BANGLADESH INSTITUTE OF INTERNATIONAL AND STRATEGIC STUDIES

PROSPECTS FOR SINO-INDIAN MARITIME CONNECTIVITY IN THE INDIAN OCEAN REGION

Author: Md. Muhibbur Rahman

DOI Link: DOI: https://www.doi.org/10.56888/BIISSj2015v36n3a4

ABSTRACT

This paper examines the prospect for Sino-Indian maritime cooperation in the context of China’s recent multilateral maritime connectivity project known as the 21st Century Maritime Silk Road. This ambitious step as a part of China’s greater ‘Road and Belt’ initiatives generated considerable trade and infrastructure development prospects for neighbouring countries including India. However, India is highly skeptical and anxious about China’s long term motive and has taken rather an ambivalent position. Geopolitical apprehensions concerning China’s rise and the fear of China’s growing influence in the Indian Ocean made this maritime project an uneasy development for India, despite the initiative’s potential to accord the country tangible economic benefits. In addition, extra-regional forces in Indian Ocean geopolitical calculations could complicate India’s maritime cooperation with China. Therefore, the complicacy involves a much broader geopolitical hedging. There is an alignment of interests among India, the US and Japan in preventing China’s deeper and long-term engagement in the Indian Ocean Region. However, economic interdependence, the need for infrastructure development as well as seaward reorientation of Indian economy could drive the country to find out a carefully crafted policy of exploiting economic benefits by engaging with China in the maritime sphere.