The Indian Ocean and the Rise of a Multipolar World Order:
the role of China and India.
Maria Bastos
School of Governance and Society, University of Management and Technology, Lahore Pakistan.
maria.bastos@umt.edu.pk
Prepared for the International Conference Pakistan and China: Bilateral and Beyond Bilateral Exchanges,
Lahore 30th April 2014.
Draft: For perusal of Institute of Policy Studies – IPS, Islamabad. Not for quotation or citation without
permission from the author. All comments welcome
Abstract
China and India relations are currently marked by increasing competition, but also by cooperation
which is mostly accentuated in the economic domain. The latter is highly dependent on the
development of conflicting issues. The existing borderland disputes have already resulted in war, and
tensions over it remain high. Whereas the source of conflict was primarily an inland one, there are
signs of a growing oceanic tension, with The Indian Ocean poised to become a determinant strategic
issue. With both countries currently enlarging their naval military capacities, the ever possibility for
conflict scenarios grows, jeopardizing the desirable adversary position between the two powers
determined by competition, favoring instead an inimical one, tending towards destruction. Under
such conditions, a multipolar world order, desirable to promote stability in the international system,
under the contemporary world political conditions, is likely to be drown in the Indian Ocean waters.
The current paper aims to discuss the importance of current and future developments in China-India
relations specifically in the context of the Indian Ocean, as determinants for the establishment of a
Multipolar world order.
Key words: China, India, Indian Ocean, conflict, Multipolar world order.
1 - Introduction:
In this paper, I would like to present and discuss three main questions concerned to the Indian
Ocean, China and India. These two Asia heavy weights are having unprecedented levels of
growth, despite some signs of slowing down. Both countries economic scenarios have the
capability to influence the global markets.
1
In both countries sections of the population started to experience the fruits of the economic
policies, even though we should not forget the remaining high levels of poverty, particularly
in India. The two growing nations, often depicted as Tiger (for India), and Dragon (for
China), do also have high ambitions at the international political level. Foreign policy has
been one of the strengths of this ascending growth. Both nations procure and desire for
hegemonic positions regionally, and a more interventionist role in the international and global
political affairs. Whether China and India will either compete or cooperate, their interests are
increasingly interlinked, condemned at sharing the future of possibly new world orders.
I sustain that it is precisely in the political space that constitutes the India Ocean where these
two Asian Giants will have to come to terms with their regional, hegemonic and political
ambitions.
No doubt, the importance of the Indian Ocean, as a political space is in ascendency. The
prevailing narrative by and large taken from a neo-realist point of view, and most of times
Western fabricated, is rich on envisaging the relation between China and India in the Indian
Ocean as one which yields for conflict, feeding up the notion that China poses an increasing
threat to the effective geographic presence of India in the Ocean. Notwithstanding the
strategic developments each country has been staging, this situation, I argue, clearly puts
forward the interests of external forces to the region, particularly the USA.
Thus, an analysis of the current developments in the Indian Ocean together with
historical traditions and links of
the
its littoral states , becomes fundamental in order to
understand how these two countries could contribute for the vanishing of an unipolar,
imperialist world order, hence being committed with the shaping of a multipolar one.
If it is true that the geopolitical scenario in the IO has been changing since the rapid
ascension of China, and that both countries being two great powers in competition have
2
thenceforth continuously procured new and more lethal weapons, it is also true that neither
country can sustain a high level conflict in the region, without incurring on colossal economic
and domestic losses, not to speak of the social upheaval that would result from such situation.
The reason behind this is precisely what motivates the envisagement of future conflict
scenarios: the routes and means of transportation of vital energetic resources, without which
neither country could survive for longer, given the extension of the present national settings.
Hence, we need to ask three questions, in order to understand why both countries do hold the
potential to transform the current unipolar world order into a multipolar one, which will favor
not only the assuming of a less Eurocentric vision of the world, privileging other values and
knowledge, facilitating their dissemination, but also creating a balance of power, in
opposition to the imperialist, unilateralist US.
2 - The first question we need to ask: Why is the Indian Ocean and its littoral so
relevant?
It is believed that humans first went to sea in the Indian Ocean1. There are several
archeological findings that support the evidence. Thus, the Indian Ocean is extremely rich in
accounts that together compose an important part of the history of the humankind.
The India Ocean has longer been a human ocean2, a highway of trade and prosperity, an
Ocean relevant to the faith of the populations living around it, with particular emphasis on
Islam, which as pointed out by the historian Sugata Bose has remained a
“quintessentially
Indian Ocean experience for Muslims from India, Malay and Java who braved colonial
1
2
Michael Pearson The Indian Ocean (Routledge, 2003) – p. 47.
Michael Pearson, op.cit.
3
regulations to make it to Mecca and Medina throughout the period of British imperial
dominations of the seas”3.
To be sure, Oceans are not only made of the seas, straits, littorals. If the geographical
dimension is no doubt of immense importance, the narratives involving human activity also
need to be accounted for, since they often bring us the relevant social political dimension of a
certain place. The Indian Ocean has been no doubt a space where the mobility of people,
and with them the mobility of ideas and cultures created a space which, goes beyond
geographical constraints, making of this Ocean a space which is also social and consequently
political. Hence, the human dimension of the Indian Ocean, from the Eastern shores of Africa
to Western Australia, is one that needs to be sought.
If there is usually room to think of an Indian prevalence in the Ocean, including an
Indianization of littoral populations (that includes the spreading of Islam), the Chinese
presence in the region can also be traced centuries back, particularly with the voyages that
took place during the Ming dynasty, when the naval expeditions of the Admiral Zheng He,
who commanded large fleets, were part of a plan to establish a Pax Sinica4. The emperor
Yong-le aimed to dominate more distant polities, by controlling port cities and trade routes.
Even though this dominance attempt did not produce long lasting consequences, the vision of
future China held at the time needs to be appreciated, particularly because China was mainly
an inland turned nation. Thus, China, even before the arrival of the Europeans, long
understood the importance of having a meaningful presence in the India Ocean.
India is logically present in the Indian Ocean due to its geography. In great part due to it,
India claims a hegemonic position in the region. For that reason its perception of security
3
Sugata Bose A Hundred Horizons The Indian Ocean in the Age of Global Empire (Harvard University Press,
2006), p. 176.
4
John Fairbank "China's Foreign Policy in Historical Perspective." Foreign affairs (1969): 449-463.
4
threats are perhaps more evident. For instance the Indian historian and diplomat K.M.
Panikkar well before the start of the Cold War, could envisage the need for India to create a
steel ring around it, with air and naval bases at strategic points5. The same Panikkar was
adamant that the future of India would depend on the IO, going even further, claiming the IO
should remain truly Indian….
Certainly Panikkar’s vision of history is a flawed one,
exacerbated by nationalist claims. However that had set the tone for India’s apprehensions in
the region.
In addition to this brief historical context, where we can trace China and India activity in the
India Ocean, we also need to think of the current and effective naval presence of the US in
the region, an external power, which conditions the balance of forces, and perhaps it favors
the development of an hostile scenario to those operating in the region.
Thus, due to its historical, human, political and social dimensions, the Indian Ocean , as a
region, as a space, becomes an important topic to be discussed by those aiming to study
international political affairs.
My next question, and perhaps the most striking one is:
3 - Why India and China relations should be discussed within the Indian Ocean
context?
China and India hold an intense and complex relations portfolio, practically since each
country became a new nation-state, in the middle of the twentieth century. The Cold War
developments, and the alliances each country established in the international arena , were
most of times a cause for concern in Delhi or Beijing, however in the case of the former,
5
K.M. Panikkar cited in Donald Berlin “ The ‘great base race’ in the Indian Ocean Littoral: conflict prevention or
stimulation?” Contemporary South Asia 13(3), (September 2004) 239-255.
5
shockwaves from international politics play often provokes more nervous reactions, as for
instance with relation to China and Pakistan friendship.
The context of Indian Ocean has increasingly gained importance, mainly in view of both
countries being two ascending powers. A good tranche of such quest for and to power
consolidation is intimately related with the performances of each country in the Indian Ocean
region.
Since both countries appear to be on a parallel path of competition and cooperation (to a
certain extent), the India Ocean opens up numerous geopolitical issues, which China and
India have been strategically trying to solve.
The most well-known strategies are the China’s encirclement of India (the famous string of
pearls) and India’s encirclement of China (perhaps less known, called the necklace of
friendship)6. China has indeed established an important presence in several city/ports in the
Indian Ocean, from Myanmar to Pakistan, dovetailing the friendship relations it also has been
cultivating in the past decades. Certainly this is a major irritant to India, while assisting to
high geopolitics being played on its backwaters.
Perhaps the highest profile of those strategic ports is Gwadar in Pakistan. This port in the
South West coast of Pakistan, very close to the Persian Gulf, for China, may represent much
more than an economic corridor, and perhaps ultimately a naval outpost. It chiefly represents
an important step for China to consolidate its access to Eurasia, guaranteeing a strong grip in
Central Asia an on its most Western Region of Xinjiang. This is highly disturbing for India,
whose access and influence into Central Asia potentially becomes diminished.
6
See David Scott “ The Great Power ‘Great Game’ between India and China: ‘The Logic of Geography’ “
Geopolitics, 13:1-26, 2008.
6
Notwithstanding, India also seems to be pursuing an encirclement of China. For India, China
is perceived as its biggest geopolitical challenge. The development of nuclear weapons, the
modernization of the armed forces, in particular the Navy, and a weaker land and sea
encirclement seem to be in place, albeit Delhi denies such move as geo-strategically
orientated. India has been conducting some infrastructure improvement along its northern
border with China, with the objective of cementing military power; the presence in
Afghanistan also counts as a geo-strategic movement, this one indeed provoking great
irritation in Islamabad. In the Indian Ocean proper, India has been upgrading its
infrastructures at the Nicobar and Andaman Islands, thus consolidating its grip on the Eastern
Waters of the Indian Ocean. This is the so called “Look East” India policy.7 Moreover, India
keeps cultivating strong diplomatic ties with the US (no doubt an external element in the
Ocean, despite its considerable military presence, in Diego Garcia, Bahrain), Australia and
even Vietnam, this way consolidating its presence as far as the South China Sea.
As we can see on this brief, picture, China and India are pursuing geo-strategic maneuvers,
which are immensely relevant, mostly for one unique reason: Energy Security. This is
perhaps the most important reason why the relation between these two giants needs to be
discussed in the IO.
Effectively both countries are heavy dependent on the energy routes that cross the Indian
Ocean. For instance, nearly 70% of China’s oil imports8 pass through the Ocean, facing the
constraints of several choke points, most critically the Malacca Strait, where “ the military
existence of big powers (e.g. the US and India) along the narrow Malacca Strait poses a great
7
David Scott,p.8
This is a projected percentage. See:
http://usa.chinadaily.com.cn/business/201308/22/content_16912074.htm
8
7
challenge to China’s oil trade security.”9. The energy roots, and the unfortunate scenario of
their disruption (for instance due to piracy) has certainly prompt each country to pursue a
foreign policy in the region focused on security aspects. If India enjoys a geographically
privileged position, China has to resource to ingenious diplomacy to achieve the targets,
known also as the creation of a Maritime Silk Road, linking the Pacific with the Indian
Ocean.
It appears
that China and India relations, despite of both countries remaining highly
competitive, particularly in the economic sector, cannot sustain a high level conflict it the
region, without endangering self-destruction of its political and economic structures.
With the energy security concerns as background, it is profoundly desirable that China and
India will remain adversaries, instead of enemies. Thus, the attempts from some Western
media to sow discord between these two nations, should be carefully analyzed and
contextualized within a broader picture of ongoing efforts to solidify a unipolar world order.
As a former Rear Admiral of PLAN recently noted10, both China and India as independent
countries, have the right to choose their own road in pursuing national defense and securing
their national security, militaries should be built in accordance with their own strength and
security needs. The Rear Admiral Zheng Ming timely noticed that it is indeed a Western
exaggeration of a two way military threat.
And the the last question that we need to ask is
4- How these two countries relation and its development may contribute for the
establishment of a multipolar world order?
9
Zhang Jianxin “Oil Security Reshapes China’s Foreign Policy” , Center on China’s Transnational Relations
Working Paper No.9 (The Hong Kong University of Science and Technology, 2005)
10
Zheng Ming “ False Discord China poses no threat to India, despite claims from the West”, Beijing Review ,
September 2013 : http://www.bjreview.com.cn/world/txt/2013-09/09/content_567056.htm
8
In the past, the world has been ordered differently, and different orders have already been in
contact, particularly within the India Ocean Region. Thus, we are not in front of a historically
impossibility.
Moreover, the exaggerations that certain Western Media and Academic circles try to put
forward are embedded on a world approach similar to the logics of the Cold War. That world
approach is no longer fit, since it misses the implications of the evolution of the world in all
its complexity as society, economy, and ecology11.
As mentioned above, certain narratives which are defended by renown scholars, such as John
Mearsheimer12, and which do have the power and possibility to influence decision centers in
the US, try to pin out the impossibility of China not to rise peacefully. Such narratives are
historically unfounded, and have also helped to create a sense of conflict to come in the India
Ocean waters.
For instance, earlier this year, a Naval drill held by China in the Lombok Strait region13,
immediately trigged reactions of suspicion in India. In the last week of April 2014, yet
another incident took place when the Commander in Chief of the PLAN, Admiral Wu
Chengli asked to be shown the the Combat Information Centre (CIC) of an Indian frigate
which was at its port call in Qingdao, the headquarters of the PLA Navy’s North Sea Fleet in
Shandong province, before participating on a joint drill14. Such request was declined by the
11
Robert W. Cox “ The International in Evolution” Millennium: Journal of International Studies, 2007 Vol 35
No3. Pp 513-527.
12
John Mearsheimer “ Why China’s Rise will not be peaceful” Unpublished Manuscript, University of
Chicago (2004).
13
See Ananth Krishnan “ New Indian Ocean exercise shows reach of China’s Navy” The Hindu , 5th February
2014 (http://www.thehindu.com/news/international/world/new-indian-ocean-exercise-shows-reach-ofchinas-navy/article5657362.ece) and Ankit Panda “ Chinese Naval Exercise In Eastern Indian Ocean Sends
Mixed Signals”, The Diplomat , 7th February, 2014 (http://thediplomat.com/2014/02/chinese-naval-exercisein-eastern-indian-ocean-sends-mixed-signals/ )
14
See Patrick Boehler “Indian warship captain refuses Chinese admiral’s request to view command centre”,
South China Morning Post 25th April 2014 (http://www.scmp.com/news/china-insider/article/1496586/indianwarship-captain-refuses-chinese-admirals-request-view )
9
Indians, who keep viewing with great suspicion China’s intentions regarding its Naval power.
Certainly such kind of reactions, particularly the latest one, shows how India’s concerns
about China’s Naval intentions are real. Those, together with the above mentioned narratives
are indeed prone to conflict incitation.
It seems that conflictual moments will keep appearing. That is somehow evident on the ways
India’s politics and foreign policy are played: in a more pragmatic way, showing even some
“stridency in multilateral forums stands, in contrast to China’s more targeted and restrained
interventions.”15 Now, in order to understand how a multipolar world order would benefit
politics of China and India in the India Ocean, and perhaps diminishing the possibility for
conflict, we need to anchor our thoughts in some political theory notions.
Even though currently there is no effective conflict, we need to acknowledge that it is
impossible to eradicate conflict from politics. There is no politics, there is no dimension of
the political without conflict16. At the same time, antagonism, following Mouffe, as being
located at an ontological level is institutive of human societies, and is what mediates the
relation between friends and enemies, will be ever present. And indeed, a conflict situation
cannot ever be discarded, be it in the Indian Ocean or elsewhere.
Conversely, if antagonisms will find a proper channel to be expressed, through plurality, for
instance, they can be transformed into Agonisms. Antagonism relates to enemies. Agonism
relates to adversaries. To be sure, adversaries do fight, compete, but do it within a shared set
of rules. The result of such competition is the establishment of new hegemonic orders, which
can effectively challenge the current one.
15
David M. Malone, Rohan Mukherjee “India and China: Conflict and Cooperation” Survival vol. 52 No1
February-March 2010.
16
See Chantal Mouffe On the Political (2005, Routledge) , Chapter 2. Mouffe draws the concept of the political,
and develops her ideas on antagonism from Carl Schmitt, particularly is 1932 seminal book The Concept of the
Political.
10
Thus, the task imposed on global politics, is to secure the pluralization of different hegemonic
projects. I sustain that by pursuing this option, securing the competition between adversaries,
thence organized in different regional, multipolar blocks, there will be less changes of
entering into antagonistic paths, which obviously will lead to destruction. By assuring that
each and every hegemonic project will find on the interactions with one another not an
antagonizing way, but a competition based one, which does not presuppose destruction, high
scale conflicts can be avoided. I claim this is the way China and India have to come to terms
in relation to their politics in the Indian Ocean.
Present hostilities, which are much, infused by external forces such the US, and some
neurotic reactions from India are deemed to create division among different civilizations,
which have lived side by side for thousands of years. China and India hold the potential to
create a serious counter-hegemonic order, by entering into competing trends, and not
destructive ones.
Under this scenario, I sustain that China is perhaps better positioned to enter into an agonistic
relation with India, as:
1. China believes that development is a key to solve problems, and under this logic it
has indeed pursued great projects worldwide.
2. China diplomacy has always been one which believes on advancing dialogue and
negotiation. These are two characteristics that are fundamental for working out a
multipolar world order.
3. Contrary to the US for instance, which seeks to valorise the moral sphere over the
political one worldwide and this way spread an ideology, China does not have such
ambitions. Great part of China foreign policy is related with ensuring access to
energy (oil and gas), minerals and ores. Without pursuing such security policies,
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China will be unable to support its growth and to continue the rising living standards
of its people.
China and India should not be incited into conflict by western exaggeration. This is China’s
position, that there is Western interference on trying to pit China and India against each other.
China holds the position that both countries, being developing nations as the Rear Admiral
Zheng Ming17 reminds, naturally need to develop their national security strategies in
accordance with their needs. Each country should choose its own road in pursuing national
and defense strategies. However, India appears to show a more clear tendency to embark on
western stances, courting the US for its own convenience.
5 - Conclusion
The two rising Asian powers are helping to shape a new distribution of global power. A new
world order has the potential to emerge in different regional blocks , with the US, China and
India in a kind of alliance over the Indian Ocean for instance , the EU, Russia, Brazil. These
countries , or block of countries do hold the potential to be authorities in several matters
which concern the global governance of our world.
A term coined by an Indian politician “Chindia” gives hopes to some rapprochement between
both countries. Also the reiteration by the India PM that Tibet is part of China, as per 1954,
and some signs shown by the (almost former ) India PM of commitment with an independent
foreign policy, may indicate that there is some degree of commitment by India to have an
independent foreign policy and not to be conditioned or persuaded to act otherwise, simply
with the intention of containing China. Under this scenario there may be hope regarding
political developments on the vital region of the Indian Ocean, where India by simply having
17
See reference number 9.
12
a perhaps more favorable geographical position, will not succumb to Western pressures, will
compete in agonistic terms with China, and indeed other littoral states, opening up political
space for the creation of a multipolar world order.
13