Introduction

China and India are fast emerging as major maritime powers in the Indo-Pacific as part of long-term shifts in the regional balance of power. As their wealth, interests, and power expand, the two countries are also increasingly coming into contact with each other in the maritime domain. How India and China get along in the shared Indo-Pacific space—cooperation, coexistence, competition, or confrontation—may be one of the key strategic challenges of the 21st century.

The Sino-Indian relationship is a difficult one: security relations remain relatively volatile and are complicated by numerous unresolved issues. Not least is China’s growing presence in the Indian Ocean. New Delhi perceives Beijing as attempting to reshape the strategic environment in its favor, including by forming alignments with neighboring countries that could be used against India. Nor is the relationship well understood. There is relatively little informed analysis of how China and India will interact as maritime powers, and discussion of this issue in both countries rarely seeks to explore the other’s perspectives and intentions.

This roundtable comes out of a research project undertaken by the Australia India Institute with the assistance of the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation. The roundtable brings together leading scholars and practitioners from India, China, the United States, and Australia to better understand Indian and Chinese perspectives about their respective roles and relationships in the Indo-Pacific maritime domain.

Questions addressed by the essays in the roundtable include:

• • What are Chinese and Indian strategic ambitions in the maritime realm, particularly in the Indian Ocean? How do the two sides understand each other’s legitimate security role in the region?

• • What are China’s strategic imperatives in the Indian Ocean? Does China have an Indo-Pacific naval strategy?

• • How does India perceive China’s growing naval presence in the Indian Ocean, and how has it sought to address this trend at the political and military levels?

• • What are India’s options in responding to China’s Maritime Silk Road initiative?

The essays address these issues in different dimensions: strategic, political, military, and economic. What comes clearly into view is the wide gap between Indian and Chinese understandings of the two countries’ respective intentions and roles in the Indian Ocean region. China seems intent on developing its economic and military interests in the Indian Ocean in a manner that almost inevitably will have a major impact on the regional balance of power. Moreover, Beijing intends to develop this presence without significant regard for Indian views: India will just need to learn to live with it. For its part, New Delhi sees the growing Chinese presence in highly securitized terms: India exhibits a mixture of acute defensiveness over its prerogatives and the protection of what it sees as its own backyard, but also a desire to leverage its own strategic advantages over China. These factors are a relatively volatile mix, creating a significant risk of strategic instability and competition in the region in coming years.