Common Cause at Sea

Context: India needs to shift its Chinese confrontation strategy to sea-level where asymmetry is in its favour.

Reason for Shifting the Confrontation to Sea-Level

• Need for a comprehensive national power: for creating a strong diplomatic/negotiating position. 

• India’s newfound interest in the US, QUAD, and ASEAN is rooted only in its ability to project power and influence in distant ocean reaches.

• Balance of forces on land favour China-Pakistan axis : and give a militarily advantageous position to China for containing India in a “South-Asia box”.

• Countering common cause in the maritime domain: through Malabar and the Quadrilateral exercise/concept.

• China’s maritime footholds in India’s Arabian sea neighborhood: through Djibouti, Gwadar and Chabahar ports.

• Persistent nature of Sino-Indian tensions: as a result of Chinese intransigence and imperialist-expansionist intent.

China’s Diplomatic Protest against Indo-Pacific Quad and Malabar

• Consideration of Malabar exercise as India’s first step on the American bandwagon. 
• Suspicion over Quadrilateral coordination framework as precursors to “containment” --- a Cold War geopolitical strategy used by the US to isolate and engineer the collapse of the USSR.
• China’s hostility arouses trepidation (fear) amongst Quad members.

Way Forward

• Shed ambivalent attitude and seek external balancing: for countering Chinese imperialist and ambiguous territorial claims.
• Formal revival, re-invigoration and enlargement of the Quad: into a partnership of the like-minded.

• “Indo-Pacific concord” for maintaining peace and ensuring observance of the UN Law of the Seas. 

• Recast Indo-Pacific strategy: which has had no impact on China’s unfolding hegemonic master-plan 

Conclusion: Quad and Malabar concepts could pave the way for US to shed its hollow symbolism of conducting “freedom of navigation” sailings through Chinese-claimed waters.