# The Indian Ocean: Centre Stage for the 21st Century



## Edward Campbell (29 Mar 2009)

Here, reproduced in two part sunder the Fair Dealing provisions (§29) of the Copyright Act, from the March April 2009 edition of _Foreign Affairs, is a thought provoking article by Robert Kaplan:

http://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/64832/robert-d-kaplan/center-stage-for-the-21st-century

Part1 of 2




Center Stage for the 21st Century
*Power Plays in the Indian Ocean*

March/April 2009

Robert D. Kaplan

ROBERT D. KAPLAN, a National Correspondent for The Atlantic and a Senior Fellow at the Center for a New American Security, in Washington, D.C., is writing a book on the Indian Ocean. He recently was the Class of 1960 Distinguished Visiting Professor in National Security at the U.S. Naval Academy.

For better or worse, phrases such "the Cold War" and "the clash of civilizations" matter. In a similar way, so do maps. The right map can stimulate foresight by providing a spatial view of critical trends in world politics. Understanding the map of Europe was essential to understanding the twentieth century. Although recent technological advances and economic integration have encouraged global thinking, some places continue to count more than others. And in some of those, such as Iraq and Pakistan, two countries with inherently artificial contours, politics is still at the mercy of geography.

So in what quarter of the earth today can one best glimpse the future? Because of their own geographic circumstances, Americans, in particular, continue to concentrate on the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans. World War II and the Cold War shaped this outlook: Nazi Germany, imperial Japan, the Soviet Union, and communist China were all oriented toward one of these two oceans. The bias is even embedded in mapping conventions: Mercator projections tend to place the Western Hemisphere in the middle of the map, splitting the Indian Ocean at its far edges. And yet, as the pirate activity off the coast of Somalia and the terrorist carnage in Mumbai last fall suggest, the Indian Ocean -- the world's third-largest body of water -- already forms center stage for the challenges of the twenty-first century.

The greater Indian Ocean region encompasses the entire arc of Islam, from the Sahara Desert to the Indonesian archipelago. Although the Arabs and the Persians are known to Westerners primarily as desert peoples, they have also been great seafarers. In the Middle Ages, they sailed from Arabia to China; proselytizing along the way, they spread their faith through sea-based commerce. Today, the western reaches of the Indian Ocean include the tinderboxes of Somalia, Yemen, Iran, and Pakistan -- constituting a network of dynamic trade as well as a network of global terrorism, piracy, and drug smuggling. Hundreds of millions of Muslims -- the legacy of those medieval conversions -- live along the Indian Ocean's eastern edges, in India and Bangladesh, Malaysia and Indonesia.







The Indian Ocean is dominated by two immense bays, the Arabian Sea and the Bay of Bengal, near the top of which are two of the least stable countries in the world: Pakistan and Myanmar (also known as Burma). State collapse or regime change in Pakistan would affect its neighbors by empowering Baluchi and Sindhi separatists seeking closer links to India and Iran. Likewise, the collapse of the junta in Myanmar -- where competition over energy and natural resources between China and India looms -- would threaten economies nearby and require a massive seaborne humanitarian intervention. On the other hand, the advent of a more liberal regime in Myanmar would undermine China's dominant position there, boost Indian influence, and quicken regional economic integration.

In other words, more than just a geographic feature, the Indian Ocean is also an idea. It combines the centrality of Islam with global energy politics and the rise of India and China to reveal a multilayered, multipolar world. The dramatic economic growth of India and China has been duly noted, but the equally dramatic military ramifications of this development have not. India's and China's great-power aspirations, as well as their quests for energy security, have compelled the two countries "to redirect their gazes from land to the seas," according to James Holmes and Toshi Yoshihara, associate professors of strategy at the U.S. Naval War College. And the very fact that they are focusing on their sea power indicates how much more self-confident they feel on land. And so a map of the Indian Ocean exposes the contours of power politics in the twenty-first century.

Yet this is still an environment in which the United States will have to keep the peace and help guard the global commons -- interdicting terrorists, pirates, and smugglers; providing humanitarian assistance; managing the competition between India and China. It will have to do so not, as in Afghanistan and Iraq, as a land-based, in-your-face meddler, leaning on far-flung army divisions at risk of getting caught up in sectarian conflict, but as a sea-based balancer lurking just over the horizon. Sea power has always been less threatening than land power: as the cliché goes, navies make port visits, and armies invade. Ships take a long time to get to a war zone, allowing diplomacy to work its magic. And as the U.S. response to the 2004 tsunami in the Indian Ocean showed, with most sailors and marines returning to their ships each night, navies can exert great influence on shore while leaving a small footprint. The more the United States becomes a maritime hegemon, as opposed to a land-based one, the less threatening it will seem to others.

Moreover, precisely because India and China are emphasizing their sea power, the job of managing their peaceful rise will fall on the U.S. Navy to a significant extent. There will surely be tensions between the three navies, especially as the gaps in their relative strength begin to close. But even if the comparative size of the U.S. Navy decreases in the decades ahead, the United States will remain the one great power from outside the Indian Ocean region with a major presence there -- a unique position that will give it the leverage to act as a broker between India and China in their own backyard. To understand this dynamic, one must look at the region from a maritime perspective.

*SEA CHANGES*

Thanks to the predictability of the monsoon winds, the countries on the Indian Ocean were connected well before the age of steam power. Trade in frankincense, spices, precious stones, and textiles brought together the peoples flung along its long shoreline during the Middle Ages. Throughout history, sea routes have mattered more than land routes, writes the historian Felipe Fernández-Armesto, because they carry more goods more economically. "Whoever is lord of Malacca has his hand on the throat of Venice," went one saying during the late fifteenth century, alluding to the city's extensive commerce with Asia; if the world were an egg, Hormuz would be its yolk, went another. Even today, in the jet and information age, 90 percent of global commerce and about 65 percent of all oil travel by sea. Globalization has been made possible by the cheap and easy shipping of containers on tankers, and the Indian Ocean accounts for fully half the world's container traffic. Moreover, 70 percent of the total traffic of petroleum products passes through the Indian Ocean, on its way from the Middle East to the Pacific. As these goods travel that route, they pass through the world's principal oil shipping lanes, including the Gulfs of Aden and Oman -- as well as some of world commerce's main chokepoints: Bab el Mandeb and the Straits of Hormuz and Malacca. Forty percent of world trade passes through the Strait of Malacca; 40 percent of all traded crude oil passes through the Strait of Hormuz.

Already the world's preeminent energy and trade interstate seaway, the Indian Ocean will matter even more in the future. Global energy needs are expected to rise by 45 percent between 2006 and 2030, and almost half of the growth in demand will come from India and China. China's demand for crude oil doubled between 1995 and 2005 and will double again in the coming 15 years or so; by 2020, China is expected to import 7.3 million barrels of crude per day -- half of Saudi Arabia's planned output. More than 85 percent of the oil and oil products bound for China cross the Indian Ocean and pass through the Strait of Malacca.

India -- soon to become the world's fourth-largest energy consumer, after the United States, China, and Japan -- is dependent on oil for roughly 33 percent of its energy needs, 65 percent of which it imports. And 90 percent of its oil imports could soon come from the Persian Gulf. India must satisfy a population that will, by 2030, be the largest of any country in the world. Its coal imports from far-off Mozambique are set to increase substantially, adding to the coal that India already imports from other Indian Ocean countries, such as South Africa, Indonesia, and Australia. In the future, India-bound ships will also be carrying increasingly large quantities of liquefied natural gas (LNG) across the seas from southern Africa, even as it continues importing LNG from Qatar, Malaysia, and Indonesia.

As the whole Indian Ocean seaboard, including Africa's eastern shores, becomes a vast web of energy trade, India is seeking to increase its influence from the Plateau of Iran to the Gulf of Thailand -- an expansion west and east meant to span the zone of influence of the Raj's viceroys. India's trade with the Arab countries of the Persian Gulf and Iran, with which India has long enjoyed close economic and cultural ties, is booming. Approximately 3.5 million Indians work in the six Arab states of the Gulf Cooperation Council and send home $4 billion in remittances annually. As India's economy continues to grow, so will its trade with Iran and, once the country recovers, Iraq. Iran, like Afghanistan, has become a strategic rear base for India against Pakistan, and it is poised to become an important energy partner. In 2005, India and Iran signed a multibillion-dollar deal under which Iran will supply India with 7.5 million tons of LNG annually for 25 years, beginning in 2009. There has been talk of building a gas pipeline from Iran to India through Pakistan, a project that would join the Middle East and South Asia at the hip (and in the process could go a long way toward stabilizing Indian-Pakistani relations). In another sign that Indian-Iranian relations are growing more intimate, India has been helping Iran develop the port of Chah Bahar, on the Gulf of Oman, which will also serve as a forward base for the Iranian navy.

India has also been expanding its military and economic ties with Myanmar, to the east. Democratic India does not have the luxury of spurning Myanmar's junta because Myanmar is rich in natural resources -- oil, natural gas, coal, zinc, copper, uranium, timber, and hydropower -- resources in which the Chinese are also heavily invested. India hopes that a network of east-west roads and energy pipelines will eventually allow it to be connected to Iran, Pakistan, and Myanmar.

India is enlarging its navy in the same spirit. With its 155 warships, the Indian navy is already one of the world's largest, and it expects to add three nuclear-powered submarines and three aircraft carriers to its arsenal by 2015. One major impetus for the buildup was the humiliating inability of its navy to evacuate Indian citizens from Iraq and Kuwait during the 1990–91 Persian Gulf War. Another is what Mohan Malik, a scholar at the Asia-Pacific Center for Security Studies, in Hawaii, has called India's "Hormuz dilemma," its dependence on imports passing through the strait, close to the shores of Pakistan's Makran coast, where the Chinese are helping the Pakistanis develop deep-water ports.

Indeed, as India extends its influence east and west, on land and at sea, it is bumping into China, which, also concerned about protecting its interests throughout the region, is expanding its reach southward. Chinese President Hu Jintao has bemoaned China's "Malacca dilemma." The Chinese government hopes to eventually be able to partly bypass that strait by transporting oil and other energy products via roads and pipelines from ports on the Indian Ocean into the heart of China. One reason that Beijing wants desperately to integrate Taiwan into its dominion is so that it can redirect its naval energies away from the Taiwan Strait and toward the Indian Ocean.

The Chinese government has already adopted a "string of pearls" strategy for the Indian Ocean, which consists of setting up a series of ports in friendly countries along the ocean's northern seaboard. It is building a large naval base and listening post in Gwadar, Pakistan, (from which it may already be monitoring ship traffic through the Strait of Hormuz); a port in Pasni, Pakistan, 75 miles east of Gwadar, which is to be joined to the Gwadar facility by a new highway; a fueling station on the southern coast of Sri Lanka; and a container facility with extensive naval and commercial access in Chittagong, Bangladesh. Beijing operates surveillance facilities on islands deep in the Bay of Bengal. In Myanmar, whose junta gets billions of dollars in military assistance from Beijing, the Chinese are constructing (or upgrading) commercial and naval bases and building roads, waterways, and pipelines in order to link the Bay of Bengal to the southern Chinese province of Yunnan. Some of these facilities are closer to cities in central and western China than those cities are to Beijing and Shanghai, and so building road and rail links from these facilities into China will help spur the economies of China's landlocked provinces. The Chinese government is also envisioning a canal across the Isthmus of Kra, in Thailand, to link the Indian Ocean to China's Pacific coast -- a project on the scale of the Panama Canal and one that could further tip Asia's balance of power in China's favor by giving China's burgeoning navy and commercial maritime fleet easy access to a vast oceanic continuum stretching all the way from East Africa to Japan and the Korean Peninsula.

All of these activities are unnerving the Indian government. With China building deep-water ports to its west and east and a preponderance of Chinese arms sales going to Indian Ocean states, India fears being encircled by China unless it expands its own sphere of influence. The two countries' overlapping commercial and political interests are fostering competition, and even more so in the naval realm than on land. Zhao Nanqi, former director of the General Logistics Department of the People's Liberation Army, proclaimed in 1993, "We can no longer accept the Indian Ocean as an ocean only of the Indians." India has responded to China's building of a naval base in Gwadar by further developing one of its own, that in Karwar, India, south of Goa. Meanwhile, Zhang Ming, a Chinese naval analyst, has warned that the 244 islands that form India's Andaman and Nicobar archipelago could be used like a "metal chain" to block the western entrance to the Strait of Malacca, on which China so desperately depends. "India is perhaps China's most realistic strategic adversary," Zhang has written. "Once India commands the Indian Ocean, it will not be satisfied with its position and will continuously seek to extend its influence, and its eastward strategy will have a particular impact on China." These may sound like the words of a professional worrier from China's own theory class, but these worries are revealing: Beijing already considers New Delhi to be a major sea power.

As the competition between India and China suggests, the Indian Ocean is where global struggles will play out in the twenty-first century. The old borders of the Cold War map are crumbling fast, and Asia is becoming a more integrated unit, from the Middle East to the Pacific. South Asia has been an indivisible part of the greater Islamic Middle East since the Middle Ages: it was the Muslim Ghaznavids of eastern Afghanistan who launched raids on India's northwestern coast in the early eleventh century; Indian civilization itself is a fusion of the indigenous Hindu culture and the cultural imprint left by these invasions. Although it took the seaborne terrorist attacks in Mumbai last November for most Westerners to locate India inside the greater Middle East, the Indian Ocean's entire coast has always constituted one vast interconnected expanse.

What is different now is the extent of these connections. On a maritime-centric map of southern Eurasia, artificial land divisions disappear; even landlocked Central Asia is related to the Indian Ocean. Natural gas from Turkmenistan may one day flow through Afghanistan, for example, en route to Pakistani and Indian cities and ports, one of several possible energy links between Central Asia and the Indian subcontinent. Both the Chinese port in Gwadar, Pakistan, and the Indian port in Chah Bahar, Iran, may eventually be connected to oil- and natural-gas-rich Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan, Turkmenistan, and other former Soviet republics. S. Frederick Starr, a Central Asia expert at the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies, said at a conference in Washington last year that access to the Indian Ocean "will help define Central Asian politics in the future." Others have called ports in India and Pakistan "evacuation points" for Caspian Sea oil. The destinies of countries even 1,200 miles from the Indian Ocean are connected with it.
		
Click to expand...


End of Part 1

_


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## Edward Campbell (29 Mar 2009)

Part 2 of 2



> Center Stage for the 21st Century
> *Power Plays in the Indian Ocean*
> 
> Robert D. Kaplan
> ...



End of article. My comments follow, below.


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## Edward Campbell (29 Mar 2009)

Like it or not, Kaplan’s analysis deserves a fair reading and an open discussion.

I agree, very broadly, with his regional analysis:

•	The Indian Ocean is a region of great and increasing importance;

•	It is bordered by some of the world’s most unstable and dangerous states; and

•	Free access to and through it is vital to two emerging great powers: China and India.

I also agree with his somewhat more provocative contention that the USA is a _”slowly declining hegemon”_ – see, also his  recent article in _The Atlantic_ – which means that its capacity to manage the Indian Ocean situation, on its own, is limited.

As I have said elsewhere, I support multinational efforts – even a _“NATO of the seas”_, so long as NATO/Brussels is not too deeply involved – to try to prevent the escalation of regional difficulties into full scale, destructive wars.

We, as Canadians, need to consider out _*vital* interests_ and, more broadly, those of the US led West.

First: *Don’t bet against America*. It may well be a slowly declining hegemon but the operative word is slowly. For the duration of any useful planning period the USA remains the world’s greatest of great powers: the undisputed military _hyper-power_. China will challenge it, but, initially – and for as long as I and some of you will be alive – only in the “soft power” domains. (See: here.)

Second: Our primary vital interest is in preventing the escalation of conflicts into wars because they disrupt trade and commerce and we are, and need be, above all, a trading nation;

Third: We, and our friends and allies, have no valid reasons to pick a fight with China. It doesn’t want a fight and it does not threaten any of our vital interests. The reunification of China/Taiwan is *not* one of our vital interests. Assuming, as I do, that it will be done “correctly” (some sort of _one country/two systems_ formula) it does not even threaten our financial/trade interests;

Fourth: We have a long tradition, going all the way back to the Nehru/St Laurent-Pearson days, of close relations with India. It is, it is fair to say, the “world’s greatest democracy” and we have an interest in preserving, defending and promoting democracy in the world. India is not our enemy; it should be our friend and ally; and

Fifth: We want and need to continue to (maintain and) raise our stature in the world by playing an active, constructive and highly visible role in global security.

All that means that, in addition to continuing on in Afghanistan even after the combat mission in Kandahar ends in 2011 and to strengthening our Arctic sovereignty, we must play a bigger role in The Indian Ocean and in the Afro-Asian trouble-spots (home of the “bottom billion” about which I go on and on and on until you are all near to terminal boredom).

Kaplan offers one view of part of the way ahead.

We can begin by encouraging the USA, Australia, Singapore and others to join in a “regional” security effort.


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## Bruce Monkhouse (29 Mar 2009)

What I got out of this is we need to get into the warship building/selling business.
It sounds like a growing market.....


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## CougarKing (29 Mar 2009)

E.R. Campbell said:
			
		

> We can begin by encouraging the USA, Australia, Singapore and others to join in a “regional” security effort.



I am a little surprised that Malaysia did not make your immediate list at the top of your mind, considering that it has raised its standard of living in the last two decades and can be considered a 2nd-string Asian Economic Tiger after the original four, and its armed forces have had a modernization process that has paralleled its growing prosperity. It is also a fellow Commonwealth member nation and one of the more moderate Muslim states. IIRC, the Royal Malaysian Navy recently participated in Exercise Bersama Lima 08 alongside the RN, as well as forces from Australia, New Zealand and Singapore.

Maybe Canada should also think of joining the FPDA, considering the increased forays of Canadian warships into the Indian Ocean, not only to support the Coalition in the Persian Gulf but also in the recent anti-piracy efforts off Somalia?


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## a_majoor (29 Mar 2009)

While the shift in relative power is noted, I think one of the best descriptions I saw (and I wish I could find the source again...) is the contest between China and America is a contest between a Dragon and a Whale; each is supreme in its own element, but can't really get at the other.

China's ability to project forces in the Indian Ocean will always be limited by geography: the sea approaches are both narrow and guarded by nations which are neutral towards Chinese interests at best. India's interest in dominating the Indian Ocean is certainly a huge obstacle for Chinese interests, and even the United States still has control of access to "unsinkable aircraft carriers" in the form of bases throughout the region, and allies like Australia and Japan.

I also suspect that the United States has the unique ability to change the game with innovative technologies, ranging from fairly straightforward developments like adopting high speed hull forms for surface combatants to really freaky things like using metamaterials to render ships and equipment "invisible" to various forms of detection and really advanced forms of information technology like "Wolfram Alpha" to integrate and use vast databases of information. 

While this is obviously not going to happen overnight (and may not happen using the ideas I postulated), this still shifts the ground the opposition is playing on, just as the quantitative advances of the 1980's undercut the vast numeric superiority of the former USSR on land.


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## CougarKing (31 Mar 2009)

Mr. Thucydides,

Do you think that Canada would have an interest in joining the Five Power Defence Arrangements (FPDA) as a means to get its foot in the door for forming alliances for use in this region as the article recommended? The FPDA's current signatories include the UK, Australia, New Zealand, Malaysia and Singapore. While the original arrangement's aim included the defence of Malaysia and Singapore, all its members/signatories are also the more prosperous Commonwealth member nations and thus it seems to me that Canada would fit right in since these other nations share common interests with Canada on other issues.  And you are of course well aware of the defence capabilities of these other nations.

Perhaps the arrangement could have its mandate expanded to include antipiracy operations as just one justification for Canada to join. Or even the protection of the British territory/outpost at Diego Garcia.


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## Colin Parkinson (31 Mar 2009)

CougarDaddy said:
			
		

> I am a little surprised that Malaysia did not make your immediate list at the top of your mind, considering that it has raised its standard of living in the last two decades and can be considered a 2nd-string Asian Economic Tiger after the original four, and its armed forces have had a modernization process that has paralleled its growing prosperity. It is also a fellow Commonwealth member nation and one of the more moderate Muslim states. IIRC, the Royal Malaysian Navy recently participated in Exercise Bersama Lima 08 alongside the RN, as well as forces from Australia, New Zealand and Singapore.
> 
> Maybe Canada should also think of joining the FPDA, considering the increased forays of Canadian warships into the Indian Ocean, not only to support the Coalition in the Persian Gulf but also in the recent anti-piracy efforts off Somalia?



Malaysia is an oddball, while it keeps ties with the west, including having various military training exercises with Aussie, US & British troops, it does not see itself first as a Commonwealth country, but more aligned with the Islamic world. Basically the country has followed the personal whims of Dr. M , who while no longer the head of the country still exert considerable influence on the direction his country takes. The internals stresses of Malaysia also play a part in it’s external actions. There is a pressure to become more aligned with Islamic countries, but at the same time they realize the non-Islamic population is the true driver of the economy, the Malays do not trust the  Malaysian Chinese and visa versa. The one thing you can bet on is that Malaysia will do it’s on thing, with maintaining the economy as a priority. The number of ethnic Malays is growing and they are used to a high degree of government handouts and preferential treatment. The government fears unrest if unemployment goes to high and things could get ugly as there are enough AQ & company types lounging around the place to stir up the pot. Presently Malaysia is worth more as a R&R place for AQ and other radicals than as front in global Jihad. Malaysia feels the economic pinch from countries like Vietnam and Burma, that can undercut it’s manufacturing.


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## a_majoor (1 Apr 2009)

CougarDaddy said:
			
		

> Mr. Thucydides,
> 
> Do you think that Canada would have an interest in joining the Five Power Defence Arrangements (FPDA) as a means to get its foot in the door for forming alliances for use in this region as the article recommended? The FPDA's current signatories include the UK, Australia, New Zealand, Malaysia and Singapore. While the original arrangement's aim included the defence of Malaysia and Singapore, all its members/signatories are also the more prosperous Commonwealth member nations and thus it seems to me that Canada would fit right in since these other nations share common interests with Canada on other issues.  And you are of course well aware of the defence capabilities of these other nations.
> 
> Perhaps the arrangement could have its mandate expanded to include antipiracy operations as just one justification for Canada to join. Or even the protection of the British territory/outpost at Diego Garcia.



If I were in Prime Minister Harper's position I would indeed wish to foster stronger links to the FDPA for most of the reasons you listed. As well, this is part of the larger "Anglosphere" of nations related by common history, language, values and institutions, so we would find a great deal of common interests and goals which would make operating with that group much easier and more productive. Joining with the FDPA could be considered a nice foot in the door move.

The other reason is outlined here, and you can read the complete thread for more details (yes, I am referencing myself. How often can you say that and get away with it? ;D)


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## Edward Campbell (30 Jul 2013)

Caution: _Necrothread_ resurrected ...

I pay a lot of attention to Danny Quah, Professor of Economics at the London School of Economics and Political Science (LSE), I think he is one of the more astute _big league_ public intellectuals and in this short (15+ minute) video he follows on from the idea of this thread ~ that the East is the economic centre stage for the 21st century.

If you cannot manage to sit through 15 minutes of thought provoking talk, just listen, please, to the last two minutes and, especially, to his _utilitarian_ final sentences.

The point is that we must ask the right question, which is not, as Prof Quah explains, "is the _East_ "mature" enough to play a leading role in world affairs?" The right question is how do we, _East_ and _West_, together manage the world so as to provide "the greatest happiness* [good] for the greatest number" as Joseph Priestly put it in the period around 1765-1780.


_____
* The use of the word happiness by Priestly and by the authors of the US Declaration of Independence (life and liberty and the pursuit of happiness) doesn't suggest that happy = a night with several of FHM's 100 sexciest women, it meant, to the men and women of the _Enlightenment_, living a _productively_ successful life, making the most of your lifel or, in the words of a 20th century US Army advertisement: "be all you can be."


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## a_majoor (10 Aug 2013)

I had also thought about posting this in the India Superthread, but since this seems to be more about how India's endemic corruption and inefficiencies are driving business and investment out of India and into the Indian Ocean region to avoid punative taxation and being strangled by regulation, this seems to be the best place to put it:

http://nextbigfuture.com/2013/08/as-growth-slows-and-reforms-falter.html



> *As growth slows and reforms falter, economic activity is shifting out of India*
> 
> Major trade and finance hubs into India are based in Dubai, Mauritius, Singapore and Sri Lanka.
> 
> ...


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## tomahawk6 (12 Aug 2013)

India's first nuclear sub fired up its reactor on 10 Aug.Her name is the Arihant.Today the Indian Navy launched their new carrier the Vikrant.Its all about sending a message to the neighbors.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=3QkgQI-cORg#at=68

http://blogs.the-american-interest.com/wrm/2013/08/11/naval-buildup-in-asias-game-of-thrones/



> India recently passed a major milestone in the development of its blue-water navy: The country’s first nuclear-powered submarine successfully activated its reactor yesterday. As The Hindu reports, the sub—named the Arihant—is the first of four, all of which of the subs will carry K-15 missiles which can be launched from underwater and carry a nuclear warhead and hit targets up to 700 kilometers away.
> 
> The Arihant makes India the second power in the region with nuclear submarines, joining China. It’s also the latest in a flurry of naval building throughout Asia: Japan recently launched its largest ship since WWII, China appears to be working on a second full-sized aircraft carrier and Australia and Japan are considering an agreement to share submarine technology of their own. India’s new nuclear submarine fleet has been under development for 25 years and seems to be aimed at least as much towards providing second-strike deterrence towards Pakistan as towards China. Nonetheless, the subs are sure to make waves in a region in the grips of a serious naval arms race.



New Carrier:

http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/india/India-to-launch-aircraft-carrier-INS-Vikrant-today/articleshow/21771520.cms


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## Edward Campbell (14 Aug 2013)

E.R. Campbell said:
			
		

> ...
> 
> But consider, also, the issue of the Kra Isthmus Canal across Thailand which China is considering building at a cost of $(US)25 Billion or more and which could do real serious damage to Singapore's position as East Asia's favourite entrepôt.




This article, which is reproduced under the Fair Dealing provisions of the Copyright Act from _The Diplomat_, could have gone in one of several threads but I think it fits best, here:

http://thediplomat.com/flashpoints-blog/2013/08/12/can-india-blockade-china/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+the-diplomat+%28The+Diplomat+RSS%29


> Can India Blockade China?
> 
> By  Shashank Joshi
> 
> ...




Now, once again, please, consider that "crazy" Chinese proposal to spend $(US) 25 Billion ~ probably a whole lot more ~ on the Kra Canal project ... it seems to make _strategic sense_. The Indians can still block both ends but then they have to block the Kra Isthmus and the Malacca Straits and the sundry routes around Indonesia.


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## Old Sweat (14 Aug 2013)

This argues for an alliance between India and Indonesia, does it not, to provide the potential to interdict the Chinese SLOC. What it really calls for is for them all to get along, but human nature being what it is, that may not be in the cards.


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## Edward Campbell (14 Aug 2013)

India and Indonesia my not be a very good fit; nor, in my opinion, are China and Indonesia; but India and Philippines or, equally China and Philippines make sense.

The Chinese have two things the Philippines needs: money and markets.

Their dispute over islands is an obstacle but it is one that can be overcome.

India, also, presents a potential market for the _emerging_ Philippines economy but India is so bloody protectionist that it is a horror for (even relatively) free traders.


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## CougarKing (14 Aug 2013)

E.R. Campbell said:
			
		

> China and Philippines make sense.
> 
> The Chinese have two things the Philippines needs: money and markets.



Manila may adhere to its own "one-China policy" and may recognize Beijing over Taipei, but it's not that simple.

The Philippine government, because of its weakness militarily, has resorted to diplomacy to handle most of its territorial disagreements with Beijing, while at the same time they have jumped on to the "China threat" bandwagon by exploring better defence links with the United States, Australia and Japan. The Philippine Coast Guard is funded from Japanese aid funds; Prime Minister Abe actually made a recent visit to Manila.

Aside from the powerful Filipino-Chinese diaspora who control a sizable chunk of the country's larger companies, such as Philippine Airlines owned by Henry Sy, most average Filipinos on the street cannot tolerate the bully that China has been portrayed to be by the media there. Especially with regard to the resource-rich Spratley Islands which Manila claims, but only partially occupies.

Here's one article that reflects China's perception in the Philippines:



> MANILA, Philippines - *China's image in the Philippines is largely negative due to the tension over the West Philippines Sea with two in five Filipinos saying the Asian giant has become the country's foe.*
> A global survey by Pew Research Center released on Thursday finds that in 2013, 39 percent of the population consider the Asian  giant as an "enemy," while 35 percent think China is "neither."
> 
> Only 22 percent of Filipinos see China as a "partner."
> ...



However, the Philippines does not border the Indian Ocean, so this is getting off-topic, even if this tangent did focus on China.


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## CougarKing (17 Aug 2013)

E.R. Campbell said:
			
		

> India and Indonesia my not be a very good fit; nor, in my opinion, are China and Indonesia; but India and Philippines or, equally China and Philippines make sense.



Speaking of Indonesia, it seems the Russians are trying to take advantage of the growing market for warships and submarines among the nations of Southeast and South Asia.

Here's an article below, translated directly from Bahasa, which announced that the Russians are offering 10 used submarines to the Indonesian Navy:



> *[size=14pt]Russia offers 10 unit of used subs to Indonesia as a grant[/size]*
> 
> Jakarta - Russia offers ten units of submarines to Indonesia. Still, can not necessarily be accepted because the government still must spend some money on a maintenance costs.
> 
> ...


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## Edward Campbell (5 Feb 2014)

An interesting graphic, from the _Wall Street Journal_, on defence spending: the Asia Pacific region still accounts for only 25% of global defence spending but it, the _strategic_ focus of that spending has, I believe, shifted away from the Middle East and West Asia and towards East and South East Asia, making the Indian Ocean "centre stage."


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## Colin Parkinson (19 Aug 2020)

E.R. Campbell said:
			
		

> India and Indonesia my not be a very good fit; nor, in my opinion, are China and Indonesia; but India and Philippines or, equally China and Philippines make sense.
> 
> The Chinese have two things the Philippines needs: money and markets.
> 
> ...



I agree Indonesia will have major issues with how India treats its Muslims, unless the threat from China becomes to great. Indonesia also wants to remain independent. they might be willing to make some agreements with India, which has been traditional not been aligned and nationalist like Indonesia. But they may just as easily make an agreement with China as well.

India and Philippines makes for some interesting thoughts


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