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Abstract
Since the late 1950s, Sino-Indian relations have been tense and marked by rivalry for regional supremacy. Complex border disputes, which escalated into war between the former ‘bhai-bhai’, staged the first round of their increasingly fierce rivalry. The second round followed suit within the structural framework of the Cold War when India sided with the Soviet Union while China partnered with Pakistan and later the USA. The changing post-Cold War power structure in Asia opened the third round of intensifying Sino-Indian supremacy competition, underlined by conflicting resource interests. Emerging arenas of competition are the seas between the Indian Ocean and the South China Sea – areas with significant hydrocarbon resources and vital lanes of international trade. Using Lateral Pressure theory, this article argues that maritime Asia ranks high in Beijing's and New Delhi's strategic calculations and because both emerging powers increasingly interfere in the other's maritime backyard, these seas are becoming potential arenas of military escalations.
Acknowledgment
I would like to thank Penny Griffin, Justin Hastings and Susan Parks and two anonymous referees for their very valuable comments and helpful criticism on earlier versions of this paper.
Notes
1 Figures based on official Chinese and Indian estimates and census data collected in 2011. See National Bureau of Statistics of China, China's Total Population and Structural Changes in 2011, January 20, 2012, http://www.stats.gov.cn/english/newsandcomingevents/t20120120_402780233.htm (accessed December 10, 2012); Office of the Registrar General and Census Commissioner, India, Provisional Population Totals: India: Census 2011 (2011), http://www.censusindia.gov.in/2011-prov-results/data_files/india/Final_PPT_2011_chapter3.pdf (accessed December 10, 2012).
2 Nazli Choucri and Robert C. North, ‘Economic and Political Factors in International Conflict and Integration’, International Studies Quarterly 27, no. 4 (1983): 451–3.
3 M. King Hubbert, ‘The Energy Resources of the Earth’, in Energy and Power, ed. Scientific American (New York: W.H. Freeman, 1971), 31–40.
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6 These two crises resulted from the Yom Kippur War between Israel and the Arab countries of Egypt and Syria (1973) and the Islamic Revolution in Iran (1979).
7 Mamdouh G. Salameh, Over a Barrel. Breaking the Middle East Oil Cartel (Haslemere: Self-published by Dr. Mamdouh G. Salameh, 2004), 81.
8 Excluding the two Special Administrative Regions (SAR) Hong Kong and Macao.
9 British Petroleum (BP), ‘Statistical Review of World Energy June 2012’, http://www.bp.com/liveassets/bp_internet/globalbp/globalbp_uk_english/reports_and_publications/statistical_energy_review_2011/STAGING/local_assets/pdf/statistical_review_of_world_energy_full_report_2012.pdf (accessed July 27, 2012).
10 Ibid.
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12 Also known as China Petroleum & Chemical Corporation.
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14 Lewis, ‘Chinese NOCs and World Energy Markets’, 62–3.
15 Conceived projects having a value of more than US$30 million require direct approval from the NDRC. Those in excess of US$300 million even need to be reviewed by NDRC and approved by the state council. Zhonghua renmin gongheguo guojia fazhan he gaige weiyuanhui (NDRC), ‘Waijing touzi xiangmu hezhun zanxing guanli banfa’ [Provisional administrative measures for ratifying overseas investment projects], Zhonghua renmin gongheguo guojia fazhan he gaige weiyuanhui ling di 21 hao, October 9, 2004, http://www.ndrc.gov.cn/zcfb/zcfbl/zcfbl2004/t20051010_44801.htm (accessed July 24, 2012).
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17 This also needs to be seen in the context of the status of the three large NOCs as large employers and contributors to China's GDP and the destabilizing social and economic consequences involved if one of these companies were to fail.
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