India and China in Contemporary Times

Abstract

The ascending stature of India as an Indian Ocean power is by no means a recent acknowledgement. India’s geographical location, jutting out for a thousand miles into the Indian Ocean, and being walled off on three sides by land, has endowed it with a strategic security sphere over the entire Indian Ocean Region (IOR). The imperative of India safeguarding the IOR emerges from its centrality in the region, an extensive coastline of over 7516 km, an Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ) of 2.172 million sq. km and a continental shelf of more than 1 million sq. km beyond the EEZ. Based on these considerations, the modern vision of the country’s responsible power profile in the IOR has been outlined by the Indian Naval Doctrine (inaugurated in 2004 and modified subsequently in 2007 and 2009) and the Indian Maritime Security Strategy (IMSS) inaugurated in 2015, which constitute an edifice of India’s ‘Look East’ policy, precursor to the present ‘Act East’. Given this premise, the chapter analyses India’s role as a responsible Indian Ocean power, in the sphere of both traditional and non-traditional security computations, as well as takes stock of its stature as a balancer to China’s graduating military and strategic assertiveness in the region. Of particular concern to Indian strategic equations and understanding is the 21st-century Maritime Silk Road (MSR) (海上丝绸之路, Haishang sichou zhi lu) – the maritime component of China’s ambitious BRI or Belt and Road Initiative (一带一路 Yidai yilu) – which is providing Beijing its geo-strategic rationale to increase its footprint in the IOR. The chapter discusses Indian policy responses to China’s regional overtures from the following perspectives: first, the maritime guidance document, christened ‘Ensuring Secure Seas: Indian Maritime Security Strategy, 2015’; second, the renewed emphasis of the Indian Navy in securing the IOR, while acknowledging the Navy’s central role as a net security provider; third, the proactive role of ‘Act East’ policy; and finally, by projecting its soft power through ‘Project Mausam’.