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iii

Strategic Studies Institute

and

U.S. Army War College Press

THE GROWING COMPLEXITY

 OF SINO-INDIAN TIES

Harsh V. Pant

June 2014

The views expressed in this report are those of the author and 

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public release; distribution is unlimited.

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copyrighted.
iv

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ISBN 1-58487-630-1
v

FOREWORD

With the world riveted by Chinese aggressiveness 

against Japan and Southeast Asian states in recent 

years, one country has not been particularly surprised: 

India. After all, New Delhi has been grappling with 

the challenge of China’s rapid rise for some time now. 

An uneasiness exists between the two Asian giants, 

as they continue their ascent in the global interstate 

hierarchy. Even as they sign loftily worded documents year after year, the distrust between the two is 

actually growing at an alarming rate. True, economic 

cooperation and bilateral political as well as sociocultural exchanges are at an all-time high; China is India’s largest trading partner. Yet this cooperation has 

done little to assuage each country’s concerns about 

the other’s intentions. The two sides are locked in a 

classic security dilemma, where any action taken by 

one is immediately interpreted by the other as a threat 

to its interests.

India’s challenge remains formidable. While it has 

not yet achieved the economic and political profile 

that China enjoys regionally and globally, India is increasingly bracketed with China as a rising or emerging power—or even a global superpower. Indian elites 

who have been obsessed with Pakistan for more than 

60 years suddenly have found a new object of fascination. India’s main security concern now is not the increasingly decrepit state of Pakistan but an ever more 

assertive China, a shift that is widely viewed inside 

India as one that should facilitate better strategic planning. India’s defeat at Chinese hands in 1962 shaped 

the Indian elite’s perceptions of China, and they are 

unlikely to alter them anytime soon. China is, thus, 
vi

viewed by India as a growing, aggressive nationalistic 

power whose ambitions are likely to reshape the contours of the regional and global balance of power with 

deleterious consequences for Indian interests.

This monograph comes at a time when the Asian 

strategic landscape is undergoing a dramatic transformation. Accordingly, the author, Dr. Harsh V. Pant, 

examines the evolving trajectory of Indian policy towards China and underscores the implications for the 

region, and the United States in particular, at a time 

when U.S.-India ties are also evolving rapidly. 

The Strategic Studies Institute is pleased to offer 

this monograph as part of its continuing effort to inform the debate on Asia’s future, and to help strategic 

leaders to better understand the realities of the contemporary Asian strategic landscape.

 

 DOUGLAS C. LOVELACE, JR.

 Director

 Strategic Studies Institute and

 U.S. Army War College Press
vii

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

HARSH V. PANT is Professor of International Relations in the Defence Studies Department at King’s 

College London, United Kingdom. He is also a Fellow (Non-Resident) with the Center for Strategic and 

International Studies, Washington, DC, and a Visiting 

Fellow with the Observer Research Foundation, New 

Delhi, India. He has been a Visiting Professor at the 

Indian Institute of Management, Bangalore; a Visiting 

Fellow at the Center for the Advanced Study of India, 

University of Pennsylvania; a Visiting Scholar at the 

Center for International Peace and Security Studies, 

McGill University, Montreal, Canada; and an Emerging Leaders Fellow at the Australia-India Institute, 

University of Melbourne, Australia. His current research is focused on Asian security issues. Dr. Pant’s 

most recent books include The US-India Nuclear Pact: 

Policy, Process and Great Power Politics (Oxford University Press, 2011), The Rise of China: Implications for India

(Cambridge University Press, 2012), and The Rise of 

the Indian Navy: Internal Vulnerabilities, External Challenges (Ashgate, 2012). Dr. Pant is a graduate of Delhi 

University, and holds an M.A. and an M.Phil. from 

Jawaharlal Nehru University and a Ph.D. in political 

science from the University of Notre Dame.

ix

SUMMARY

According to most political observers, the global 

political architecture is undergoing a transformation 

with power increasingly shifting from the West to the 

East, in what has been called the Asian Century. The 

two most populous nations on the earth, China and 

India, are on their way to becoming economic powerhouses and are shedding their reticence in asserting 

their global profiles, all of which makes their relationship of still greater importance for the international 

system. The future of this Asian Century will, to a 

large extent, depend upon the relationship between 

these two regional giants, and the bilateral relationship between them will define the contours of the new 

international political architecture in Asia and the 

world at large. This monograph examines the evolution of Sino-Indian ties over the last few decades and 

the constraints that continue to inhibit this relationship from achieving its full potential before delineating the implications of this for the United States and 

the wider international system.

1

THE GROWING COMPLEXITY 

OF SINO-INDIAN TIES

INTRODUCTION

According to most political observers, the global 

political architecture is undergoing a transformation 

with power increasingly shifting from the West to the 

East, in what has been called the Asian Century. The 

two most populous nations on the earth, China and 

India, are on their way to becoming economic powerhouses and are shedding their reticence in asserting 

their global profiles, all of which makes their relationship of still greater importance for the international 

system. The future of this Asian Century will, to a 

large extent, depend upon the relationship between 

these two regional giants, and the bilateral relationship between them will define the contours of the new 

international political architecture in Asia and the 

world at large. The importance of their relationship 

has not been lost on either country. In one of his meetings with the Indian Prime Minister, at the 2004 AsiaEurope Meeting (ASEM), former Chinese Premier 

Wen Jiabao is reported to have remarked that “when 

we shake hands, the whole world will be watching,” a 

sentiment repeated by Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh during his visit to China in October 2013. 

As of today, however, the trajectory of the Sino-Indian 

relationship remains as complex as ever to decipher, 

despite some positive developments in the last few 

years. This monograph examines the evolution of 

Sino-India ties over the last few decades and the constraints that continue to inhibit this relationship from 

achieving its full potential before delineating the implications of this for the United States and the wider 

international system.
2

BACKGROUND

Initial Encounters.

As two ancient civilizations, India and China have 

had cultural and trade ties since at least the first century. The famous Silk Road allowed for economic and 

trade ties to develop between the two, with the transmission of Buddhism from India to China giving a 

further cultural dimension to the relationship between 

the two neighbors. The political ties between China 

and India, however, remained underdeveloped.

Independent India’s first Prime Minister, Jawaharlal Nehru, saw anti-imperialist friendship between the 

two largest states of Asia as imperative if interference 

by the two external superpowers was to be avoided.1

Solidarity with China was integral to Nehru’s vision of 

Asian leadership. After the People’s Republic of China 

(PRC) was established in 1949 and India established 

diplomatic ties with it in 1950, India not only advocated for the PRC’s membership at the United Nations 

(UN) but also opposed attempts to condemn the PRC 

for its actions in Korea. Yet, the issue of Tibet soon 

emerged as the major bone of contention between China and India. China was suspicious of Indian designs 

on Tibet, which India sought to allay by supporting the 

Seventeen-Point Agreement between Tibetan delegates 

and China in 1951 that recognized PRC sovereignty 

over Tibet and guaranteed the existing socio-political 

arrangements of Tibet. India and China signed the 

famed Panchshila agreement in 1954 that underlined 

the Five Principles of Peaceful Coexistence as forming the 

basis of their bilateral relationship.2

 These principles 

included mutual respect for each other’s territorial 

integrity and sovereignty; mutual nonaggression; mu-
3

tual noninterference in each other’s internal affairs; 

equality and mutual benefit; and peaceful coexistence. 

These were the hey-days of Sino-Indian ties, with the 

Hindi-China bhai-bhai (“Indians and Chinese are brothers”) phrase a favorite slogan for the seeming camaraderie between the two states.

But that was not to last long. Soon the border dispute between China and India escalated and led to 

the 1962 Sino-Indian war.3

 Though a short war, it was 

to have a long-lasting impact on Sino-Indian ties. It 

demolished Nehru’s claims of Asian solidarity, and 

the defeat at the hands of the Chinese psychologically 

scarred Indian military and political elites. It led to 

China developing close ties with India’s neighboring 

adversary, Pakistan, resulting in what is now widely 

considered an “all-weather” friendship. China supported Pakistan in its 1965 and 1971 wars with India 

and helped in the development of its nuclear weapons arsenal. Meanwhile, the Indian nuclear weapons 

program was accelerated in light of China’s testing of 

nuclear weapons in 1964.

The border issue remains a major obstacle in SinoIndian ties, with minor skirmishes at the border continuing since 1962. As China and the United States became closer after their rapprochement in 1972, India 

gravitated to the former Soviet Union to balance the 

China-U.S.-Pakistan axis. It was in 1988 that then Indian Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi turned a new leaf in 

Sino-Indian ties when he went to Beijing and signed an 

agreement that aimed at achieving a “fair and reasonable settlement while seeking a mutually acceptable 

solution to the border dispute.”4

 The visit saw a Joint 

Working Group (JWG) set up to explore the boundary 

issue and examine probable solutions to the problem. 
4

However, bilateral relations between India and the 

PRC touched their nadir in the immediate aftermath 

of India’s nuclear tests in May 1998. China had been 

singled out as the “number one” security threat for India by India’s Defence Minister just before the nuclear 

tests.5

 After the tests, the Indian Prime Minister wrote 

to the U.S. President justifying Indian nuclear tests as 

a response to the threat posed by China:

We have an overt nuclear weapons state [China] on 

our borders, a state which committed armed aggression against India in 1962. Although our relations with 

that country have improved in the last decade or so, 

an atmosphere of distrust persists mainly due to the 

unresolved border problem. To add to the distrust, 

that country has materially helped another neighbour of ours [Pakistan] to become a covert nuclear 

weapons state.6

Not surprisingly, China reacted strongly, with diplomatic relations between the two countries plummeting to an all time low.

However, after more than a decade, the relations 

between the two countries, at least superficially, seem 

to be on a much firmer footing as they have tried to 

reduce the prospect for rivalry and expand areas of 

cooperation. The visit of the Indian External Affairs 

Minister to China in 1999 marked the resumption of 

high-level dialogue, as the two sides declared that 

they were not threats to each other. A bilateral security dialogue was also initiated that has helped the 

two countries in openly expressing and sharing their 

security concerns with each other. Both China and 

India continue to emphasize that neither side should 

let differences act as an impediment to the growth of 

functional cooperation elsewhere between the two 
5

states. India and China also decided to expedite the 

process of demarcation of the Line of Actual Control 

(LAC), and the JWG on the boundary question, set 

up in 1988, has been meeting regularly. As a first step 

in this direction, the two countries exchanged border 

maps on the least controversial Middle Sector of the 

LAC. More recently, both nations agreed on Political 

Parameters and Guiding Principles for the Settlement of the 

India-China Boundary Question (2005), broad principles 

to govern the parameters of any dispute settlement. 

China has expressed its desire to seek a fair resolution 

to the vexed boundary issue on the basis of “mutual 

accommodation, respect for history, and accommodation of reality.”7

Diplomacy of Declarations.

Former Indian Prime Minster Atal Bihari Vajpayee visited China in June 2003, the first by an Indian 

Premier in a decade. The Joint Declaration signed during this visit expressed the view that China was not 

a threat to India.8

 The two states appointed Special 

Representatives in order to impart momentum to border negotiations that have lasted now for more than 

20 years, with the Prime Minister’s principal secretary 

becoming India’s political-level negotiator, replacing 

the India-China JWG. India and China also decided to 

hold their first joint naval and air exercises. More significantly, India acknowledged China’s sovereignty 

over Tibet and pledged not to allow anti-China political activities in India. For its part, China seems to have 

finally acknowledged India’s 1975 incorporation of 

the former monarchy of Sikkim, by agreeing to open 

a trading post along the border with the former kingdom and later by rectifying its official maps to include 
6

Sikkim as part of India.9 After being closed for 60 years, 

the Nathu La pass, a traditional trading post between 

Tibet and Sikkim, was reopened in 2006. High-level 

political interactions have continued unabated since 

then. The two states have set up institutionalized defense consultation mechanisms to reduce suspicions 

and identify areas of cooperation on security issues.

Soon after assuming office, the Manmohan Singh 

government made it clear that it desired closer ties 

with China and would continue to work towards improving bilateral relations with China. India’s former 

national security advisor, J. N. Dixit, wrote that “the 

Congress will continue the process of normalizing, 

strengthening and expanding India’s relations with 

China, which is the most important factor affecting 

Asian security and stability.”10 In his first address to 

the nation, Prime Minister Singh also emphasized the 

carrying forward of the process of further development and diversification of Sino-Indian relations.11

When Singh visited China in 2008, the two states 

signed A Shared Vision for the 21st Century of the People’s Republic of China and the Republic of India declaration: “to promote the building of a harmonious world 

of durable peace and common prosperity through 

developing the Strategic and Cooperative Partnership 

for Peace and Prosperity between the two countries.”12

Support for the earlier Agreement on Political Parameters and Guiding Principles for the Settlement of the 

China-India Boundary Question (2005) was reiterated. 

The two sides have decided to elevate the boundary 

negotiations to the level of a strategic dialogue, with 

plans for a hotline between the Indian Prime Minister 

and the Chinese Premier as a means to remove misunderstanding and reduce tensions at the earliest possible instance. Their public vision suggested that this 
7

relationship would have “a positive influence on the 

future of the international system.”13 The two nations 

signed the Border Defence Cooperation Agreement 

(BDCA) in 2013 aimed at curbing incidents along the 

border that inflame public passions.

This has been ongoing at a time when economic 

relations between the two have been burgeoning, with 

China emerging as India’s largest trading partner. The 

Sino-Indian trade is on course to achieve a volume of 

$100 billion by 2015, providing a basis for long-term 

engagement.

Global Engagement.

It is at the international level, however, that India and China have found some real convergence of 

interests. Both share similar concerns about U.S. international dominance, the threat of fundamentalist 

religious and ethnic movements in the form of terrorism, and the need to accord primacy to economic 

development. India and China have both expressed 

concern about the U.S. use of military power around 

the world, and both were publicly opposed to the war 

in Iraq. This was merely a continuation of the desire 

of both states to oppose the U.S. hyperpuissance since 

the end of the Cold War. 

Both China and India, much like other major 

powers in the international system, favor a multipolar world order where U.S. unipolarity remains constrained by the other “poles” in the system. China and 

India zealously guard their national sovereignty and 

have been wary of U.S. attempts to interfere in what 

they see as domestic affairs of other states, be it in Serbia, Kosovo, Iraq, or more recently, Libya and Syria. 

Both took strong exception to the U.S. air strikes on 

Iraq in 1998, the U.S.-led air campaign against Yugo-
8

slavia in 1999, and the U.S. campaign against Saddam 

Hussein, arguing that these violated the sovereignty 

of both countries and undermined the authority of 

the UN system.14 China and India share an interest in 

resisting interventionist foreign policy doctrines emanating from the West, particularly the United States, 

and display “conservative attitudes on the prerogatives of sovereignty.”15

China and India have coordinated their efforts on 

issues as wide-ranging as climate change, trade negotiations, energy security, and the global financial 

crisis. Both nations favor more democratic international economic regimes. Sino-Indian coordination 

on climate change, global trade negotiations, as well 

as in demanding a restructuring of financial institutions in view of the world economy’s shifting center 

of gravity has had a significant impact on the course 

of international politics over the last few years. It is 

being argued that the forces of globalization have led 

to a certain convergence of Sino-Indian interests in the 

economic realm, as the two nations become even more 

deeply engaged in the international trading economy 

and more integrated in global financial networks.16

The two have strongly resisted efforts by the United States and other developed nations to link global 

trade to labor and environmental standards, realizing 

clearly that this would put them at a huge disadvantage in relation to the developed world, thereby hampering their drive towards economic development, 

the number one priority for both countries. Both have 

committed themselves to crafting joint Sino-Indian 

positions in the World Trade Organization (WTO) and 

global trade negotiations in the hope that this might 

provide them greater negotiating leverage over other 

developed states. They would like to see further liberalization of agricultural trade in the developed coun-
9

tries, tightening of the rules on anti-dumping measures, and ensuring that nontrade related issues such 

as labor and environment are not allowed to come to 

the WTO. Both have fought carbon emission caps proposed by the industrialized world and have resisted 

Western pressure to open their agricultural markets.

It is against an increasingly complex strategic background that states such as China and India are trying 

to shape their own energy policies. Their approach toward their energy predicament remains rather traditional insofar as it is largely state-centric, supply-side 

biased, mainly reliant on oil, and tends to privilege 

self-sufficiency.17 It is toward an aggressive pursuit 

of energy resources, particularly oil, across the globe 

that China and India seem to have focused their diplomatic energies in recent years, with some far-reaching 

implications.

Both China and India are feeling the pressure of diminishing oil discoveries and flat-lined oil production 

at a time when expansion of their domestic economies 

is rapidly increasing demand for energy. They have 

made energy the focal point of their diplomatic overtures to states far and wide. More significantly, faced 

with a market in which politics has an equal, if not 

greater, influence on price as does economics, the two 

have also decided to coordinate their efforts to secure 

energy resources overseas. In essence, China and India plan to work together to secure energy resources 

without unnecessarily bidding up the price of those 

resources, thereby agreeing to a consumer’s cartel representing 2.3 billion potential consumers. Together, 

their combined markets and purchasing power offers 

an extremely attractive partner to energy-producing 

states, especially the ones that face Western pressure 

over their human rights records or the nature of their 

political institutions.
10

It has been argued by many that cooperation between China and India on energy issues is the only 

way ahead if both states want to gain economies of 

scale and negotiation muscle. In many ways, both 

states face similar constraints in achieving energy security and a coordinated approach would benefit them 

both. Competition only ends up driving up the costs of 

acquisition, thereby diminishing future returns. There 

has been a recognition of this at the highest levels of 

the government in both states.

China and India have signed a range of memoranda on energy cooperation that covers a full scope of areas, including upstream exploration and production, 

the refining and marketing of petroleum products and 

petrochemicals, the laying of national and transnational oil and gas pipelines, frontier and cutting-edge 

research and development, and the promotion of 

environment-friendly fuels.18

The two states have agreed to strengthen the exchange of information when bidding for oil resources in a third party country in order to realize mutual 

benefit. China has pledged to promote cooperation 

with India in civil nuclear energy and to view this 

cooperation in the context of climate change and increasing nonpolluting sources in the energy mix. The 

former Indian petroleum minister, Mani Shankar Aiyar, made it clear that he thought that India and China 

joining hands to bid jointly for oil and gas assets under a “monopsonistic” arrangement was much better 

than the two states competing in their quest for energy 

resources.19 He had even floated the idea of an Asian 

energy grid that might follow the trajectory of the European Coal and Steel Community, which grew into 

the European Union (EU). According to Aiyar, “India 

and China don’t have to go through fratricide in order 
11

to arrive at the conclusion that it is better to cooperate 

on energy security.”20

From Global to Bilateral: Without Much Success.

The attempt on the part of China in recent years 

has been to build its bilateral relationship with India 

on the basis of the larger worldview of international politics on the part of both nations. As New Delhi and Beijing discovered a distinct convergence of 

their interests on the world stage, they have used it to 

strengthen their bilateral relations. They have established and maintained regular reciprocal high-level 

visits between political leaders. There has been a serious attempt to improve trade relations and China has 

sought to compartmentalize intractable issues with 

India that make it difficult for their bilateral relationship to move forward. 

At the global level, the rhetoric is all about cooperation, and indeed the two sides have worked together 

on climate change, global trade negotiations and demanding a restructuring of global financial institutions in view of the global economy’s shifting center 

of gravity.21 At the bilateral level, however, mounting tensions reached an impasse in 2009, when China 

took its territorial dispute with India all the way to 

the Asian Development Bank. There China blocked 

India’s application for a loan that included money for 

development projects in the Indian state of Arunachal 

Pradesh, which China continues to claim as part of its 

own territory.22 The suggestion by the Chinese to the 

U.S. Pacific Fleet commander in 2009 that the Indian 

Ocean should be recognized as a Chinese sphere of 

influence also raised hackles in New Delhi.23 China’s 

lack of support for the U.S.-India civilian nuclear en-
12

ergy cooperation pact, which it tried to block at the 

Nuclear Suppliers Group (NSG), and its obstructionist 

stance about bringing the terror masterminds of the 

November 2008 Mumbai attacks to justice have further strained ties. 

Sino-Indian frictions are growing, and the potential for conflict remains high. Alarm is rising in India 

because of frequent and strident Chinese claims about 

the Line of Actual Control in Arunachal Pradesh and 

Sikkim, where Indians have complained of a dramatic 

rise in Chinese intrusions into Indian territory over 

the last few years, most along the border in Arunachal 

Pradesh, which China refers to as “Southern Tibet.” 

China has upped the ante on the border issue. It has 

been regularly protesting against the Indian Prime 

Minister’s visits to Arunachal Pradesh over the last 

few years, asserting its claims over the territory. What 

has caught most observers of Sino-Indian ties by surprise, however, is the vehemence with which Beijing 

has contested recent Indian administrative and political action in the state, even denying visas to Indian 

citizens of Arunachal Pradesh. The recent rounds of 

boundary negotiations have been a disappointing failure, with a growing perception in India that China is 

less willing to adhere to earlier political understandings about how to address the boundary dispute. 

The possibility of an intimate U.S.-India military 

relationship has generated fears of encirclement in 

Beijing. India’s position astride China’s key maritime 

shipping lanes has made the prospect of a Washington-Delhi axis particularly worrisome. Pakistan, of 

course, has always been a crucial foreign policy asset for China, but with India’s rise and U.S.-India 

rapprochement, its role in China’s grand strategy is 

bound to grow even further. Not surprisingly, recent 
13

revelations about China shifting away from a 3-decades’ old cautious approach on Jammu and Kashmir, 

increasing its military presence in Pakistan, planning 

infrastructure linking Xinjiang and Gwadar, issuing 

stapled visas to residents of Jammu and Kashmir and 

supplying nuclear reactors to Pakistan, all confirm a 

new intensity behind China’s old strategy of using 

Pakistan to secure its interests in the region. China has 

gone even further than Pakistan in defining the Kashmir issue. While Pakistan insists that Kashmir is a disputed territory, recent Chinese positions have made it 

clear that Beijing believes Pakistan occupied Kashmir 

(PoK) is Pakistani territory with India’s Kashmir state 

being the only part of the province that is disputed.24

Pakistan seems to have ceded responsibility for the 

Gilgit-Baltistan area of PoK to China as the reported 

presence of 7,000-10,000 People’s Liberation Army 

(PLA) troops there underscores.25 The real concern for 

India, however, is the number of projects that China 

has undertaken in these areas, and that footprint is 

likely to increase.26

China’s economic transformation has given it the 

capability to emerge as a major military power as it 

continues to announce double-digit increases in its 

military spending. China’s military may or may not be 

able to take on the United States in the next few years, 

but it will surely become the most dominant force in 

Asia. As a consequence of its growing capabilities, 

China has started asserting its military profile more 

significantly than before. Since 2009, Chinese vessels 

have been tackling Somali pirates in the Middle East, 

the first time Chinese vessels operated outside Asia. 

Beijing has also started sending combat troops abroad 

in support of UN peacekeeping efforts. 
14

China’s sustained military build-up will continue 

over the next few years and will pose a challenge to 

Indian military planners as the Indian military’s modernization program is fast losing momentum. As the 

policy paralysis post-Mumbai has revealed, India 

seems to have lost even its conventional superiority 

over Pakistan. The real challenge for India, however, 

lies in China’s rise as a military power. India is speeding up its defense procurement but the process remains mired in bureaucratese and lacks any sense of 

strategic direction.27 According to an estimate by the 

Indian government’s own China Study Group, China 

now possesses the capability to move more than 10,000 

troops to the Indian border in 20 to 25 days, compared 

to 3 to 6 months a decade ago.28 This is possible because 

of China’s efficient border management, and it has 

forced India into urgently constructing border roads. 

By engaging in repeated, though controlled, provocations, the Chinese military is carefully probing how 

far it can push India. The new military restiveness on 

the Sino-Indian border does not bode well for India 

as the military balance along the long and contested 

border is rapidly altering in Beijing’s favor. It is not 

without reason that China has upgraded its military 

and civilian infrastructure in Xinjiang and Tibet. As a 

consequence, Tibet has become a militarized zone. 

CURRENT ISSUES 

China’s Naval Power Projection.

China is acquiring naval bases along the crucial 

choke points in the Indian Ocean not only to serve 

its economic interests but also to enhance its strategic 

presence in the region. There is enough evidence to 

suggest that China is comprehensively building up 
15

its maritime power in all dimensions.29 It is China’s 

growing dependence on maritime space and resources that is reflected in the Chinese aspiration to expand 

its influence and ultimately to dominate the strategic 

environment of the Indian Ocean region. Its growing 

reliance on bases across the Indian Ocean region is a 

response to its perceived vulnerability, given the logistical constraints that it faces due to the distance of 

the Indian Ocean waters from its own area of operation. Yet, China is consolidating power over the South 

China Sea and the Indian Ocean with an eye on India, 

something that comes out clearly in a secret memorandum issued by the Director of the General Logistic Department of the PLA: “We can no longer accept 

the Indian Ocean as only an ocean of the Indians. 

. . . We are taking armed conflicts in the region into 

account.”30

China has deployed its Jin class submarines at a 

base near Sanya on the southern tip of Hainan Island 

in the South China Sea, raising alarm in India as the 

base is merely 1,200 nautical miles from the Malacca 

Strait and will be its closest access point to the Indian 

Ocean. The base also has an underground facility that 

can hide the movement of submarines, making them 

difficult to detect.31 The concentration of strategic naval forces at Sanya will further propel China towards 

a consolidation of its control over the surrounding Indian Ocean region. The presence of access tunnels on 

the mouth of the deep water base is particularly troubling for India as it will have strategic implications in 

the Indian Ocean region, allowing China to interdict 

shipping at the three crucial choke points in the Indian 

Ocean. The choice of Hainan is poor, but no alternatives exist as other places are hemmed in by islands. 

So China’s chief maritime nuclear base is also what is 
16

for now her southernmost point. She would want the 

waters around it clear so that, among other things, no 

one can track her submarines.

As the ability of China’s navy to project power in 

the Indian Ocean grows, India is likely to feel even 

more vulnerable despite enjoying distinct geographical advantages in the region. China’s growing naval 

presence in and around the Indian Ocean region is 

troubling for India as it restricts India’s freedom to 

maneuver in the region. Of particular note is what 

has been termed China’s “string of pearls” strategy 

that has significantly expanded its strategic depth in 

India’s backyard.32

This string of pearls strategy of bases and diplomatic ties include the Gwadar port in Pakistan, naval 

bases in Burma, electronic intelligence gathering facilities on islands in the Bay of Bengal, funding construction of a canal across the Kra Isthmus in Thailand, a 

military agreement with Cambodia, and building up 

of forces in the South China Sea.33 Some of the Indian 

claims relating to these developments are exaggerated as has been the case with the Chinese naval presence in Burma. The Indian government, for example, 

had to concede in 2005 that reports of China turning 

the Coco Islands in Burma into a naval base were incorrect, and that there were, indeed, no naval bases in 

Burma.34 Yet the Chinese thrust into the Indian Ocean 

is gradually becoming more pronounced. The Chinese 

may not have a naval base in Burma but they are involved in the upgrade of infrastructure in the Coco 

Islands and may be providing some limited technical 

assistance to Burma. Given that almost 80 percent of 

China’s oil passes through the Strait of Malacca, it is 

reluctant to rely on U.S. naval power for unhindered 

access to energy and so has decided to build up its 
17

naval power at “choke points” along the sea routes 

from the Persian Gulf to the South China Sea. China 

is also courting other states in South Asia by building 

container ports in Bangladesh at Chittagong and in Sri 

Lanka at Hambantota. Consolidating its access to the 

Indian Ocean, China has signed an agreement with 

Sri Lanka to finance the development of the Hambantota Development Zone, which includes a container 

port, a bunker system, and an oil refinery. It is possible that the construction of these ports and facilities 

around India’s periphery by China can be explained 

away on purely economic and commercial grounds 

but for India this looks like a policy of containment by 

other means.

China’s involvement in the construction of the 

deep-sea port of Gwadar has attracted a lot of attention due to its strategic location, about 70 kilometers 

from the Iranian border and 400 kilometers east of the 

Strait of Hormuz, a major oil supply route. It has been 

suggested that it will provide China with a listening 

post from where it can “monitor US naval activity in 

the Persian Gulf, Indian activity in the Arabian Sea, 

and future US-Indian maritime cooperation in the Indian Ocean.”35 Though Pakistan’s naval capabilities 

do not, on their own, pose any challenge to India, the 

combinations of Chinese and Pakistani naval forces 

can, indeed, be formidable for India to counter.

China would certainly like to play a greater role 

in the region, protect and advance its interests, especially its commerce, as well as countering India. But 

given the immense geographical advantages that India enjoys in the Indian Ocean, China will have great 

difficulty in exerting as much sway there as India 

can. China’s assertion of its naval prowess, however, 

is raising vexing issues regarding the role of Indian 
18

naval power in the Indian Ocean. The Indian and Chinese navies are growing and acquiring the capability 

to operate at long distances. The Sino-Indian strategic relationship is rapidly evolving and tensions are 

building up as was underlined in an incident in 2009 

when an Indian Kilo class submarine and Chinese warships, on their way to the Gulf of Aden to patrol the 

pirate-infested waters, reportedly engaged in rounds 

of maneuvering as they tried to test for weaknesses 

in each other’s sonar systems. The Chinese media reported that its warships forced the Indian submarine 

to the surface, which was strongly denied by the Indian navy.36 Another incident led to an unidentified 

Chinese warship demanding that the INS Airavat, an 

Indian amphibious assault vessel, identify itself and 

explain its presence in the South China Sea after the 

vessel left Vietnamese waters in July 2011.37 The Indian warship was completing a scheduled port call in 

Vietnam and was in international waters. Though the 

Indian Navy promptly denied that a Chinese warship 

had confronted its assault vessel, it did not completely 

deny the factual basis of the report. Maritime friction 

is likely to grow as the Indian Navy tries to expand its 

footprint in the South China Sea and the Western Pacific even as the Chinese Navy increases its presence 

in the Indian Ocean. It is India’s fears and perceptions 

of the growing naval prowess of China in the Indian 

Ocean that is driving Indian naval posture. 

The Nuclear Issue.

China remains the only major power in the world 

that refuses to discuss nuclear issues with India for 

fear that this might imply a de facto recognition of India’s status as a nuclear power. It continues to insist on 
19

the sanctity of UN Resolution 1172, which calls for India (and Pakistan) to give up its nuclear weapons program and join the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty 

(NPT) as a non-nuclear weapons state.38 For the same 

reason, China refuses to discuss nuclear confidence 

building and risk reduction measures with India. It is 

interesting that a large section of China’s political and 

military elite views India’s nuclear tests in 1998, not as 

an attempt by India to address its security concerns, 

but rather a U.S. attempt to contain China insofar as 

the United States “allowed” India to go nuclear.39

The U.S.-India civilian nuclear energy cooperation 

pact came as a shock to Beijing. China made every 

possible effort to scuttle the deal until the last minute. 

It made its displeasure with the nuclear pact clear by 

asking India to sign the NPT and dismantle its nuclear 

weapons. Since the U.S.-India deal is in many ways a 

recognition of India’s rising global profile, China, not 

surprisingly, was not very happy with the outcome 

and quickly declared that it would be selling new nuclear reactors to Pakistan. It was a not so subtle message to the United States that if Washington decided 

to play favorites, China also retained the same right.

Beijing viewed the nuclear deal through the lens of 

the global balance of power and was perturbed about 

the U.S. desire to build India as a balancer in the region. China was opposed to an exemption for India 

from the NSG guidelines, even threatening to walk 

out of the NSG proceedings at Vienna in 2008 in its 

attempts to derail negotiations at the 11th hour. The 

Chinese leadership refused to receive the Indian Prime 

Minister’s call during the crisis. Only when the other 

states were persuaded by the United States to support 

the deal and China realized that it would be the last 

state standing, did it back off from its obstruction-
20

ist stance. China’s actions with regard to the nuclear 

pact have conveyed to India that even as India tries 

hard to break out of the straitjacket of being a South 

Asian power by forging a strategic partnership with 

the United States, China will do its utmost to contain 

India by building up its neighboring adversaries. 

To counter the U.S.-India nuclear pact, China 

has decided to allow its state entities to supply two 

new nuclear reactors to Pakistan. Chinese authorities 

have confirmed that the state-owned China National 

Nuclear Corporation has signed an agreement with 

Pakistan for two new nuclear reactors at the Chashma site—Chashma III and Chashma IV—in addition 

to the two it is already working on in Pakistan. This 

action of China will be in clear violation of the NSG 

guidelines that forbid nuclear transfers to countries 

not signatories to the NPT or which adhere to comprehensive international safeguards on their nuclear 

program. China has suggested that “there are compelling political reasons concerning the stability of 

South Asia to justify the exports,” echoing Pakistan’s 

oft-repeated complaint that the U.S.-India nuclear 

pact has upset stability in the region by assisting India’s strategic program.40 Unlike the much debated 

U.S.-India nuclear pact, the Sino-Pakistani agreement 

is mired in secrecy with Beijing even ready to shortcircuit the NSG process. Disregarding Indian and 

global concerns, China has contended that the sale of 

two new reactors is “grandfathered” from before it 

joined the NSG in 2004, and therefore an exemption 

from the NSG is not required. The decision to supply 

reactors to Pakistan, a nonsignatory to the NPT and 

with a record of dealing with North Korea, Iran, and 

Libya, reflects China’s growing diplomatic confidence 

and underscores its view of Pakistan as a prized South 

Asian strategic power. 
21

The Pakistani nuclear weapons program is essentially an extension of the Chinese one. China’s 

crucial role in the development of Pakistan’s nuclear 

infrastructure is well documented. Although China 

has long denied helping any nation attain a nuclear 

capability, the father of Pakistan’s nuclear weapons 

program, Abdul Qadeer Khan, himself has acknowledged the crucial role China has played in his nation’s nuclear weaponization by gifting 50 kilograms 

of weapons grade enriched uranium, drawings of 

the nuclear weapons, and tons of uranium hexafluoride for Pakistan’s centrifuges. This is perhaps the 

only case where a nuclear weapons state has actually 

passed on weapons grade fissile material as well as 

a bomb design to a non-nuclear weapons state. The 

Sino-Pakistani collusion on nuclear issues has continued despite China being a signatory to the NPT.

Moreover, while both India and China have a “nofirst-use” nuclear doctrine, China’s doctrine is not applicable to India as India is not a party to the NPT. 

China’s “minimum nuclear doctrine” has changed to 

“limited nuclear doctrine,” suggesting a nuclear warfighting capability. It has been estimated that the Chinese nuclear arsenal of about 500 warheads comprises 

200 strategic warheads, while the rest are of a tactical 

nature. Those tactical warheads are deployed at about 

20 locations in China, including Tibet, and are well integrated at the operational level. On the other hand, 

India’s no-first-use pledge and minimum deterrence 

posture have precluded the possession of tactical nuclear weapons, leading to a serious operational shortcoming as well as depriving India of an appropriate 

level of deterrence against China. India may well have 

to attain parity with China’s strategic nuclear forces in 

order to successfully counter its aggressively coercive 

bargaining vis-à-vis India.
22

Among the five nuclear powers, it is China that 

is making the most dramatic advances in its nuclear 

force with the introduction and deployment of new 

generation land-based ballistic missiles and nuclear 

submarines. Sino-Indian competition in the nuclear 

arena is intensifying after China decided to upgrade 

its missile facilities near Tibet in 2007, bringing targets 

in northern India within range of its forces. The Indian 

Army is in the process of incorporating Agni-III, its 

intermediate range missile, which is capable of reaching all of China’s major cities, and has successfully 

tested the nuclear-capable, 5,000-kilometer range Agni-V ballistic missile to bolster its deterrence posture 

against China. India’s no-first-use nuclear doctrine 

relies fundamentally on a credible second strike capability. The Agni-V, by bringing the Chinese heartland into India’s missile orbit, makes the Sino-Indian 

nuclear dynamic more stable than before.

India has also shifted a squadron of its most advanced multirole fighter aircraft, Su-30MKI, to a base 

just 150 kilometers from the disputed Sino-Indian 

border. New Delhi is considering missile defense 

systems, including the U.S. Patriot-3 and Israel’s Iron 

Dome and David’s Sling, in response to the Chinese 

military’s plan to place Dongfeng-21 medium-range 

ballistic missiles on the Tibetan plateau.41 India’s indigenous ballistic missile defense (BMD) program has 

been accelerated and is now considered ready for integration into the nation’s air defense assets. Its Defence 

Research and Development Organisation (DRDO) 

has suggested that by 2013–14, the system would include phase-I missiles, capable of neutralizing incoming missiles at the 2,000-kilometer range. With an eye 

on China, phase-II will be aimed at thwarting threats 

from missiles up to 5,000 kilometers.42 After China 
23

demonstrated its test-firing capability in space, India 

has suggested that it remains open to extending the 

BMD program to that arena, although its official policy remains one of staunch opposition to any attempt 

to place weapons in space. 

Border Tensions.

China has vigorously asserted its old claims along 

the border with India and has combined the assertion 

with aggressive patrolling. Violating the 1993 IndiaChina agreement on peace and tranquility on the Line 

of Actual Control, Chinese troops have been engaging 

Indian troops in verbal abuses, asking them to leave 

their own territory. Even as India considered the Sikkim border issue settled, repeated Chinese incursions 

in the Finger Area in northern Sikkim in the past few 

years are aimed at opening a fresh front against India. 

Beijing has decided to put the historically undisputed 

border with Sikkim back into contestation. Concerns 

are growing about covert Chinese intrusions into the 

Indian territory to strengthen its claims on the disputed border areas. Chinese forces are regularly intruding 

into Bhutanese territory at the tri-junction with India 

and destroying Indian Army posts.43 These incursions 

are strategically aimed as they are precariously close 

to India’s “chicken-neck”—the Siliguri corridor which 

links the northeast passage. Chinese intrusions into 

the nondelineated parts of Bhutan’s northern border 

with Tibet are also aimed at forcing Bhutan to settle its 

boundary issue with China. In April 2013, a Chinese 

military patrol set up camps several kilometers within 

the Indian side of the Line of Actual Control. This was 

the first time since 1986 that Chinese troops have refused to vacate their positions after being discovered. 
24

After it emerged that the Chinese patrol had pitched 

camp in the Despang area of Ladakh, Indian media 

reported that two Chinese helicopters violated Indian 

airspace in an attempt to provide air cover to the soldiers. New Delhi summoned the Chinese ambassador 

immediately and sent military reinforcements to the 

region. It took China 3 weeks to order the military to 

go back.

China’s rapid expansion and modernization of its 

transport infrastructure across the border is forcing 

India to respond though India is already decades behind. The build-up of infrastructure in Tibet should 

have rung alarm bells in Delhi long back, but no response was forthcoming. China’s transportation modernization plans across the Himalayas had been evident for decades. Yet India chose to be lackadaisical 

in its approach without demonstrating a sense of urgency that this critical national security requirement 

demanded. Improved infrastructure helped China to 

rapidly deploy troops in Tibet when riots broke out 

there in 2008. The railway link between Beijing and 

Lhasa further tightens China’s grip on Tibet. China’s 

ambition is to extend the Beijing-Lhasa rail line to Yatung just a few miles from Sikkim’s Nathu La and subsequently extend this to Nyingchi, north of Arunachal 

Pradesh, at the tri-junction with Myanmar. China’s 

ambitions about the development of its border areas 

contrast vividly with India’s tentative stance on infrastructure development. 

China’s transformation of the transport infrastructure in Yunnan, Tibet, and Xinjiang, the provinces that 

border South Asia, and its decision to build road and 

rail networks across the borders of these areas has 

transformed geopolitics in India’s vicinity. India is 

struggling to cope with the decay in its border infra-
25

structure.44 It has only recently started building several tactically important roads along the China border in 

the eastern and western sectors. A number of airstrips 

are being upgraded so as to give India the ability to 

deploy a large number of troops in forward areas on 

short notice. Myanmar has agreed to allow China to 

use its land to build a highway to connect Kunming 

in its southeast with Chittagong in Bangladesh. Once 

built, the highway will allow China direct access to 

the Bay of Bengal, and it will run very close to the 

northeastern Indian states of Tripura and Mizoram. 

China has set up an in-house training facility for Su-30 

fighter aircraft pilots of the Indonesian Air Force at 

the Hasanuddin Air Base where the unit is based. As 

a result, Chinese pilots will be flying much closer to 

India’s Andaman Nicobar Islands. 

The penetration of China into the Indian intelligence apparatus is growing to the consternation of 

many. India’s premier National Informatics Centre, 

which governs and hosts all government websites as 

well as computers of the Prime Minister’s Office, the 

Ministry of External Affairs, several Indian embassies, 

the Bhabha Atomic Research Centre, and the Dalai 

Lama were infected by GhostNet, a China-based cyber 

espionage network.45 Though this came to light in early 2009, it has been going on for the last several years. 

China has been giving cyber warfare serious thought 

and has incorporated it into its military planning and 

strategy by encouraging civilian computer hackers to 

penetrate the computer networks of key political and 

military leaders in countries ranging from the United 

States to Japan, Taiwan, India and South Korea. 
26

India Balances a Rising China.

China’s recent hardening toward India might well 

be a function of its own internal vulnerabilities, but that 

is hardly a consolation to Indian policymakers who 

have to respond to a public that increasingly wants 

the country to assert itself in the region and beyond. 

New Delhi has responded to the challenge posed by 

a rising China by adopting a more hard-nosed policy 

vis-à-vis Beijing.

While there has always been and continues to be 

a range of opinions in India on how best to deal with 

China, a consensus seems to be evolving among the 

highest echelons of military planners and policymakers.46 For a long time now, Indian defense officials 

have been warning their government in rather blunt 

terms about the growing disparity between the two 

Asian powers. The naval chief had warned that India 

neither has “the capability nor the intention to match 

China force for force” in military terms, while the former air chief had suggested that China poses more of 

a threat to India than does Pakistan. But the political 

leadership in India continued to act on the assumption 

that Beijing is not a short-term threat to India but rather needs to be watched over the long term. However, 

that assessment seems to be undergoing a change. After trying to ignore significant differences with China, 

Indian decisionmakers finally are acknowledging that 

the relationship between the countries is becoming 

increasingly contentious. Prime Minister Singh has 

suggested that “China would like to have a foothold 

in South Asia and we have to reflect on this reality. . . .

It’s important to be prepared.”47 The Indian defense 

minister has argued that China’s increasing assertiveness is a “serious threat.”48 A former national security 
27

advisor and special envoy to China, M. K. Narayanan, 

has openly accused Chinese hackers of attacking 

his website, as well as those of other government 

departments.49

An elite consensus is evolving in India that China’s rise is posing problems for the country. “We are 

friends, not rivals,” said the Chinese Premier in India 

in 2010.50 But a growing number of Indians now see 

China as a competitor, if not a rival. A 2010 Pew poll 

suggested that only 34 percent of Indians held a favorable view of China, with four in 10 viewing their 

neighbor as a “very serious threat.”51 More damaging 

is the perception gaining ground in India that China 

is the only major power that does not accept India as a 

rising global player that must be accommodated. The 

discord between the two countries thus remains entrenched, and their increasing economic strength and 

geopolitical standing has only underlined their rapidly growing ambitions. Though it is not entirely clear 

if China has well-defined policy objectives vis-à-vis 

India, Beijing’s means, both economic and military, 

to pursue its goals are greater than at any time in the 

recent past. In response, a process of military consolidation and build-up of key external partnerships is 

underway in India.

Between 2010 and 2016, India is expected to spend 

$112 billion on capital defense acquisitions in what is 

being described as “one of the largest procurement 

cycles in the world.”52 The Indian Army is raising two 

new specialized infantry mountain divisions (35,000 

soldiers) and an artillery brigade for Arunachal 

Pradesh aimed at redressing the imbalance on the 

Sino-Indian border. It is also revising its conventional 

warfighting doctrine that is aimed at deterring as opposed to dissuading China though its meaning in op-
28

erational terms remains far from clear. The Indian military is currently refining a “two-front war” doctrine 

to fend off Pakistan and China simultaneously. Both 

fronts—the northeastern one with China and northwestern one with Pakistan—are being given equal 

attention. If attacked by Pakistan and China, India 

will use its new integrated battle groups to deal quick 

decisive blows against both simultaneously.

The Indian Navy is aiming for a total fleet of 140-

145 vessels over the next decade, built around two carrier battle groups: the Admiral Gorshkov, handed over 

to India in November 2013, and the indigenous carrier, the 37,500-ton STOBAR Air Defense Ship likely 

to be completed by 2015. India’s ambition to equip 

its navy with two or more aircraft carriers over the 

next decade as well as its decision to launch its first 

indigenous nuclear submarine are seen as crucial for 

power projection and to achieve a semblance of strategic autonomy. India’s emerging capability to put a 

carrier task force as far as the South China Sea and the 

Persian Gulf has given a boost to the Indian Navy’s 

blue-water aspirations and India hopes to add a third 

aircraft carrier by 2017, ensuring that the Indian Navy 

has two operational carriers at any given time.53 The 

deployment of the Jin class submarine at Hainan by 

China will also force India to speed up its indigenous 

nuclear submarine project that has been in the making 

for more than a decade now with the Indian Navy, 

rather ambitiously, aiming at the induction of five indigenous advanced technology vehicle (ATV) nuclear 

submarines. A submarine-based nuclear arsenal is 

considered critical by Indian strategists to retain a 

second-strike capability. 

The Indian Navy took command in January 2012 

from Russia of the nation’s first nuclear-powered 
29

submarine since India’s last such vessel was decommissioned in 1991. With the induction into the Indian 

Navy of the Russian Akula-II class submarine K-152 

Nerpa—now known as INS Chakra—India becomes 

the world’s sixth nation to operate a nuclear powered 

submarine.54

INS Chakra does not really add to India’s nuclear 

muscle as it will not be armed with long-range nuclear 

missiles. For that, the Indian Navy is still waiting for 

INS Arihant, an indigenous nuclear submarine, which 

is undergoing sea trials and is slated to become fully operational in 2014.55 INS Arihant was formally launched 

by the Indian Prime Minister in 2009. This highly secretive project took more than a decade to complete 

and will fill out India’s nuclear triad, with the submarine’s ballistic missiles giving India a second strike 

capability.

What INS Chakra will do is to restore some muscle 

to India’s underwater combat capability, which has 

been steadily depleting with only 14 conventional submarines holding forth. The Indian Navy has also lost 

critical expertise in maintaining and operating nuclear 

submarines, and INS Chakra is expected to be used 

for training sailors as well. India had leased a Russian Charlie-class nuclear submarine from the former 

Soviet Union in 1988 for 3 years. Indian naval planners are looking at nuclear attack submarines as an 

important element of their “denial strategy” (aiming 

to deny opponents’ ability to use the sea, but without 

seeking to control it themselves), and as a response to 

any adversary’s “sea control” strategy. Not only does 

a nuclear submarine enhance India’s credibility as a 

major global military power, it is also seen as crucial 

in cementing the Indian Navy’s blue-water status.
30

India is using its naval forces to advance its diplomatic initiatives overseas and in particular towards 

shaping the strategic environment in and around the 

Indian Ocean. Indian interests converge with those of 

the United States in the Indian Ocean region, and it 

is trying to use the present upswing in U.S.-India ties 

to create a more favorable strategic environment for 

itself in the region despite its historic sensitivities to 

the presence of U.S. forces in the Indian Ocean.56 The 

United States has also recognized the importance of 

India’s role in the region as was evident in Secretary 

of State Colin Powell’s 2001 contention that it was 

important for the United States to support India’s 

role in maintaining peace and stability in the Indian 

Ocean and its vast periphery.57 More recently, in its 

first maritime service strategy update in 25 years, the 

United States views its sea power as the primary instrument in the U.S. defense arsenal to deter conflict 

with China, and cooperation with other countries’ naval services, including India’s, is recognized as crucial 

to fulfilling the strategic imperatives in the region.58

The U.S. and Indian navies have stepped up their joint 

exercises, and the United States has sold India the USS 

Trenton (renamed INS Jalashwa), the first of its class 

to be inducted into the Indian Navy and marking a 

milestone in the U.S.-India bilateral ties. The United 

States would like India to join its Container Security 

Initiative (CSI) and Proliferation Security Initiative 

(PSI) but India remains reluctant. PSI is viewed as 

a U.S.-led initiative outside the UN mandate while 

the CSI would result in the presence of U.S. inspectors in Indian ports, making it politically radioactive. 

However, India has indicated that it would be willing to join the U.S.-proposed 1,000-ship navy effort 

to combat illegal activities on the high seas, given the 
31

informal nature of the arrangement.59 India is seen 

as a balancer in the Asia-Pacific where the U.S. influence has waned relatively, even as China’s has risen. 

India’s ties with Japan have also assumed a new dynamic with some even mooting a concert of democracies proposal involving the democratic states of the 

Asia-Pacific working towards their common goals of a 

stable Asia-Pacific region.60 While such a proposal has 

little chance of evolving into anything concrete in the 

near term, especially given China’s sensitivities, India’s decision to develop natural gas with Japan in the 

Andaman Sea, and recent military exercises involving 

the United States, Japan, India, and Australia, do give 

a sense of India’s emerging priorities.61

India’s decision to establish its Far Eastern Command in the Andaman and Nicobar Islands in the 

Bay of Bengal is aimed at countering China’s growing 

presence in the region by complicating China’s access 

to the region through the Strait of Malacca, the main 

bottleneck of oil transit to China. India has launched 

Project Seabird, consisting of the establishment of its 

third operational naval base in Karwar on the nation’s 

western seaboard, an air force station, a naval armament depot, and missile silos—all at securing the nation’s maritime routes in the Arabian Sea.62 India is set 

to establish a monitoring station in Madagascar, its 

first in another country, as it is deemed vital to guard 

against the terrorist threat emanating from East Africa 

as well as to keep an eye on China’s plan in the region. 

India also has its eyes on Mauritius for developing a 

monitoring facility at an atoll and has strengthened its 

naval contacts with Mozambique and Seychelles. India responded to Chinese President Hu Jintao’s offer 

of military assistance to Seychelles by donating one 

of its patrol aircraft to the Seychelles Navy. India’s 
32

support in the building of Chahbahar port in Iran as 

well as the road connecting it to Afghanistan is an answer to the Chinese-funded Gwadar port in Pakistan. 

India’s air base in Kazakhstan and its space monitoring post in Mongolia are also geared primarily 

towards China. 

India’s “Look East” policy, originally aimed at 

strengthening economic ties with its Southeast Asian 

neighbors, has now led to naval exercises with Singapore, Thailand, and Indonesia. The Association of 

Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) member states 

have joined the Indian Navy in policing the Indian 

Ocean region to check piracy, trafficking, and other 

threats to sea lanes. Indian engagement of East Asia 

in the post-Cold War era has assumed significant proportions and remains a top foreign policy priority for 

the Indian leadership. The government of P. V. Narasimha Rao launched its Look East policy in the early1990s explicitly to initiate Delhi’s re-engagement with 

East Asia. Over the years, India has come to have 

extensive economic and trade linkages with various 

countries in the region even as there has also been a 

gradual strengthening of security ties. Present Indian 

Prime Minister Manmohan Singh has made it clear 

that his government’s foreign-policy priority will continue to be East and Southeast Asia, which are poised 

for sustained growth in the 21st century.

India, too, has an interest in protecting the sea lanes 

of communication that cross the South China Sea to 

Northeast Asia and the United States. As India’s profile rises in East and Southeast Asia, it is asserting its 

legitimate interests in the East Asian waters. As China 

expands its presence in South Asia and the Indian 

Ocean region, India is staking its own claims in East 

Asia. Most significant in this regard is India’s growing 
33

engagement with Vietnam. India has decided to work 

with Vietnam to establish a regular Indian presence in 

the region as part of a larger Delhi-Hanoi security partnership, with Vietnam giving India the right to use its 

port of Nha Trang. Delhi and Hanoi have significant 

stakes in ensuring security of sea lanes and preventing sea piracy, while they also share concerns about 

Chinese access to the Indian Ocean and South China 

Sea. Indian strategic interests demand that Vietnam 

emerge as a major regional player and India is well 

placed to help Hanoi achieve that objective. It has been 

argued in Indian strategic circles that just as China has 

used states in India’s periphery to contain India, Delhi 

should build states like Vietnam as strategic pressure 

points to counter China.63 A common approach on the 

emerging balance of power is developing with India 

and Vietnam both keen on reorienting their ties with 

the United States as their concerns about China rise. 

India has also accelerated its naval engagement 

with a number of Persian Gulf states, making port 

calls and conducting exercises with the navies of Kuwait, Oman, Bahrain, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, and United 

Arab Emirates as well as engaging with the navies of 

other major powers in the region such as the United 

States, the United Kingdom (UK), and France. It has 

also been suggested that to more effectively counter 

Chinese presence in the Indian Ocean and to protect 

its trade routes, India will have to seek access to the 

Vietnamese, Taiwanese, and Japanese ports for the 

forward deployment of its naval assets.64 India is already emerging as an exclusive defense service provider for smaller states with growing economies that 

seek to strengthen their military capabilities in Southeast Asia and West Asia, such as Vietnam, Indonesia, 

Malaysia, Singapore, Qatar, and Oman, providing it 
34

access to ports along the Arabian coast, Indian Ocean, 

and South China Sea.65

India has moved to build strategic partnerships 

with many states that share its apprehensions about 

China: the United States, Russia, Japan, Vietnam, Indonesia, and South Korea. India’s Look East policy 

that started primarily as an attempt to try and integrate India’s newly liberalizing economy with that of 

the Asian tigers has now evolved into a more robust 

military-to-military partnership with important states 

in the region. India is providing support to Vietnam 

to enhance and upgrade the capabilities of its three 

services in general, and its Navy in particular. India 

is training Malaysia’s Su-30 pilots and the Singaporean Army practices on Indian soil using cantonments and firing ranges. Indian warships now regularly visit countries across the region from Australia to 

Singapore and Indonesia. 

While economic ties between India and South 

Korea have been diversifying across various sectors, 

defense cooperation between the two states has also 

gathered momentum, reflecting the rapid changes in 

the Asia-Pacific region’s balance of power caused by 

China’s rise. In 2005, India and South Korea signed 

a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) on Cooperation in Defense, Industry, and Logistics, which was 

followed in 2006 by another MoU on cooperation between the two countries’ coast guards. South Korea 

is one of the world’s leaders in naval ship-building 

technology, and India would like to tap into South Korean naval capabilities to augment its own. As a result, 

naval cooperation is rapidly emerging as a central 

feature of bilateral defense working together with the 

two navies cooperating in anti-piracy operations in 

the Indian Ocean region and the Gulf of Aden.66 Both 
35

states also share a strong interest in protecting the sea 

lanes of communication in the Indian Ocean region. 

India is expanding its defense ties with Japan. Both 

Japan and India rely on the security of the sea lanes 

of communication for their energy security and economic growth. They have a shared interest in guaranteeing the free transit of energy and trade between the 

Suez Canal and the Western Pacific. With this in mind, 

they are developing maritime capabilities to cooperate with each other and other regional powers. The 

navies of the two are now exercising regularly, and 

the interactions between the coast guards is increasing 

with a view towards combatting piracy and terrorism, 

and cooperating on disaster relief operations.67 Japan 

feels that only the Indian Navy in the region can be 

trusted to secure the sea lanes in the Indian Ocean, 

vital for Japan’s energy security. It is also important 

for India to join hands with the much larger Japanese 

Navy, Asia’s most powerful, to make sure that no adversarial power controls the regional waterways.

With a new robustness in its dealings with Beijing, 

New Delhi is signaling that there are limits to what 

is negotiable in Sino-Indian ties. In particular, it has 

adopted a harder line on Tibet by making it clear to 

Beijing that it expects China to reciprocate on Jammu 

and Kashmir, just as India has respected Chinese sensitivities on Tibet and Taiwan. Overriding Chinese 

objections, for example, the Indian government went 

ahead and allowed one of its central universities, the 

Indira Gandhi National Open University, to confer an 

honorary doctorate on the Dalai Lama.68 This is the 

same government that just a few years back sent a note 

to all its ministers advising them against attending a 

function organized by the Gandhi Peace Foundation 

to honor the Dalai Lama so as to not to offend China.69
36

Ignoring pressures from Beijing, India also decided to take part in the Nobel Peace Prize ceremony for 

Chinese dissident Liu Xiaobo in Oslo, Norway, in November 2010. Beijing asked several countries, including India, to boycott the ceremony or face its displeasure, describing the prize as open support for criminal 

activities in China. India was among the 44 states that 

decided to participate, even as states such as Pakistan, 

Russia, Saudi Arabia, Iran, and Iraq were among the 

nations that did not attend. There were suggestions 

that the Chinese Premier might cancel his India trip 

in response, but nothing of the kind happened. Likewise, after Beijing began issuing stapled visas to the 

residents of Jammu and Kashmir and then denied a 

visa to the head of the Indian Army’s Northern Command, New Delhi reacted forcefully and hinted that 

it was ready to review its long-standing Tibet and 

Taiwan policies. India also declined to endorse the 

“one China” policy during Wen’s visit to India, a departure from past statements.70 These developments 

are further evidence that India is reassessing its policy 

toward China as the latter’s faster-than-expected rise 

has challenged the fundamentals of New Delhi’s traditional approach to Beijing. India’s robust partnership 

with the United States, its burgeoning ties with East 

and Southeast Asian nations as part of its Look East 

policy and its military modernization are all aimed at 

managing China’s dramatic rise.

Indian policy trajectory toward China is evolving 

as India starts to pursue a policy of internal and external balancing more forcefully in an attempt to protect 

its core interests. The government is trying to fashion 

an effective response to the rise of China at a time of 

great regional and global turbulence. Though it is not 

entirely clear if there is a larger strategic framework 
37

shaping India’s China policy, India’s approach toward 

China is indeed undergoing a transformation, the full 

consequences of which will only be visible a few years 

down the line.

THE U.S. ROLE IN THE SINO-INDIAN MATRIX

With Sino-Indian friction growing and the potential for conflict remaining high, the challenge to 

India is formidable. India is increasingly bracketed 

with China as a rising or emerging power—or even 

a global superpower—though it has yet to achieve 

the economic and political profile that China enjoys 

regionally and globally. India’s main security concern 

today is not the increasingly decrepit state of Pakistan 

but rather an ever more assertive China, whose ambitions are likely to reshape the contours of the regional 

and global balances of power with deleterious consequences for Indian interests.

India’s ties with China are thus gradually becoming 

competitive, with a sentiment gaining ground among 

Indian policy elites that China is not sensitive to India’s core security interests and does not acknowledge 

its status as a global player. India is rather belatedly 

gearing up to respond to China’s rise with a mix of 

internal consolidation and external partnerships. The 

most important element in this matrix is India’s emerging strategic partnership with the United States. New 

Delhi has looked to Washington for support as both 

Sino-Indian and Sino-U.S. competition has come into 

sharper relief in recent years. As Sino-Indian ties pass 

through a phase of turmoil, Washington will have to 

play the critical role of a balancer with even greater finesse than before. The United States has a key stake in 

the trajectory of Sino-Indian ties in view of the chang-
38

ing balance of power in Asia and China’s growing assertiveness. As a new balance of power takes shape, 

India will be an indispensable element in that architecture, even as the United States remains a key player 

in managing the Sino-Indian dynamic. New Delhi will 

not be part of an explicit alliance framework with the 

United States against China but instead will look to 

the United States to manage the power transition in 

Asia and its attendant consequences. 

The dichotomy between China and India’s global 

convergence and their growing bilateral divergence 

has allowed India to collude with China as a power 

bloc against Western positions at the global level, even 

as at the bilateral level New Delhi is not averse to leveraging its relationship with Washington in order to 

constrain China. India’s burgeoning relationship with 

the United States gives New Delhi some crucial strategic room to maneuver. China’s rapid global ascent 

will bring the United States and India even closer, but 

India’s traditional desire to retain strategic autonomy 

will preclude the emergence of any formal structure 

defining this bilateral relationship. India is beginning 

to receive attention from Washington as a rising power on a par with China. This process should continue 

with U.S. policymakers viewing Asia as a single region whose future will to a large extent be shaped by 

the trajectory of Sino-Indian ties. America’s defense 

ties with India should be mature enough to deal with 

a range of problems in the Indo-Pacific. For this, the 

defense establishments in both states need to be aware 

of each other’s requirements. That process has only 

just begun and needs greater political direction.

The United States faces the prospect of an emerging power transition in Asia, and a robust partnership 

with India will go a long way towards stabilizing the 
39

strategic landscape in the region. This is especially 

true at a time when China’s faster-than-expected rise 

is generating widespread apprehensions. The United 

States should encourage New Delhi to enhance its 

presence further in East and Southeast Asia. That 

process is already underway, but India needs to do a 

better job of articulating its readiness to emerge as a 

credible actor in the region. The United States can help 

by encouraging its allies and partners in the region to 

engage with India more substantively.

Although it is clearly in the interest of both China 

and India to stabilize their relationship by seeking out 

convergent issue areas, a troubled history, coupled 

with the structural uncertainties engendered by their 

simultaneous rise, is propelling the two Asian giants 

on a trajectory that they might find rather difficult to 

navigate in the coming years. Pursuing mutually desirable interests does not inevitably produce satisfactory solutions to strategic problems. Sino-Indian ties 

have entered turbulent times, and they are likely to 

remain there for the foreseeable future.

ENDNOTES

1. M. Krasna, “Three Main Stages in the Development of SinoIndian Contacts During the Indian Freedom Movement,” Archiv 

Orientalni, Vol. 49, No. 3, 1981.

2. India-China, Agreement between the Republic of India and 

the People’s Republic of China on Trade and Intercourse Between Tibet Region of China and India, April 29, 1954, available from www.

commonlii.org.

3. For a detailed account, see S. Hoffmann, India and the China 

Crisis, Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 1990. Also an 

earlier account by N. Maxwell, India’s China War, London, UK: 

Jonathan Cape, 1970, is quite critical of Nehru and his “Forward 

Policy.”
40

4. India-China, Joint Press Communiqué, December 23, 1988, 

available from www.fmprc.gov.cn.

5. “China is Threat No.1, Says Fernandes,” Hindustan Times, 

May 3, 1998.

6. A. B. Vajpayee, “Letter [to William Clinton],” The New York 

Times, May 13, 1998.

7. A. Joseph, “When to Seek Resolution of Border Dispute,” 

Indian Express, March 15, 2005.

8. India-China, Declaration on Principles for Relations and Comprehensive Cooperation Between the People’s Republic of China and the 

Republic of India, June 23, 2003, available from www.fmprc.gov.cn.

9. A. Baruah, “China Keeps Its Word on Sikkim,” The Hindu, 

May 7, 2004.

10. J. Dixit, “A New Security Framework,” The Telegraph (Kolkatta), May 17, 2004.

11. M. Singh, “Address to the Nation,” June 24, 2004, available from meaindia.nic.in.

12. India-China, A Shared Vision for the 21st Century of the People’s Republic of China and the Republic of India, January 15, 2008, 

available from www.fmprc.gov.cn.

13. Ibid. It also had something of particular interest to India:

The Indian side reiterates its aspirations for permanent 

membership of the UN Security Council. The Chinese side 

attaches great importance to India’s position as a major 

developing country in international affairs. The Chinese 

side understands and supports India’s aspirations to play a 

greater role in the United Nations, including in the Security 

Council.

14. “India-Russia-China Axis Hinted at After Kosovo Strikes,” 

The Associated Foreign Press, March 28, 1999. Also see “Russia, 

China, India Pile up Pressure on West over Kosovo,” The Indian 

Express, New Delhi, India, March 26, 1999.
41

15. James Clad, “Convergent Chinese and Indian Perspectives 

on the Global Order,” Francine R. Frankel and Harry Harding, 

eds., The India-China Relationship: What the United States Needs to 

Know, New York: Columbia University Press, 2004, pp. 267–293.

16. Ibid.

17. Edward R. Fried and Philip H. Trezise, Oil Security: Retrospect and Prospect, Washington, DC: Brookings Institution Press, 

1993, p. 1.

18. Siddhartha Varadarajan, “India, China Primed for Energy 

Cooperation,” The Hindu, Chennai, January 13, 2006.

19. Pranab Dhal Samanta, “N-energy, UN: China and India 

Signal Friendship, Not Rivalry,” The Indian Express, New Delhi, 

India, January 15, 2008.

20. Vandana Hari, “India and China: An Energy Team?” Business Week, December 6, 2005.

21. For a broad discussion about the Sino-Indian convergence 

on global issues, see Harsh V. Pant, The China Syndrome: Grappling With an Uneasy Relationship, New Delhi, India: HarperCollins, 2010, pp. 15-36.

22. “China Blocked India’s ADB Plan over Arunachal, Confirms Krishna,” Indian Express, July 10, 2009.

23. Yuriko Koike, “The Struggle for Mastery of the Pacific,” Project Syndicate, May 12, 2010, available from www.projectsyndicate.org/commentary/koike5/English.

24. C. Raja Mohan, “A New Challenge,” Indian Express, 

August 31, 2010.

25. Selig S. Harrison, “China’s Direct Hold on Pakistan’s 

Northern Borderlands,” International Herald Tribune, August 

26, 2010.

26. Pranab Dhal Samanta, “More than Troops, Chinese Projects in PoK Worry India,” Indian Express, September 5, 2010.
42

27. On the problems confronting Indian defense policy, 

see Stephen Cohen and Sunil Dasgupta, Arming without Aiming: India’s Military Modernization, Washington, DC: Brookings 

Institution, 2010.

28. SandeepUnnithan, “Indian Army not Ready for War with 

China,” India Today, October 29, 2011.

29. Thomas Kane, Chinese Grand Strategy and Maritime Power, 

London, UK: Frank Cass, 2002, p. 139.

30. Youssef Bodansky, “The PRC Surge for the Strait of Malacca and Spratly Confronts India and the US,” Defense and Foreign Affairs Strategic Policy, Washington, DC, September 30, 1995, 

pp. 6-13.

31. Manu Pubby, “China’s New N-Submarine Base Sets Off 

Alarm Bells,” Indian Express, May 3, 2008.

32. Bill Gertz, “China Builds Up Strategic Sea Lanes,” The 

Washington Times, January 18, 2005.

33. For a detailed explication of the security ramifications of 

the Chinese “string of pearls” strategy, see Gurpreet Khurana, 

“China’s ‘String of Pearls’ in the Indian Ocean and Its Security 

Implications,” Strategic Analysis, Vol. 32, No. 1, January 2008, 

pp. 1-22. 

34. For a nuanced analysis of this, see Andrew Selth, “Chinese Military Bases in Burma: The Explosion of a Myth,” Regional Outlook Paper No. 10, Brisbane, Australia: Griffith Asia 

Institute, 2007. 

35. Ziad Haider, “Oil Fuels Beijing’s New Power Game,” Yale 

Global Online, available from yaleglobal.yale.edu/content/oil-fuelsbeijings-new-power-game.

36. Manu Pubby, “Indian Submarine, Chinese Warships Test 

Each Other in Pirate Waters,” Indian Express, February 5, 2009.

37. Ben Bland and Girija Shivakumar, “China Confronts India 

Navy Vessel,” Financial Times, August 31, 2011.
43

38. “China Against India, Pakistan Joining Nuclear Club,” 

Press Trust of India, June 29, 2004.

39. Andrew Scobell, China and Strategic Culture, Carlisle, PA: 

Strategic Studies Institute, U.S. Army War College, 2002, p, 19, 

available from www.strategicstudiesinstitute.army.mil/pubs/download.cfm?q=60.

40. Mark Hibbs, “Pakistan Deal Signals China’s Growing 

Nuclear Assertiveness,” Nuclear Energy Brief, Washington, DC: 

Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, April 27, 2010, 

available from www.carnegieendowment.org/2010/04/27/pakistandeal-signals-china-s-growing-nuclear-assertiveness/4su.

41. Dai Bing, “India and China’s Great Game in Full Swing,” 

China.org.cn, October 22, 2010.

42. Siddharth Srivastava, “India Hones Its Missile Shield,” 

Asia Times, April 16, 2011.

43. Nirmalya Banerjee and Amalendu Kundu, “Chinese 

Troops Destroy Indian Posts, Bunker,” Times of India, December 

1, 2007.

44. See C. Raja Mohan, “Drawn In at the Borders,” South Asia 

Monitor, September 18, 2010.

45. Dipanjan Roy Chaudhury, “China’s E-Espionage,” India 

Today, March 30, 2009.

46. For a good typology of India’s China debate, see Mohan 

Malik, “Eyeing the Dragon: India’s China Debate,” Special Assessment, Honolulu, HI: Asia-Pacific Center for Security Studies, 

December 2003, available from www.apcss.org/Publications/SAS/

ChinaDebate/ChinaDebate_Malik.pdf.

47. “PM Warns on China’s South Asia Foothold,” Indian 

Express, September 7, 2010.

48. Rajat Pandit, “Assertive China a Worry, says Antony,” 

Times of India, September 14, 2010.
44

49. “Chinese Hacked PMO Computers, says Narayanan,” 

Indian Express, January 19, 2010.

50. Jim Yardley, “In India, Chinese Leader Pushes Trade,” The 

New York Times, December 16, 2010.

51. For details of this poll, see “Key Indicators Database: 

Opinion of China, Percent Responding Favorable, All Years Measured,” Washington, DC: Pew Global Attitudes Project, available 

from pewglobal.org/database/?indicator=24&survey=12&response=Fa

vorable&mode=table.

52. “Opportunities in the Indian Defence Sector: An Overview,” KPMG, May 1, 2010, available from www.kpmg.com/IN/en/

IssuesAndInsights/ThoughtLeadership/Opportunities_in_the_Indian_

Defence_Sector.pdf.

53. Manu Pubby, “3rd Aircraft Carrier to be Inducted by 2017: 

Antony,” Indian Express, May 17, 2007.

54. “INS Chakra Inducted into Navy,” The Hindu, April 

4, 2012.

55. K. V. Prasad, “INS Arihant on track,” The Hindu, 

December 3, 2011.

56. On the recent trends in U.S.-India ties, see Harsh V. Pant, 

Contemporary Debates in Indian Foreign and Security Policy: India 

Negotiates Its Rise in the International System, New York: Palgrave 

Macmillan, 2008, pp. 19-38.

57. Colin Powell, “US Looks to Its Allies for Stability in Asia 

and the Pacific,” International Herald Tribune, January 27, 2001.

58. “United States: New Naval Strategy,” International Herald 

Tribune, October 25, 2007.

59. Sandeep Dikshit, “Join Global Policing of Sea Lanes, US 

Asks India,” The Hindu, April 19, 2007.
45

60. On India-Japan maritime cooperation, see Gurpreet 

Khurana, “Security of Sea-Lanes: Prospects for India-Japan 

Cooperation,” Strategic Analysis, Vol. 31, No. 1, January 2007, 

pp. 139-150.

61. On India’s strategic priorities in the Asia-Pacific, see Harsh 

Pant, “India in the Asia-Pacific: Rising Ambitions with an Eye on 

China,” Asia-Pacific Review, Vol. 14, No. 1, May 1, 2007 pp. 54-71.

62. Yevgeny Bendersky et al., “India’s Project Seabird and the 

Indian Ocean’s Balance of Power,” Power and Interest News Report, 

July 20, 2005.

63. Bharat Karnad, “Good Morning ‘Nam’,” Asian Age, July 

7, 2011.

64. Mohan Malik, “Chinese Strategy of Containing India,” 

Power and Interest News Report, February 6, 2006.

65. Pranab Dhal Samanta, “Start Getting Used to DSP: Defence Services Provider,” Indian Express, January 1, 2008.

66. Siddharth Varadarajan, “As Trade Soars, India and Korea 

Push ‘Strategic’ Side to Ties,” The Hindu, March 25, 2012.

67. Indrani Bagchi, “Japan, India Can Restore Peace, Stability 

in Asia-Pacific Region,” Times of India, April 28, 2012.

68. Anubhuti Vishnoi, “MEA Gives Nod to IGNOU for Doctorate to Dalai Lama,” Indian Express, April 24, 2011.

69. “Pleasing Beijing, Govt Tells its Ministers Don’t Attend 

Dalai Lama Honour Function,” Indian Express, November 4, 2007.

70. Pramit Pal Chaudhuri, “China’s Flip-Flop on Kashmir,” 

Hindustan Times, April 15, 2011.
U.S. ARMY WAR COLLEGE

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Commandant

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STRATEGIC STUDIES INSTITUTE

and

U.S. ARMY WAR COLLEGE PRESS

Director

Professor Douglas C. Lovelace, Jr.

Director of Research

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Author

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