Changes of the International Environment in the Indian Ocean Region and the Strategic Choices for China

Abstract

AbstractWith the implementation of trade protectionism by western countries dominated by the US and EU, particularly the redefinition of trade rules by the Trump administration based on the “America First” policy, over the past two years, China’s foreign trade and investment will expand into the Indian Ocean region at a faster pace, and China will become an increasingly important economic and security stakeholder in the region. Moreover, the US is shifting its strategic focus from anti-terrorism to checking “strategic rivals”, hoping the countries within the Indian Ocean region like India and Australia will assume more security responsibilities. That causes new changes to the international environment in the Indian Ocean region, and the strategic competition among powers in the Indian Ocean region is increasingly intensified. Meanwhile, instead of being eased, the instability of the security situation across the Indian Ocean shows a sign of further deterioration. In the future, the US will still be the biggest variable that affects the international environment in the Indian Ocean region, and India, as a power within the region, will become a main variable that affects the international environment in the region. Amid the changing international environment across the Indian Ocean region, China will have fast growing demand for security in the region, which will prompt China to include the Indian Ocean into its strategic vision to meet its rising economic interests and security demand in the region and ease the pressure from the strategic competition among powers. According to this report, although China is not a country in the Indian Ocean, it’s a country close to the Indian Ocean. That is to say, China is the power outside but closest to the Indian Ocean. As the economic relations between China and the countries along the Indian Ocean coast has become increasingly closer in recent years, both traditional and non-traditional security challenges are growing in the region; in particular, given the strategic importance of the Eastern Indian Ocean, which is adjacent to South China Sea, to China’s peripheral environment, actively creating the political, economic and security environment favorable to China in the Indian Ocean region will be a choice for China’s foreign strategy in the next decade or even a longer period of time. In the Indian Ocean region, China has been, is, and will always be a builder that promotes economic prosperity, a participant that develops international rules and a contributor that safeguards common security. The main objective of China’s Indian Ocean strategy is to safeguard its freedom of navigation in the Indian Ocean and ensure its security of maritime transport, and to have the capability to expand its economic interest in the Indian Ocean region. This requires China to have corresponding military defense and projection capabilities, and to play a constructive role that matches its own capabilities in the field of security governance in the Indian Ocean.KeywordsIndian Ocean strategyInternational EnvironmentStrategic GameBelt and Road Initiative