After Fighting Over Mountains, India and China Lock Horns in the Indian Ocean

Mahan championed the need for a state to protect its merchant fleets with robust naval power — the blueprint for global domination used by the British Empire and later the U.S. But if China and India follow that same path, they’ll surely bump up against each other. Away from China’s expansion into the Indian Ocean, India has caused alarm in Beijing by stepping up its economic interests in the South China Sea and military ties with Vietnam, the main rival claimant to a body of water Beijing considers its sovereign territory. “Neither [India nor China] is really capable yet of operating in each other’s backyards,” says Smith. But the current course of action suggests further tensions may lie ahead.

In Samudra Manthan: Sino-Indian Rivalry in the Indo-Pacific, a book published in late 2012 by the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, veteran Indian geopolitical analyst C. Raja Mohan deploys a parable from ancient Hindu mythology to explain the current strategic conundrum between China and India. Rival gods and demons churn the oceans in search of heavenly ambrosia, but the process yields poison. It takes the subtle interventions of the Lord Vishnu to first deal with the poison and then help manage the discovery of ambrosia.

In Raja Mohan’s metaphor, Vishnu ought to be interpreted as the U.S., still the dominant power in both the Indian and Pacific Oceans. But it remains unclear to what extent Washington, burdened with shrinking defense budgets and complex relationships with both China and India, could or would want to smooth out the hard edges of Sino-Indian competition. It’s certain that such a role would be unwelcome not just in Beijing, but also New Delhi, where policymakers have no desire to be drawn into the orbit of a Western superpower. And American ambivalence was on display last month as well. “Through the whole border dispute, there was not one word mentioned out of Washington,” says Smith. It’ll be up to Indian and Chinese politicos to make sure the geopolitical churn of the Indian Ocean doesn’t become poisonous

Read more: http://world.time.com/2013/05/16/after-fighting-over-mountains-india-and-china-lock-horns-in-the-indian-ocean/#ixzz2TaS0CR96

 

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