Deconstructing India’s Maritime Narrative: Strategic Ramifications for China and Pakistan (original) (raw)
Related papers
Navigating Sino-India Relations in the Indian Ocean: Prospects and Challenges for Pakistan
Pakistan Journal of International Affairs
Sino-India relations in the Indian Ocean have emerged as a critical aspect of geopolitical dynamics in the region. This abstract explores the prospects and challenges for Pakistan arising from this evolving relationship. With China's increasing naval presence and economic interests in the Indian Ocean, and India's own ambitions to safeguard its strategic interests, the region has witnessed a power struggle between the two Asian giants. The prospects for Pakistan lie in the potential for economic cooperation and infrastructural development through China's Belt and Road Initiative, which could enhance connectivity and trade opportunities. However, challenges arise for Pakistan as it navigates its delicate balance between China and India. These challenges include concerns over the deepening strategic and military ties between China and India, potential encirclement, and the impact on Pakistan's strategic autonomy. It is crucial for Pakistan to carefully manage these cha...
Cognizance Journal of Multidisciplinary Studies (CJMS), 2024
This article explores the strategic significance of the Indian Ocean for China and India, examining how their actions influence geopolitical dynamics and security policies. The Indian Ocean, a vital global trade route, has seen increased attention from both nations through their naval expansions, infrastructure investments, and diplomatic engagements. This has sparked debates about potential competition, strategic rivalries, and the implications for regional security. The study aims to understand the impact of China and India's activities in the Indian Ocean and their potential for cooperation or conflict. The research question focuses on how these actions affect regional security. The methodology employed is a qualitative research approach, incorporating a literature review, document analysis, case studies, and a comparative analysis of China and India's strategies in the Indian Ocean. The results highlight the Indian Ocean as a critical geopolitical arena undergoing significant transformations due to the actions of China and India. The rise of these two powers has the potential to either lead to conflict and instability or contribute to regional stability by providing public goods such as anti-piracy patrols and disaster relief efforts.
India and China at Sea: A Contest of Status and Legitimacy in the Indian Ocean
China and India are fast emerging as major maritime powers of the Indo-Pacific as part of long term shifts in the regional balance of power. As their wealth, interests and power expand, China and India are also increasingly come into contact with each other in the maritime domain. How India and China get along in the shared Indo-Pacific maritime space – cooperation, coexistence, competition or confrontation – may be one of the key strategic challenges of the 21st century. The relationship is a difficult one: their security relationship is relatively volatile and there are numerous unresolved issues between them. Not least is China’s growing presence in the Indian Ocean where it is perceived in New Delhi to be shaping the strategic environment in its favour and forming alignments that could be used against India. Nor is the relationship well understood. There is relatively little informed analysis of how China and India will interact as maritime powers, and discussion of this area in India and China rarely seeks to explore each other’s perspectives and intentions. There is little understanding of China’s perspectives on the rise of India and expectations about their respective maritime security roles in the Indian and Pacific Oceans. The roundtable brings together leading scholars and practitioners from India, China, the United States and Australia to better understand Indian and Chinese perspectives about their respective roles and relationship in the Indo-Pacific maritime domain. Issues and questions addressed by the essays include: • What are Chinese and Indian strategic ambitions in the maritime realm, particularly in the Indian Ocean? How do they understand each other’s legitimate security roles in the region? • What are China’s strategic imperatives in the Indian Ocean? Does China have an Indo-Pacific naval strategy? • How has New Delhi perceived China’s growing naval presence in the Indian Ocean and how has it sought to address those moves at a political and military level? • What are India’s options in responding to China’s Maritime Silk Road initiative? A complete copy of the roundtable is available for download at: http://www.nbr.org/publications/element.aspx?id=899
Geopolitics of Indian Ocean: Pakistan as a Maritime Security Actor
2021
The Indian Ocean, having vital sea-lanes of communication and energy chokepoints has gained currency in terms of geostrategic and geoeconomic realms in recent decades. Thereby changing security constellation generating across the region dropped the hitherto backseat role of the Indian Ocean while bringing it at the center of strategic dialogues. As being energy heartland and the commercial hub connecting East and West markets, the security threats ranging from traditional to non-traditional ones such as piracy, terrorism, smuggling, environmental degradation, are comprehended as having repercussions transcended beyond the region. Therefore, counted them as international maritime security challenges highlight the importance of cooperation.
Growing China-India Competition in the Indian Ocean: Implications for Pakistan
Strategic Studies
The Indian Ocean is the world’s third-largest body of water and has become an area of growing competition between China and India. As the economy, power and interests of both the countries increase, this competition endanger the stability of the region, which is significant for global maritime trade flows. This paper aims to give an overview of India’s ambitions as well as China’s growing strategic interests in the Indian Ocean Region (IOR). Based on their growing interests, the study will highlight the implications of this competition for Pakistan. It will also try to present a way forward, which Pakistan must adopt to avoid its interests being compromised.
Decoding China's ambitions in the Indian Ocean: analysis and implications for India
Routledge Taylor and Francis Group, 2021
Investigating a country's navy provides a means of assessing the country's strategic, political, economic as well as international perspectives. Being overwhelmingly strategic in orientation, Indian Ocean occupies an important position among the strategic calculations of all major powers, and as a result has become the centre of gravity due to its increasing economic, military and diplomatic activities in the post-cold war period. Since 1990s China's policies in the region have also changed, primarily due to its high stakes in the region. Its spectacular and constant economic growth has made it an attractive player for markets and its growing activities are an important imperative that shape the strategic environment of the Indian Ocean Region today. Since both India and China are rising simultaneously and have large stakes in this region, both are turning their policies to expand their Maritime sector. The increasing encroachments by China in the Indian Ocean has caused significant amount of friction in their bilateral ties and has led to overlapping spheres of influence with India. The paper establishes that China is expanding its Maritime power in all dimensions creating a security imbalance in South Asia.
Margalla Papers, 2020
India views the Indian Ocean as an embodiment of its strategic presence in the region. India has realized the strategic importance of the Indian Ocean since its independence and is keenly interested in maintaining sustainable maritime operations. This strategic importance of the Indian Ocean has diversified India's national security objectives intertwined with its national interests. On top of that, the US has strengthened its relations with India in the last two decades; as a result, the Indo-US partnership is deemed to help India in becoming a pre-eminent maritime power in the Indian Ocean region. This has expanded India's role as a net security provider in the Indian Ocean region. In this sense, Indo-US. strategic cooperation and bilateral agreements have granted the former an exceptional strategic role in the latter's strategic calculus and security interests in the Indian Ocean region. Moreover, the US strongly supports India's military rise in the India Ocean region as a rightful Chinese competitor. China is not ready to accept the Indian naval exceptionalism. In response to Indian engagement in the Indo-Pacific region, China is increasing its naval presence in the Indian Ocean region. This paper attempts to explore linkages between India's naval rise in the Indian Ocean region due to Indo-US strategic partnership. Both powers have made a strategic handshake to contain rising China. In addition, the paper also explores the implications of India's naval ambitions in the Indian Ocean region and its implications for strategic stability and Pakistan.
Developments of the past few years clearly indicate China’s quest to establish a permanent maritime-strategic presence in the Indian Ocean Region. With China fast emerging as a global super-power with the potential to challenge the primacy of the USA, this is accompanied with significant geopolitical, geoeconomic and security ramifications for the regional countries. This article attempts to examine the possible implications in terms of regional stability, regional balance of power, maritime security, maritime safety, economics and the adversarial potential in India–China relations. For an objective analysis, the study is based on two contrasting theories of international relations. When viewed in context of the Realist theory, China’s presence in the region may lead to zero-sum outcomes. On the other hand, the premise of Constructivism could lead to “win-win” outcomes. The paper concludes that the outcomes are likely to lie somewhere between the aforesaid extremes, depending upon the actions of all states that have stakes in the region. It also attempts broadly to suggest the way ahead for all stakeholders in the region.
Geopolitics and Maritime Security in the Indian Ocean
While piracy and terrorism in the Indian Ocean are current issues, so-called Great Power rivalry is not yet an immediate security threat in the region. However, the potential effects of Great Power rivalry are more fundamental and reach further than acts of terrorism or piracy. In terms of this rivalry, two major issues stand out. The first is increasing maritime rivalry between India and China. The second major instance of potential Great Power rivalry in the Indian Ocean relates to the risk of spillover effects from maritime tensions in the western Pacific Ocean, including the East and South China Seas.