China and India are fast emerging as major maritime powers of the Indo-Pacific. As their wealth, power, and interests expand, they are increasingly coming 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 for the region in the twenty-first century. The relationship between these powers is sometimes a difficult one: in particular, their security relationship is relatively volatile and there are numerous unresolved issues. Not least is China's growing presence in the Indian Ocean where it is perceived in New Delhi to be shaping the strategic environment and forming alignments that could be used against India.
This book explores the Sino-Indian maritime security relationship, including addressing the following questions:
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 does New Delhi perceive China's growing naval presence in the Indian Ocean and how has it sought to address those moves at a political and military level?
How will China and India's respective advantages and disadvantages drive the maritime security relationship?
How will China's Maritime Silk Road initiative impact the relationship and what are India's options in responding?
This volume is the outcome of a research project undertaken by the Australia India Institute with the assistance of the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation. Over a period of more than two years, the research project brought together leading scholars and practitioners from India, China, the US, and Australia in a series of discussions and debates to better understand and articulate Indian and Chinese perspectives about their respective roles and relationship in the Indo-Pacific maritime domain.
This volume examines the relationship using several different perspectives and themes. Chapters 1 to 4 address underlying ideational and perception issues: How do India and China perceive their respective strategic roles in the Indian Ocean and the broader IndoPacific, and those of each other? What perceived security imperatives are driving their strategic behaviour? What are their blind spots towards each other? Chapters 5 to 10 address different aspects of Chinese and Indian naval strategy that are likely to influence their interactions in the maritime domain. Key topics include: evolving Chinese naval thinking about the Indian Ocean; India's naval response to China; the subsurface naval dimension; India's maritime domain awareness strategy in the Indian Ocean and India's naval interests in the South China Sea. The third part of this book (Chapters 11-12) contrasts Chinese and Indian perspectives on China's growing economic presence in the Indian Ocean Region (IOR), particularly in relation to China's Maritime Silk Road initiative. The last chapter (Chapter 13) provides some thoughts as to how India and other countries might respond to, and engage with,
China in light of its growing regional interests. In the first chapter, A Contest of Status and Legitimacy in the Indian Ocean, David Brewster examines Indian and Chinese perspectives of each other as major powers and their respective roles in the Indian Ocean. The chapter considers China's strategic imperatives in the IOR and its moves to address those imperatives. It then considers India's views on its special role in the Indian Ocean and the legiti macy of the presence of other powers and then, importantly, India's response to China's strategic vulnerabilities in the Indian Ocean. Lastly, it examines Chinese perspectives of the status of India and its claims to a special role in the Indian Ocean. The chapter con-cludes that there is a significant asymmetry in power and perceptions berween the two countries that drives a competitive relationship.
Even if China were to take a more transparent approach to its activi ties, significant differences in perceptions of threat and over status and legitimacy will produce a highly competitive dynamic between them in the maritime domain.
In Chapter 2, Managing Maritime Competition between India and China, Jingdong Yuan also reviews China's growing security presence in the Indian Ocean and the strategic imperatives behind it and India's responses to these initiatives. Yuan argues that it is imperative that policymakers in both New Delhi and Beijing make concerted efforts to ensure that these two emerging powers can manage, if not completely avoid, their overlapping interests and ever-closer encoun-ters in the Indian Ocean. As a resident power in the Indian Ocean and one that still has unresolved territorial disputes with China, New Delhi needs to be reassured of Beijing's intentions as China deepens its presence in the Indian Ocean, builds strategic ties with Pakistan, and pursues growing commercial activities in the littoral states in the region. Yuan argues that Beijing could back its rhetoric of benign intents with concrete actions to address and mitigate New Delhi's legitimate security concerns, including greater transparency in infra-structural projects, joint collaboration with India on anti-piracy, and greater appreciation of India's security interests. New Delhi, on the other hand, could also demonstrate that its growing ties with the United States and the 'Act East' policy are not aimed at undermining.
Hindu (935)
Agriculture (118)
Ancient (1086)
Archaeology (753)
Architecture (563)
Art & Culture (910)
Biography (702)
Buddhist (544)
Cookery (167)
Emperor & Queen (565)
Islam (242)
Jainism (307)
Literary (896)
Mahatma Gandhi (372)
Send as free online greeting card
Email a Friend
Manage Wishlist