sea level rise remove a countries EEZ claim.
Seems that it's a real issue -- https://www.reuters.com/investigations/sinking-tuvalu-fights...
Erm, even if the coast is flooded, Mauritius is a big island with plenty of land well above sea level.
The discussion is about Diego Garcia.
Also decreased oil consumption as a result of renewable energy sources (decreasing the Middle East's importance) and climate change opening up northern shipping routes (decreasing the SE Asia - Suez Canal importance).
In 99 years, being able to exert influence in the region will likely be less important to global trade.
I’ll take that bet.
You should move to Nantucket island then, lots of prime real-estate there
The real estate in Nantucket is extremely expensive, how does this comment make sense?
I've seen few mentions that PRC actually expected UK to extend the lease, and was surprised when UK didn't...
Probably not. In 1997 they were happy to court the $$ associated with opening up this huge new market of 1b+ "middle class" consumers.
Id argue they still aren't sufficiently butthurt about it. The UK has sufficient grounds to reclaim HK since china has very much failed to uphold its agreement to keep hong kong democratic for at least 50 years. I guess that's why the CPC goes on gaslighting rants about "whole process democracy" like Jesus CPC. You just had to wait 20 years, what the hell is the rush?
One of the reasons UK didn't contest it in 1997 was that it couldn't. UK "owned" Hong Kong island, which is a tiny bit of territory. Most of what is called Hong Kong was actually leased from China for a definite term, and the lease was coming to an end, fair and square. Hong Kong island was handed over as part of the package.
Hong Kong island is, I would imagine, in no way sustainable as a standalone territory, if China were to be hostile.
Even if they were legally entitled to reclaim it under law, I don't see the British re-invading China at this point.
Based on the UKs failure to retake HK despite the broken agreement, how long do you think that base will be there?
They could take it back whenever they wanted and we’d do nothing.
I think China is increasingly driven by the ego of Xi Jinping and not the internal machinations of party politics.
He is 71 and getting older.
A lot of crazy things look more reasonable when you've had absolute power for a decade and aren't overly concerned about consequences in 20 years.
I think it's a mistake to give in to the temptation to jump to the conclusion that China is a tunnel-vision cult of personality everything-the-crazy-dictator-wants-he-gets government.
The Chinese government under Xi has a well-established track record of long-term planning that has done nothing but elevated China's status and leverage in the world.
It really couldn't be further from (e.g.) Putin's style of governance.
>china has very much failed to uphold its agreement to keep hong kong democratic
That would be a curious failure indeed given that Hong Kong wasn't democratic under the British to begin with. It was a crown colony ruled by an appointed governor. The Brits of course never had any legitimate claim to an island they took after a war whose objective was to force opium into China. If they still have dreams of empire I'm sure China would be delighted to see them try though and see how it goes this time.
In what universe does the UK have grounds to have anything to do with governing a region 6000 miles away from home that it seized during the Opium War?
I would love for China to have democracy, but Great Britain really doesn't have any moral high ground on the issue nor any business having anything to do with the government there.
If you think they aren't sufficiently butthurt about it, I'd counter that by saying "what can they realistically do about it?" The answer is "absolutely nothing." You want them to invade or something?
They can write a nastygram or something but any of the promises involved with the transfer really mean nothing. An analogy would be asking the next owner of your car to not play any Britney Spears on the radio. Good luck enforcing that.
Mauritius was a sponsor to the Treaty of Pelindaba/African Nuclear-Weapon-Free Zone Treaty. The US's stockpile on Diego Garcia likely violates this.
The British Indian Ocean Territory is probably better known in the tech world for its top-level domain: .io.
Which is owned by a hedge fund, and thankfully not part of this deal (so it's not at risk!)
TLD "owners" own TLDs in much the same way that we own domains, and it's very possible that ICANN phases out the .io domain when the British Indian Ocean Territory ceases to exist. From what we gathered in the other thread it somewhat depends on what ISO decides to do with its codes.
At a minimum I expect that control over the .io domain will go to Mauritius and they'll be able to reassign it as desired (since they never contracted with the hedge fund). But the typical path for a code when its country goes defunct is to get phased out.
The more I think about it, the more I agree that this is the likely outcome.
IO has been in the ISO standard forever, so there's plenty of historical precedent (like UK). Furthermore, it continues to be descriptive of a specific part of the world (like SU). The easy move here is for the ISO committee to mark IO as exceptionally reserved, for ICANN to declare that this of course makes it a special historical case which sets no precedent, and for everything to continue mostly as usual.
This assumes, of course, that ICANN aren't looking to make some kind of example/statement about misuse of ccTLDs. If they are, things may be different.
It being owned by a hedge fund doesn't change the fact that ICAAN policies will retire the ccTLD.
Whether they choose to NOT APPLY those policies is a different matter that, again, isn't changed by who owns it but instead by use.
It might well be at risk.
Extensive discussion here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41729526
TL;DR: ICANN policy forces deletion if CC disappears from the ISO list of countries, with one famous exception (.su); but Mauritius could cut a Tuvalu-style deal to maintain it.
What are some new countries we can create so we end up with a cool TLD?
There’s gotta be someone willing to fund this.
Interestingly this includes the military base of Diego Garcia which is strategically important. I imagine the US will pay Mauritius a bucket load of money for continued use.
I imagine ALL of this was hinging on some long term agreement where the US gets to keep Diego Garcia.
It seems the US are continuing to pay the UK and the UK is buying off Mauritius.
Worth reading Kevin Murphy’s piece here:
https://domainincite.com/30395-future-of-io-domains-uncertai...
He’s a long time commentator on the domain industry and very inciteful. But also quite insightful.
I had never heard of it until now, but it looks similar to parts of the Marshall Islands in that there are very narrow strips of land.
What does this means in terms of global politics and US having a base there?
I also assume .io no longer being controlled by UK? ( Which is somewhat worrying )
> What does this means in terms of global politics and US having a base there?
Absolutely nothing. The US still has a base on the island of Cuba [0], they aren’t giving up Diego Garcia.
[0] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guantanamo_Bay_Naval_Base
> US still has a base on the island of Cuba
Ah, you mean the illegal torture prison against which the Cuban government has been protesting since 1959.
Sure. It's still there though, 65 years later.
The US will go where it pleases and do what it wants, just like the great European empires of the 17th through 19th centuries. Sure it's Amazon and Google rather than an East India Company, but it's the same themes.
> There, the UK will ensure operation of the military base for "an initial period" of 99 years.
Taking bets on how much surface area of this atoll will still be above water in 2123.
See also "How the British Empire and U.S. Department of Defense Murdered an Island Paradise" ... "the story of the Chagos Islands, a paradise founded by former slaves that was wiped out by the British empire so they could lease it to the U.S. as an air base" [1]
[1] https://www.iheart.com/podcast/105-behind-the-bastards-29236...
I'm unaware of the details but wasn't the island chain sold to the British?
> The remaining British overseas territories are: Anguilla, Bermuda, British Antarctic Territory, British Virgin Islands, Cayman Islands, Falkland Islands, Gibraltar, Montserrat, Pitcairn, Saint Helena, Ascension and Tristan da Cunha, South Georgia and the South Sandwich Islands, Turks and Caicos Islands. There are also two sovereign base areas on Cyprus under British jurisdiction.
Good note at the end
And quite a few of those in shady financial dealings. Happily hiding and laundering money for various kleptocrats. It has been noted that, just as the Roman Empire didn't really disappear - it became a church, the British Empire didn't really disappear - it became a bank.
The British government likes to make various noises about cleaning this up, but there are too many businesses in the City of London making money off the system for there to be much chance of that happening.
> the Roman Empire didn't really disappear - it became a church, the British Empire didn't really disappear - it became a bank.
Great quip!
Did they agree who will get the the .io ccTLD? Or is that up to ICANN?
I have no answers - just a note there's another discussion regarding .io here if anyone wants more readin'
Ask HN: What happens to ".io" TLD after UK gives back the Chagos Islands? https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41729526
> African nations began to speak with one voice on the issue, pushing the UK hard on the issue of decolonialisation.
I wish the journalists had a little more sophistication on this. African nations began to push the UK on this because China and Russia understand that Diego Garcia is a critical port, and made investment + aid/ bribery + weapons (China / Russia respectively) conditional on forcing the issue.
In other words: The African nations have no agency or legitimate motivations of their own, and are just doing what China and Russia bully them to do. Apparently they don't even appreciate the significance of the military base on those islands. It is left for the adults in the room (Russia and China) to think and operate on such a level.
Of course no one here is naive, and we all know already that external operators have their influence, and (though the commenter provides no evidence) it's certainly possible, likely even, that such influence came into play here to some degree.
Nonetheless, the commenter's phrasing and implicit attitude toward these nations seems weirdly patronizing and, well, colonial.
Where is some evidence of this version of the story?
I believe we will keep the port there with the US?
I'd like to see your sources on this.
I expect it's a bit simpler than that: anti-colonial policies resonate deeply with African voters, and are very uncontroversial.
African voters, to the extent that they have any vote at all [1], have vastly more important things to care about than a tiny island in the Indian ocean. I would in fact bet a lot of money that vastly fewer than 1% of African voters, in any country, know about the Chagos Islands at all.
[1] Mostly, not https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Democracy_in_Africa#/media/Fil...
Yeah but when $dictator shows up on tv and talks about figthing $bloodyColonialists at the UN, it's uncontroversial (regardless of the issue being fought) and takes time from talking about his embezzlement/corruption/etc.
Meanwhile, behind the scenes, they can go cap in hand to $bloodyColonialists and ask "do you want me to shut up? Give me $something".
This requires no shadowy influence from this or that supposed Great Power.
Huh? I had the impression that the entire international community (sans UK, US & Israel) has been pushing for this for years, and quite insistently since the 2021 ITLOS judgement. Also, the US will keep it's base as part of the settlement.
It would be naive to believe that the Chinese will not build a competing naval base there, and encroach upon Mauritius's sovereignty over time.
Apart from this being pure speculation, where exactly would they build it? The archipelago has a tiny land area and the only atoll suitable for building a base is kinda already taken... Also, the primary strategic importance of Diego Garcia is to support US operations in the Middle East, where China has never interfered to any significant extent.
You could say the same about the South China Sea before the Chinese started building islands out there.
Also, wouldn't the US and UK insist on a clause in the treaty that Mauritius can't do this?
They already have a base in Djibouti which is far more useful.
Ah yes, because the UK has no agency and clearly hasn't shown itself to be very okay at standing up against Russia for example.
Some countries have constitutions that forbid giving up any parts of its territory, but apparently our government can hand over sovereignty without even a vote in parliament
The UN General Assembly and various UN courts have ruled that the UK had no sovereignty over the Chagos Islands in the first place.
The UN General Assembly is little more than an opinion poll, legally speaking.
Irrelevant.
Maybe to you, but not to the UK government.
The UK has a permanent seat on the UNSC including the ultimate single-member veto and on the sliding scale of fiction to non-fiction, international law is a lot closer to the fictional end. The UK choosing to transfer sovereignty to another country is not in-line with a ruling that says they don’t have sovereignty. They’ve chosen to be done with this controversy.
The UN is relevant how? Anyway, UK did the right thing, though. Now get rid of that US hegemony-supporting base.
I'm assuming all this is contingent on a treaty vote in Parliament? I'm not familiar with how it works in the UK
In the UK the executive (ie "the government") makes and ratifies treaties, using delegated authority [1] from the monarch.
There is no general rule that parliament has to ratify, or even scrutinise, a treaty. The main exceptions are if the treaty requires domestic legislation to be passed by parliament, or if the treaty has significant constitutionap implications. Given our un-codified constitution here in the UK, I would imagine the latter constaint comes with some wriggle-room.
This [2] briefing by the House of Commons Library lays it all out.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Royal_prerogative_in_the_Unite...
[2] https://commonslibrary.parliament.uk/research-briefings/cbp-...
Yes, of course Parliament will need to vote on this, but the Prime Minister of the UK has approved it and unlike in the US., in the UK votes are predominantly along party lines so it will pass.
> Yes, of course Parliament will need to vote on this
Not the case. The executive makes treaties. Parliament can scrutinise them but has no general ratification or veto role. See https://commonslibrary.parliament.uk/research-briefings/cbp-... .
The Parliament being sovereign, it can pass an act about anything. It could certainly pass an act forbidding the government from ceding territory to a foreign power. However, since the current government holds a majority in parliament, in practice it won't happen.
Can I visit the world you're in, where votes in US Congress aren't predominantly along party lines?
Yeah, the real difference is that in the US, there is a separate election for president. In the UK, as in many other countries, the party that wins parliament gets to form the government (and determine the prime minister or whatever the title of the de facto head of the executive is). In some countries this is complicated by multiparty systems where coalitions are required, but the general idea of aligning the legislative and executive branches in this way is fairly common.
And it can be approved with a bare majority?
Bare majority, and with our whipping system and current parliament (massive one party domination) it will go through with ease. It has to go through the House of Lords too, and the current government don’t have a real majority there but they’re extremely reticent to oppose the democratically elected house so it’ll likely sail through there too.
Without going into the sentiment of this, I suppose Chaos Islands are not part of the United Kingdom but rather an overseas territory, so more like "property", to put it bluntly. I guess the government can just give away a building it owns, and this is more analogous than giving away "territory". And there is no current indigenous population there either.
But yeah, Jersey is also an overseas territory, can the government just give that away?
Jersey is a Crown Dependency, not an Overseas Territory. They share a King and the UK is responsible for their defense, but domestically Crown Dependencies are more independent of Parliament than your average British overseas territory.
Ok, fair point. Can the UK hand over Bermuda, or Cayman isles?
I vaguely remember handing over the Falkland Islands to Argentina was actually on the cards before the invasion, so perhaps surprisingly the answer is "yes".
Which highlights how stupid the war was. Argentina should have invested in a better relationship with the islands. They would all be speaking Spanish by now.
While I was downvoted my answer is correct. The UK parliament can and has ceded territory and all that is required is an act of parliament.
It seems like people forget that the UK ceded everything from Ireland which was a UK constituent as opposed to a UK subject as well as Canada, Australia, India and numerous other territories.
In the UK, parliament is supreme and has the final authority.
The United Kingdom has parliamentary supremacy with little to no checks or balances, so if the parliament wants to give away something, there is nothing that can really stop them.
I recommend the Behind the Bastards series "How the British Empire and U.S. DoD Murdered an Island Paradise" about the Chagos islands for deeper context.
Yeah...
As long as the US and the UK is allowed to operate their military bases and operations without any protest or quibble for the next 100 years and probably more. Have some spare change instead of too much sovereignty.
And remember the military bases are US and UK soil and whatever goes on there can keep going on whatever laws may or may not be passed.
Just like how the US maintains a military base, camp (now not very busy at the moment) concentration camp in the communist country of Cuba.
This. The US hegemon is everywhere it shouldn't be. And no one stands up. Well, we'll see what happens after UA.
