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Abstract
This paper looks at the key strategic issues faced by China in the Indian Ocean within the context of growing Sino-Indian rivalry. It makes two basic arguments: first, that China has considerable strategic disadvantages in the Indian Ocean as compared with India; and second, that India has had more success than China in developing security relationships in the region. These propositions differ from a more common narrative, according to which China is establishing security relationships throughout the region that seriously threaten India. This paper argues that, on the contrary, China faces a strategic dilemma right across the Indian Ocean that it will only be able to partially mitigate in the short to medium term. Perhaps we should be asking how China's strategic vulnerability should be best managed.
Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.
Notes
1. See, also to similar effect, Chinese media reports quoted in US-China Economic and Security Review Commission Staff Report, Citation2014. The First and Second Island Chains are notional strings of islands running from Japan through the western Pacific and Southeast Asia that could be used to ‘cut off’ China's access to the ocean. Indonesia actually sits in the notional Second Island Chain.
2. By sea and air and potentially also by land-based anti-ship cruise missiles deployed at the choke points.
3. Chinese troops likely numbered in the hundreds and not the thousands as reported in the New York Times.
4. The implementation of the IO-5 arrangement has been slowed by Colombo, apparently because of political irritations with Mauritius. Confidential interview by author with a senior Sri Lankan government official, October 2014. Colombo's position may well change following the election of a new president in January 2015.