Traffic in New Delhi, India, February 13, 2010 (Kalpana Chatterjee)

India’s central bank last week cut its growth forecasts for 2012 and moved to increase liquidity in an effort to contain a nearly 7.5 percent inflation rate. It specifically cited the government’s “policy and administrative uncertainty” as one of the reasons for India’s weakened economy.

The bank lamented “the absence of credible fiscal consolidation” and urged efforts to “induce investment that will help alleviate supply constraints in food and infrastructure.”

India has made it easier for foreigners to invest directly in domestic firms but structural industrial and labor market reforms, which are critical if the country of 1.2 billion is to live up to its economic potential, are unlikely to be enacted in the short term by the center left administration in New Delhi.

Neither of India’s two major political parties has so far been willing to risk losing votes from people who dependent on government for their livelihoods by reining in a pervasive bureaucracy that is rife with corruption. Ridden by scandals, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh’s government lacks the credibility to push ahead with reforms which the former finance minister himself pioneered in the 1990s.

Starting a business in India takes up to two hundreds days if one is to complete the excessive licensing requirements and can cost more than sixteen times the average annual income. That is, unless an entrepreneur has the financial resources to bribe officials and streamline the process.

Corruption is a major impediment to growth in itself. Property rights are not effectively protected nor enforced. Judicial procedures tend to be protracted and can be subject to political pressure.

The economic liberalization of India has lifted hundreds of millions out of poverty and allowed the country to attract international business and investment. The process has stalled at a time when China, India’s largest competitor for access to food, hydrocarbon, mineral and water resources abroad, is expanding its reach across the Indian Ocean.

Even as it enjoys an informed workforce that speaks English, laborers in China are better educated on average than their Indian counterparts. They are also more productive. China enjoys an almost complete industrial supremacy over its competitor. It produces nearly half of the world’s steel, ten times India’s output, while Chinese infrastructure receives three times the investment that India’s does.

There is mounting apprehension in India about the other Asian giant’s rise but also a huge disparity between the upper middle class’ recognition of what needs to be done to boost India’s competitiveness on the one hand and the everyday struggles of the nation’s poor on the other. The World Bank last year estimated that 32 percent of India’s population lives in poverty. Two-thirds of its people depend on rural employment for a living.

The agricultural economy nevertheless faces considerable challenges which the government has largely failed to address. There aren’t good roads to allow farmers to take their products to market but there is ample regulation of foodstuffs to discourage expansion.

Irrigation systems are poorly maintained when fossil aquifers are rapidly depleting. India’s food production is stagnating yet the country is projected to add almost half a billion people before 2050. Climate change further raises the specter of diminished river flows if Himalayan glaciers melt.

There is no question that India cannot afford a “Hindu rate of growth” anymore. If it is to meet the challenges of the twenty-first century, it must work to stamp out corruption, lift the regulatory burden that stifles innovation and growth and invest in its road and water infrastructure instead, else it may not be able to feed its people in the long term.

Aerial photo of Maldivian atolls (Haanee Naeem)

The best way to get success in strategy is through success. An historical case study was General Douglas MacArthur’s “island hopping” strategy in the Pacific during World War II. It involved capturing an island, building a base there and moving on toward the prime target.

China seems to be copying this strategy in the Indian Ocean and the South Pacific. In the former, it is seeking to contain India by forging alliances with island nations including the Maldives, Mauritius and the Seychelles and building a “string of pearls” of military bases from East Africa to Pakistan.

The strategy is designed to curtail Indian influence in the region so China, with the Americans distracted in the Middle East, can have a free run in other parts of Asia and across the Pacific Ocean but also to encroach upon African countries that welcome its yuan diplomacy—developmental and industrial support with no strings attached.

China has never announced this strategy publicly. A recent statement from the Chinese military that it’s considering an offer from the Seychelles to host a Chinese naval base confirms that the strategy exists however.

Furthermore, the Chinese foreign ministry has stated that it isn’t interested in building military bases in other places.

The Chinese “island hopping” strategy defies historical precedent and differs from the strategies of other and past greater powers in that they were usually explicit about their intentions. China apparently believes that concealing its motives best serves its interests.

An increased Chinese presence across the Indian Ocean poses a challenge to India as it is trying to project itself as a greater power beyond South Asia. The two Asian giants are vying for economic opportunities and international recognition. Renewed American engagement, which is likely to follow military withdrawals from Afghanistan and Iraq, could prove an obstacle to China’s designs and cause it to intensify its efforts now.

As the United States court nations ranging from Australia to Indonesia to Vietnam, the Chinese imperative to erect naval bases in the Indian Ocean and South Pacific will only seem more pressing.

Prime Ministers Manmohan Singh of India and Jacob Zuma of South Africa meet in Pretoria (PTI)

The current geopolitical landscape in Africa represents an unique opportunity for occupying the power vacuum that will be created as Western nations reduce their footprint abroad. China will be best placed to seize this opportunity and has already been aggressively stepping up its involvement in Africa.

Domestically, there is a sentiment in India that it is not doing enough to compete with China in Africa because the Indian economy is sensitive to oil prices, which notably affect the prices of food. India will have to do more if it wants to pole vault to superpower status by riding on the African wave.

Forming an alliance with other nations would enable India to compete seriously with China’s spending power, value neutral approach and lack of domestic opposition. India could team up with Brazil and South Africa by expanding the ambit of the India Brazil South Africa Dialogue Forum or with the United States in recognition of India’s democratic credentials.

Taking on China with the IBSA approach will require considerable political will because all three nations depend on China to some extent. Dependencies, though, are always double edged. Teaming up is the favorable option because one third of the pie is more than what either of the parties could secure if they act unilaterally, with the opportunities otherwise falling to either China or the West.

The potential for backlash might be mitigated by masking extraction of resources energy with developmental initiatives which benefit the common man, bringing into play Brazil’s expertise in agriculture and India’s in low cost technology. Having South Africa on board will give this coalition an edge over the Chinese who could increasingly be seen as neocolonialists.

China could spoil the relationship by forming a partnership with South Africa of its own, which it has helped promote to the league of BRIC nations despite its small size. An alliance with South Africa will not so much help China as it will thwart the efforts of other nations.

The “Look West” in Africa strategy plays on Western fears that China will paint the dark continent red. Although India has been wary of forming an alliance with America domestically, it may choose to collaborate in Africa to test the waters.

The mutual interest in balancing the rise of China has started to crystallize with opposition lawmakers in the United States pushing for deeper engagement with India at the expense of the military partnership with Pakistan. Given China’s efforts to reverse recognition of Taiwan on the continent, the bond will grow stronger if Africa becomes an ideological battleground for issues like Tibet.

Apart from leveraging Indian entrepreneurial experience with American technology and capital, an ideological strategy which politicizes the role of the religion and NGOs to promote democracy may be worth exploring as well. These efforts could be supplemented by cultural and student exchange programs which offer individual Africans a taste of liberty in the hope that they inspire others.

The Chinese response could vary depending on the success of this policy but an extreme choice would be to mobilize local militia using colonial rhetoric to force the United States to extent a security umbrella for its investments.

The Look West policy would cause a convergence of interests that would push America to look at Asia through India’s lens, which could become important if China continues to refuse India a Security Council berth, but should the policy fail, India risks being sequestered from the south.

Both policy options will require India to move its foreign policy beyond notions of nonalignment, an achievable feat given the generational shift that will see new Indian policy makers, born in an independent India, eager to play a greater international role. Furthermore, both will attract China’s arm twisting tactics, so sticking your nose out against China will be easier than keeping it there.

The lBSA approach is comparatively less hedged and represents an opportunity for these rising powers to forge their own path in Africa. The new kids on the block will be taking on both China and the United States but should America retreat, they might prefer the IBSA camp.

Forming an alliance with the West could also be less attractive because it entails dealing primarily with democracies and enforcing other standards of good governance, which could make progress slow and cost India more concessions on Iran and Myanmar.

Republican senator Mark Kirk of Illinois, November 3, 2010 (Jonathan Daniel)

Republican senators on Tuesday were critical of sustained American aid to Pakistan and called for a deeper engagement with India instead. Mark Kirk suggested “making India a military ally of the United States” and said he encouraged it “to fill the vacuum in Kabul once we leave.”

Lawmakers suspended $700 billion worth of financial support until Pakistan convinces them that it is providing all the help it can in battling the production and spread of improvised explosive devices in the region which target American troops operating in neighboring Afghanistan.

The opposition legislators responded to mounting public pressure to penalize Islamabad for its perceived lackluster effort in combatting militant Islamists in the region and sheltering terrorist leader Osama bin Laden who was found to be hiding in a Pakistani garrison town in May where he was killed by American special forces.

The United States have spent $20 billion in security and economic aid to Pakistan since 2001, much of it in the form of reimbursements for assistance in fighting militants.

Although Pakistan has lost more soldiers in the War on Terror than any other country, its intelligence services still maintain ties with mujahideen because it seeks “strategic debt” for Pakistan in Afghanistan in the event of an armed conflict with India.

The former chairman of the American Joint Chiefs of Staff told Congress in September that the terrorist Haqqani network in particular, which is allied to the Taliban, “has long enjoyed the support and protection of the Pakistani Government and is, in many ways, a strategic arm” of Pakistan’s spy agency.

Illinois senator Mark Kirk cited Haqqani when he argued that military aid to Pakistan is unsustainable. If the country choses “to embrace terror and back the Haqqani network,” he said, it should do so “without subsidies from the US taxpayer.”

Senator John McCain of Arizona, who is leading proponent of intensifying the Afghan campaign in Congress, scolded Pakistan last month when he claimed that “the vast majority of the material used to make improvised explosive devices originates from two fertilizer factories in Pakistan.” Hence his insistence on Tuesday that Pakistan dismantle these plants if it is to continue to receive financial support from the United States.

McCain, who has favored strong American ties with India at least since his failed 2008 presidential campaign, reiterated his position on Tuesday that an Indo-American relationship could also check Chinese ambitions in the Indian Ocean region.

The administration has so far hesitated to deepen ties with India because it needs Pakistani support in the War on Terror. Many of the insurgents operating in Afghanistan maintain shelters in western Pakistan.

American drone attacks against suspected insurgent and terrorist targets in Pakistan’s frontier area are deeply unpopular there however because they sometimes incur civilian losses. What is more, years of antiterrorist operations by a majority Punjabi army in the predominantly Pashtun territory has pushed the Muslim nation onto the brink of civil war. The army’s offensives in the northern and western tribal areas displaced nearly half a million people. Whereas the conflict used to be confined to the border, bombings and assassinations now regularly take place in Pakistan proper.

With the international coalition prepared to pull out of Afghanistan militarily in 2014, it makes little sense for the Pakistanis to continue to hunt down extremists who might prove an asset in the future. Indeed, the surest way for Pakistan to fill the power vacuum that is likely to result from an American withdrawal is to cultivate ties with the Taliban and its allies. If it doesn’t, there may be a place for India in whatever power constellation emerges across Pakistan’s porous western border three years from now.

Prime Ministers Yousuf Raza Gilani of Pakistan and Manmohan Singh of India and President Mohamed Nasheed of the Maldives during the sixteenth summit of the South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation in Thimphu, Bhutan, April 29, 2010 (AP)

South Asian leaders convened in the capital of the Maldives earlier this month. It was an appropriate venue for their summit as the island nation’s regional importance is set to increase when the region around the Indian Ocean takes center stage in the twenty-first century.

Indo-Maldives relations were affirmed in a joint statement. The two countries agreed to deepen existing strategic relations and improve cooperation in combating drug trafficking and terrorism. India also agreed to undertake a feasibility study into developing a port north of Malé in the Haa Dhaalu Atoll which would be a huge boon to the northern Maldives’ economy.

Before the South Asian Association of Regional Cooperation summit commenced, Maldivian president Mohamed Nasheed vowed that his country would never menace India’s security, clearing apprehension in New Delhi that the atolls might be lured into China’s “yuan diplomacy.”

India maintains strategic relations with the Maldives for two reasons. Its intelligence services uncovered that a top operative of Lashkar-e-Taiba, the militant Islamist organization that orchestrated the 2008 Mumbai attacks, attempted to set up an Indian Ocean base for the group. The plot would have involved Lashkar-e-Taiba storing weapons on an uninhabited island.

In 2008, terrorist activity in the Maldives spiked with a bombing in Malé and the settlement of a jihadist community in Himandhoo, a previously uninhabited Maldivian atoll. India seeks to coordinate counterterrorism efforts with the Maldives to stamp out this presence.

India and the Maldives have also strengthened defense cooperation to counter China’s rise in the Indian Ocean area. Per a 2009 security agreement, India will construct a radar network across the atolls and link it to its coastal command. It also regularly surveys the islands with military flights and plans to erect an air force station in the Maldives.

The Maldives form a vital cog in India’s naval diplomacy. All greater powers that have attempted to dominate the Indian Ocean sought a base in the Maldives, including the Dutch, the Portuguese, the British, the Americans and the Soviets.

Unlike these past greater powers, India has traditionally enjoyed close relations with the island nation. It notably helped the Maldivian Government thwart a coup in 1988 which saved Maumoon Abdul Gayoom’s presidency. Although his successor is of a very different political persuasion, Indo-Maldivian relations have continued to blossom under Mohamed Nasheed’s leadership because they serve the interests of both partners.

As India emerges as a greater power, it is important that it appreciates the sensitivities of its neighboring states and not conduct its foreign policy from a Delhi centric point of view. For India to project “soft power” abroad, it has to be perceived as a “big brother” in Asia that doesn’t at all threaten the interests nor sovereignty of its vassals.

President Barack Obama greets Prime Minister Manmohan Singh of India ahead of a regional summit in Bali, Indonesia, November 18

India’s prime minister Dr Manmohan Singh is something of a paradox. He is not a politician by profession, however he has proved to be a political Houdini especially when it comes to asserting his nation’s position internationally.

For example, on the sidelines of the East Asia Summit held in Bali, Indonesia, Singh was quick to assert India’s commercial interest in the South China Sea although it doesn’t share a border there. He put China in its place by emphasizing that the spats in the area should be resolved peacefully and in accordance with international sea laws.

Singh also appreciated the difficult political situation in Pakistan when he extended an olive branch to Prime Minister Yousuf Gilani on the sidelines of a South Asian Association of Regional Cooperation summit in the Maldives this week.

His assertiveness with regard to China and willingness to engage Pakistan, which is internally ravaged in many ways, demonstrate Singh’s ability to read the situations outside India perfectly.

China’s revisionist border stance in the South China Sea has invited criticism from countries ranging from Australia and Indonesia to South Korea and Taiwan. Indeed, virtually all nations bordering the Pacific Ocean in East Asia are ready to seek India’s and the United States’ help in containing China’s rise.

In Pakistan, ongoing counterterrorism efforts and America’s presence in Afghanistan have inspired the people to push their leadership for greater cooperation with New Delhi. The prime minister’s astute diplomatic conduct on the eve of both aforementioned conferences buttresses Indo-Pakistani rapprochement.

Singh’s ability to improve India’s standing in the world hasn’t always gone well with India’s middle class although it is doing increasingly well both within and outside of India. It’s for his very willingness to improve relations with neighboring Pakistan that Singh is perceived as a weak leader at home whereas he is respected as a statesman abroad. His international performance has won him personal accolades and an increased respect for India on the world stage.

As President Barack Obama put it during his most recent visit to India, when Manmohan Sigh speaks, the world listens. “India is emerging as a superpower and the world is fully aware of this reality,” he said.

Some of his critics may have already written his political obituary but India’s very nimble prime minister learned an important lesson from President Theodore Roosevelt. “Speak softly and carry a big stick.”

Government building in New Delhi, India, 2008 (Laurie Jones)

As the world is fine tuned to the future of the Middle East after the so called “Arab spring” toppled decade old dictatorships in Egypt, Libya and Tunisia this year, the rising power of South Asia is contemplating its Middle East policy.

The problem with Indian strategic thinking is that it’s embroiled in ideological abstracts like nonalignment and forming rainbow coalitions across the global south with other BRICs.

An active participation in multilateral organization is useful but it’s also important to focus on geostrategy from the perspective of national self-interest. This has been a lacking in India.

In this context, India has to both consider the greater powers of the West and China to the east. Both had a solid geostrategy before they became international powers. Britain during the nineteenth century and the United States since the end of World War II have conducted foreign policy with a clear geopolitical understanding—especially in the Middle East.

The very phrase “Middle East” was coined by the American strategist Alfred Thayer Mahan before there were ever dictators to be deposed there or oil supplies to be secured.

The fact that an American “invented” the Middle East demonstrates how important the region is to the global power game. It provides a perfect buffer region between the land powers of Eurasia and the world’s major sea lanes. If the Middle East assumed significance in a century during which power was concentrated in the Atlantic area, one must recognize the implications for an Asian century in which the Indian Ocean is predicted to take center stage.

This is why it’s crucial for India to formulate a convincing strategy for the Middle East that’s not confined to abstract principles.

Moreover, if there is a cold war between China and the United States for spheres of influence in the twenty-first century, the vast oil resources of the Middle East will be more hotly contested. China has not actually started a “great game” there because it would rather the United States remain involved in their costly counterinsurgency campaigns—enabling China to do business in the region once the Americans are weakened.

India’s position is peculiar in this regard. It has tried to appease the authoritarians of the region with its policy of nonalignment but failed. India, a majority Hindu country ever at odds with Muslims in Pakistan, won’t be perceived as a friend in the Arab world. It is in India’s interest therefore to perpetuate Washington’s paramountcy in the region and prevent Beijing from taking its place. Endorsing notions of a “responsibility to protect” to legitimize interventionism in the Middle East does not serve this interest.

Vice President Mohammad Hamid Ansari of India attends a summit of Commonwealth leaders in Perth, Australia, October 28

During the recent meeting of Commonwealth leaders in Perth, Australia, it was clear that when the elephant (India) is in the room, there is no room left for other countries in the world except for the dragon (China) and the eagle (the United Staes).

Last week, India managed to elbow other countries in the Commonwealth, the loose confederation of once British colonies, including its former master Britain and aspiring greater powers in East Asia.

The Western member states, Australia, Britain and New Zealand, pushed for an institution that would monitor human rights in Commonwealth nations. The move was scuttled by India which stated bluntly that there is a multilateral institution for that purpose already called the United Nations and the Commonwealth should rather focus on developmental challenges.

India further criticized Western countries for maintaining double standards with regard to pursuing their lofty concepts of democracy and human rights. While they are more than willing to maintain the undemocratic status quo in the Middle East, where European and North American countries are allied with the Arab oil monarchies of the Persian Gulf, they’re critical of Fiji, the Maldives and Sri Lanka which are on the fringes of their geostrategic objectives.

If its posturing at the recent Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting was any indication, India has graduated from being a regional power in South Asia to the status of greater power in the Asia Pacific where it speaks on behalf of smaller nations. It tries to court these countries because it might one day need their support in attaining a permanent United Nations Security Council seat.

Moreover, India, a huge and fairly tolerant democracy itself, is reluctant to champion human rights abroad because its rival is having a free run in the global south scrambling for resources. It’s just a matter of time before India will join the race with China for neocolonialism or “spheres of influence” in developing countries so the last thing it wants to be seen as is a torchbearer of the declining and decadent West.

At the same time, there will continue to be a role for the Commonwealth in India’s diplomacy. As the country with the greatest number of English speaking people in the world, it has lived up to the expectation that it might one day fill the void that was left by the dissolution of the British Empire.

President Hamid Karzai of Afghanistan and Prime Minister Manmohan Singh of India exchange agreements of a strategic partnership between their nations, New Delhi, October 4

While internally, India is caught up in civil unrest that could jeopardize the stability of its government, the country’s neighbors increasingly regard a powerful Indian presence in the region as in their own interest.

Afghan President Hamid Karzai’s state visit to India this month signaled a paradigm shift in Indo-Afghan relations. After nearly a decade of balancing relations with India and Pakistan, traditional rivals in South Asia, Kabul opted for a strategic partnership with New Delhi. The choice and its timing were largely inspired by the imminent withdrawal of American troops from Afghanistan.

The United States are planning to withdraw up to thirty thousand soldiers from Afghanistan by the autumn of next year. In December, the first ten thousand are expected home. After the winding down of the Afghan surge, a supportive military presence will remain in Afghanistan up to 2014. But what after that?

India has shown itself a partner for regional stability by investing $1.2 billion in development projects in Afghanistan and facilitating the necessary nation building in the wartorn country. India paid a price for its help. Diplomats and aid personnel were killed in Afghanistan in attacks for which New Delhi has held Pakistan’s spy agency responsible. Pakistani intelligence is known to entertain relations with Afghan insurgents and wary of an Indian presence on both of its borders.

Despite the unpredictability and violence, India maintained its presence because it has a stake in a stable, democratic Afghanistan, unlike Islamabad. Pakistan would rather have a divided country, ruled by Islamists, to achieve “strategic depth” there.

Other regional actors, including Central Asian states and Iran, as well as the United States want to keep the Taliban out of power. This convergence of interests has served India well. Its relationships with Iran and the United States are both stable if not improving. The question now is what role New Delhi sees for itself in a postwar Afghanistan? The answer may be found in its “Look West” policy which aims to improve cooperation with countries across West Asia. Afghanistan could be a launchpad from which to boost India’s diplomatic and commercial relations with the Central Asian republics.

So far, India’s “Look West” policy hasn’t been as coordinated and successful as its “Look East” policy because New Delhi is restrained from pursuing relations across Central Asia and the Middle East by Pakistan. Similarly, its relations with the United States, though positive, haven’t developed significantly because the Americans need Pakistan’s support in their War on Terror.

American-Pakistani relations are deteriorating however as Washington is growing tired of the Afghan campaign and as revelations about the intrigues of Pakistan’s spy agency stir anti-Pakistan sentiments in the United States.

As Pakistan’s influence is eroding, there is a chance for India to jump into the vacuum that is Afghanistan and facilitate a comprehensive reconstruction effort, one that is supported by the neighboring states that have most at stake in the country, including Iran, Russia, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan.

The longer term aim for India could be to deny other greater powers, notably China, a leadership position in Central Asia. Here, again, it finds itself at odds with Pakistan which is a Chinese client state.

The region north of Afghanistan will prove to be pivotal to the energy security of continental Asian powers soon. India can’t afford to slumber as usual but must design a strategy now.

The Rajput class destroyer INS Rana leads a formation of American and Indian warships during Exercise Malabar, October 22, 2008 (US Navy)

Five hundred years ago this year, the Portuguese admiral Afonso de Albuquerque captured the Strait of Malacca and established supremacy for his country in the East Indies. Although Portugal couldn’t project power into the Asian hinterland with its limited military resources, it was strong enough to dominate a number of active trading outposts, including Goa in India and Macau in China. From these positions, the Portuguese managed, for a while, to control the European trade with South and East Asia. Today, a greater power may aim to do the same.

In Monsoon, Robert Kaplan characterizes the area between the Gulf of Aden in the west and Malacca in the east as the center stage of the twenty-first century. If India is to graduate from being a regional power in South Asia to a greater power in the Asia Pacific, it is this pivotal ocean with its vital waterways that it should seek to control—whether directly, through hard power, or indirectly, with a soft power approach. Whatever its choices, India needs a clear naval diplomacy.

India is among few nations with the potential of being a continental and a maritime power simultaneously. Its policy makers have long concentrated on their hinterland where Pakistan loomed since independence as a natural rival. But as India’s economy is growing and its place in the world increasingly secure, it has to revive its maritime focus.

With a distinctive “Look East” policy, India boosted its trade relations with Southeast Asia. Indian naval officers regularly visited Southeast Asian countries as part of its naval diplomacy. Now, it has to extend that aim into the South Pacific if not beyond.

Nearly all major powers of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries were either continental or naval powers. France, Germany and Soviet Union belonged in the first category whereas the ascendancy of Japan, the United Kingdom and the United States was largely based on the maritime strength of these nations. Kaplan stresses in Monsoon that a sea power’s fleet—military and commercial—is instrumental to its rise.

India, however, has apparently failed to capitalize on its peninsular basis to achieve strategic objectives overseas. Its relations with countries as Cambodia, Myanmar, Indonesia, Thailand and Vietnam are historically linked but remain largely unexploited today. If New Delhi is to successfully implement a naval diplomacy, it should revisit its cultural ties across South and Southeast Asia.

An Indian naval diplomacy will also act as a counterweight to China’s “string of pearls” strategy. India would not be alone in such an endeavor. China, too, is both a continental and a maritime nation and emerging as a Pacific superpower. Few other countries in East Asia welcome its military rise. Especially in the South China Sea, China’s revisionist border policy concerns neighbors and the United States. In fostering allies and building bases across the Indian Ocean, it may seem as though Beijing aims to encircle India to check its ambitions. New Delhi could certainly rival a Chinese supremacy on the high seas.

Slumbering as usual, India finally came to understand China’s intentions recently and it embarked on a counteroffensive. It improved its bilateral relations with the Andaman and Nicobar Islands and started to court other littoral states likes the Maldives which could be of strategic importance to India. It is also sending naval officers on routine trips to these countries while regular exchanges at the officer’s level now take place.

Most of the greater powers that aspired to control of the Indian Ocean sought a base at the Maldives. The southernmost of islands in the archipelago, Gan in the Addu Atoll, was a Royal Navy base during World War II. It was originally set up in response to the Japanese advance against Singapore. Follow the British departure in the early 1970s, Iran, Muammar Gaddafi’s Libya and the Soviet Union each tried to secure the island as a base to counter the American presence in Diego Garcia.

A further necessary step would be for India to establish a permanent diplomatic presence in the littoral Indian Ocean states it seeks keep in its orbit. It could also initiate additional bilateral and multilateral initiatives in South Asia to bolster its status as a regional hegemon. What it cannot afford to do is ignore the imperative of formulating a decisive naval policy now and be overtaken by events instead.