Beyond the ‘String of Pearls’: is there really a Sino-Indian security dilemma in the Indian Ocean?

Abstract

The article will ask whether Sino-Indian strategic competition in the Indian Ocean should be properly understood through the lens of a security dilemma. It examines the strategic positions of India and China in the Indian Ocean and concludes that India has an overwhelming strategic advantage that China cannot realistically mitigate in the foreseeable future. This advantage precludes any real security dilemma arising between them. In fact, both China and India have good reasons to keep strategic competition under control while they each broaden their regional influence.

Keywords:

• India
• China
• strategic competition
• Indian Ocean
• security dilemma

Notes

1. This view was echoed by Indian Chief of Naval Staff, Admiral Sureesh Mehta (Indian Navy, 2007).

2. The term was first used in a 2005 report entitled ‘Energy Futures in Asia’ prepared for the US Secretary of Defense by the private consultants, Booz-Allen-Hamilton and was quickly adopted by Indian analysts.

3. The Sri Lankan President Rajapaksa also reportedly approached the United States several times to fund the project (Samaranayake, 2011, p. 27).

4. There are unsubstantiated claims that China has established a signals intelligence facility at Gwadar (The Times of India, 2002).

5. Confidential interview with the author. Mauritius, May 2013.