China's Belt and Road Initiative and the Indian Ocean balance

Abstract

China's Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) has begun to alter the balance of power in the Indian Ocean and evinces the potential to significantly disrupt power dynamics in the Indian Ocean region (IOR) with new regional shifts, power-sharing, partnerships and possibly alliances in future. China's BRI today comprises three primary routes – all leading to the Indian Ocean. The connections between China's Yunnan province and the Indian Ocean through Myanmar; the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC) that links Xinjiang province with the Indian Ocean; and the Oceanic Maritime Silk Road linking the Indian Ocean with China's Pacific coast. These linkages bring the Indian Ocean to the centre of the geopolitics that emerges from the BRI in South Asia, the central apprehension being driven from the link routes that geographically seem to encircle the Indian subcontinent. These concerns, along with unprecedented rising Chinese influence and capabilities in parts of South Asia, have led to a power-scramble involving both regional and extra-regional powers in the Indian Ocean, one which seeks to alter the balance of power in the IOR once and for all. This chapter seeks to study the changing power dynamics and balance of power in the IOR, with the Chinese BRI as a starting point and renewed security partnerships in the IOR and the Indo-Pacific as responses to restore a rapidly changing balance in Beijing's favour.