| dc.description.abstract | The Indian Ocean has remained a strategic maritime space since ages, serving as an important link among various regions of the globe regarding trade, social contacts, and cultural exchanges. The region was mostly peaceful during the pre-Vasco da Gama era, but the advent of Europeans set the stage for tough competition characterized by loot, plunder, and even wars. This foul environment kept on thriving and had prevailed till the end of the Second World War. Thereafter, the region appeared in a new refashioned scene where the USA emerged as a sole superpower of the world immediately after the collapse of its rival and competitor-USSR in 1991. The next dramatic turn arrived by the end of 20th century when the two Asian giants China and India, appeared on the global scene with swift growing economies, advancement in scientific knowledge and skilled workforce. With the onset of the 21st century, the IOR witnessed the growing attention of these big powers especially China and the USA along with the regional power India, with increasing competition because of the growing geopolitical and geo-economic significance of the region. Since the economy of these countries became heavily dependent on the energy imports mainly arriving from the Middle East and Africa and carried away through the Sea Lanes of Communications spanning the Indian Ocean from west to east, the security and safe arrival of these imports through the Indian Ocean has been treated as a chief necessity if the economy is to survive, sustain and grow. Further, the regions vast reserves of natural resource wealth both living and non-living further attracted the attention of these countries towards the region. This resulted in the ever-increasing involvement of these powers in the region. China iv having geographical constraints to easily access the Indian Ocean, started to wean India’s neighbours to make its foothold strong in the region while the USA directly joined hands with India to contain China’s expansion in the region. China expedited the process of securing greater cooperation with the littoral nations of the region, secured a goodwill place by employing different tools of maritime strategy like big investments for developing the infrastructure of these countries, increase in trade, political and diplomatic engagements, and military exchanges. China has been developing and operating many ports in the Indian Ocean countries like in Pakistan, Sri Lanka, Myanmar, Maldives, Seychelles, Djibouti, Tanzania, Kenya. It is this increasing involvement of China where India finds herself at odds in some security perspectives. The study is an attempt to analyze the dynamics of Chinese involvement in the IOR, the possible concerns for India and India’s preparedness in response to such moves of China. | en_US |
