India and China

Rory Medcalf is Australia’s most prominent commentator on the Indo-Pacific region, and has played an important role in popularizing the concept throughout the region. In this chapter, he explores the forces that are leading to a greater Chinese naval presence in the Indian Ocean and India’s options in responding to that presence. Medcalf argues that for India, and for other resident powers of the Indian Ocean, the accelerated arrival of China as a security player should be cause neither for panic nor complacency. There is still scope to ensure that China in the Indian Ocean becomes neither destabilizingly defensive nor dangerously dominant. In particular, India needs to take the initiative in building maritime security cooperation with a range of capable Indian Ocean-going powers that are well-disposed to its rise in order to create a stable strategic environment in which China will play an important role.