The Great Game (India-China)

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The Great Power ‘Great Game’

between India and China: ‘The Logic of
Geography’
a
David Scott
a
Department of Politics and History , Brunel University , London, UK
Published online: 05 May 2008.
To cite this article: David Scott (2008) The Great Power ‘Great Game’ between India and China: ‘The
Logic of Geography’, Geopolitics, 13:1, 1-26, DOI: 10.1080/14650040701783243
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Geopolitics, 13:1–26, 2008
Copyright © Taylor & Francis Group, LLC
ISSN: 1465-0045 print / 1557-3028 online
DOI: 10.1080/14650040701783243
The Great Power ‘Great Game’ between India

Geopolitics, Vol. 13, No. 1, Dec 2008: pp. 0–0
1557-3028
1465-0045
-FGEO
Geopolitics
and China: ‘The Logic of Geography’
DAVID SCOTT
India and
David ScottChina ‘The Logic of Geography’
Department of Politics and History, Brunel University, London, UK
The simultaneous rise of China and now India is a fundamental

factor for understanding the twenty-first century. In rising as
Downloaded by [103.231.161.6] at 07:53 12 April 2015
Great Powers, a relative term, they are coming up against each

other across Asia and its surrounding waters. Traditional geopolit-
ical models, Mackinder, Spykman and Mahan point to their spa-
tial politics around Central Asia, South Asia, Pacific Asia and the
Indian Ocean. Actual spatial settings are combined with perceived
spatial outlooks. These powerful neighbouring states seek to con-
tinue rising, and constrain the other where necessary through
mutual encirclement and alliances/proxies. This type of ‘Great
Game’ is evident in the military-security, diplomatic and eco-
nomic areas. Globalisation has not replaced regionalism, nor has
geoeconomics replaced geopolitics. The stakes are high as is their
need for securing access to energy resources for their economics-
led rise to Great Power status. Some cooperation is evident, in line
with IR liberalism-functionalism. However, geopolitical IR realism
and security dilemma perceptions still shape much of their actions.
In recent years, the ‘rise of China’ has become a frequently evoked term of
reference, as has the ‘rise of India’.1 There may still be debate over exactly
how far they have risen, and about their precise Great Power status, but at
the very least one can say that theirs is a significant relationship since they
are both now significant powers. Both have “widening geopolitical hori-
zons”, yet as adjacent major states “they both strive to stamp their authority
on the same region”2
Geopolitics starts off here in its straightforward ‘classical’ sense, the
way in which geography affects politics, or rather international politics.
Address correspondence to David Scott, Department of Politics and History, Brunel

University, London, UK. E-mail: [email protected]
1
2 David Scott
Osterud’s summary remains useful, that “in the abstract, geopolitics tradi-
tionally indicates the links and causal relationships between political power
and geographic space . . . in concrete terms . . . the geopolitical tradition
had some consistent concerns, like the geopolitical correlates of power in
world politics, the identification of international core areas, and the relation-
ships between naval and terrestrial capabilities”.3 Geopolitics is important
for understanding Sino-Indian dynamics; overlapping “territory and loca-
tion” are at stake; “space matters” for them, not just “contingently” but also
“necessarily”; there is “spatial ontology at play”.4 Agnew’s general geopoliti-
cal sense of Great Powers’ “pursuit of primacy” is in play between India and
China, official rhetoric notwithstanding.5 As India’s Foreign Minister
Yashwant Sinha admitted, China and India needed to “try to ensure that
each has sufficient strategic space”.6 However their ‘strategic space’ is in
various ways the same spatial arena, i.e., Pacific Asia, South Asia, the Indian
Ocean and Central Asia. Both states are engaged in “mastering space”,
directly and indirectly, and at times in competition with each other.7 In

India, successive Foreign Affairs Ministers have used geopolitics frameworks
in describing Sino-Indian relations. Jaswant Singh asked in 1999, “How do
you alter geography? We are neighbours. . . . There are difficulties”; and
Shyam Saran considered in 2006 that it is in “Asia, where the interests of
both India and China intersect . . . the logic of geography is unrelenting”.8
Amidst these intersecting interests, something of a ‘Great Game’ seems
at play between these two rising powers. The ‘Great Game’ was originally
coined in the nineteenth century to describe the geopolitical rivalry
between the Russian and British Empires, a ‘New Great Game’ has been
often associated with current Central Asia. As Edwards points out this term
can be overused, and become a “misleading analogy” if equated to just the
nineteenth-century Great Game of classic imperialism, territorial annex-
ations and secret agents.9 However the term is still usable in connection
with the current Sino-Indian relationship. The original Great Game saw
Britain and Russia manoeuvring and intriguing against each other across
most of Asia at the end of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, from the
Gulf to the Pacific – as do India and China at the start of the twenty-first.10
Meanwhile, as Edwards notes, “The concept of a New Great Game has been
used as shorthand for competition in influence, power, hegemony and
profits”.11 However, ‘competition in influence, power, hegemony’, though
perhaps not ‘profits’ was also at stake in the original Great Game. Crucially
for our purposes, such ‘competition in influence, power, hegemony and
profits’ is at stake in the current Sino-Indian relations – and it is in this
sense, that the Sino-Indian relationship has become described as another Great
Game, particularly by Indian media commentators and political analysts.12
One geopolitical difference is that the original Great Game between the
Russian and British Empires was land-focused, with particular emphasis on
the overland threat to British India from Central Asia. It is not for nothing
India and China ‘The Logic of Geography’ 3
that Edwards calls the “new great gamers” in Central Asia “disciples of . . .
Mackinder”, pointing as that area does to Mackinder’s Eurasian “Heartland”
as the “pivot of History”.13 Admittedly from India’s viewpoint, her spatial
awareness, some similarities might be felt on the one hand between the
previous threat posed to British India by Russia’s control of Central Asia and
on the other hand the current challenge posed by China’s grip on Xinjiang
and Tibet, her growing influence in ex-Soviet Central Asia and close land
links with Pakistan. Mackinder’s famous dictum still has some resonance,
“Who rules the [Eurasian] Heartland commands the World Island; Who rules
the World Island commands the World”. Spykman’s later refinements, con-
cerning the role of the Eurasian Rimland (China and India) also come to
mind, and his own maxim “Who controls the Rimland rules Eurasia; who
rules Eurasia rules the world”.14 Although both Mackinder and Spykman
had concerns about a Russian/Soviet hold on the Eurasian heartland, China
could fulfil a similar role. Indeed according to Mackinder, “Were the
Chinese . . . to overthrow the Russian Empire and conquer its territory, they
might constitute the Yellow Peril to the world’s freedom just because they
could add an oceanic frontage to the resources of the great continent”.15
“Oceanic” elements are also a geopolitical factor in the Sino-Indian relation-
ship, evoking Mahan and his emphasis on “sea-power”; his sea-power as
enabling power projection and control of SLOCs, the Sea Lines of
Communication.16 If one looks at the Sino-Indian relationship, commenta-
tors and military figures on both sides have evoked Mahan at various points;
indeed “Mahan seems to be alive and well and living in Asia”.17 Elements of
Mackinder’s (Heartland), Spykman’s (Rimland) and Mahan’s (Oceanic)
paradigms operate for Sino-Indian relations, despite Thompson’s dismissal
of these figures as redundantly “old fashioned”.18
As states on the rise, China and India face each other in the interna-
tional system, spatially and power-wise. Kelly’s definition is particularly
appropriate, that “Geopolitics is a foreign policy approach and an interna-
tional relations theory that stresses an awareness of relative position among
countries and a corresponding response of statesmen to advantages and
vulnerabilities that territorial and maritime space may bring to foreign affairs
and national security”.19 Geopolitics is involved in their spatial relationship,
with ‘critical geopolitics’ adding further refinements in terms of ‘spatial dis-
courses’ through considering what spatial perceptions of themselves and of
the other are in play.20 This overlaps with International Relations’ construc-
tivism theory and its focus on the role of images. International Relations the-
ory presents ambiguous pointers though for the Sino-Indian relationship. IR
liberalism-functionalism argues that states are naturally cooperative, tending
to reach common interests in bilateral and multilateral settings. Conversely,
IR realism argues that states are naturally competitive, with someone like
Mearsheimer combining geopolitics and realism paradigms.21 Attitudes of
optimistic cooperative engagement (IR liberalism-functionalism) and of
4 David Scott
pessimistic antagonistic containment (IR realism) are discernible in both

countries, with mixtures in between of pragmatic ‘constrainment’ or ‘con-
gagement’.22 Government rhetoric currently stresses cooperative dynamics,
yet “the dominant Gestalt dominant among both Chinese and Chinese ana-
lysts is an image of competition and rivalry” between the two powers.23
One Chinese voice, Chung Ch’ien-peng, argues that “even if the territorial
dispute were resolved, India and China would still retain a competitive rela-
tionship in the Asia-Pacific region, being as they are, two Asiatic giants
aspiring to Great Power status”.24 The key remains to a large extent spatially
focused, ontologically and perceptually, ‘where’ they are both rising and
impacting in and around Asia, at which point one can well ask, ‘How do
you alter geography?’ Three fields are involved: military-security, economic
and diplomatic.
MILITARY-SECURITY FIELDS
Both these rising powers have been increasing their military strength in
power terms, deploying it more widely according to strategic effectiveness,
and in doing so have attempted a degree of geopolitical encirclement
against each other.
China’s Encirclement of India

Containment of India has been “China’s Great Game”.25 As Zhang
Guihong admitted, “An emerging India does mean a strong competitor for
China from South, West, Southeast and Central Asia to Indian and Pacific
Oceans where their interests and influences will clash”.26 India’s military
and security perception of China has long been one of deep distrust, cur-
rent official rhetoric notwithstanding. ‘China Threat’ perceptions in the
USA and Japan were mirrored in India during the 1990s.27 This was evi-
dent in India’s nuclear explosions in 1998, where Defence Minister
Fernandes famously asserted, “China is potential threat number one . . .
China is and is likely to remain the primary security challenge to India in
the medium and long-term . . . the potential threat from China is greater
than that from Pakistan and any person who is concerned about India’s
security must agree with that”.28 Similarly, the Indian Prime Minister
Vajpayee explained to US President Clinton that the tests had been neces-
sary due to China being “an overt nuclear state on our borders, a state that
committed armed aggression against India in 1962”, with whom “an atmo-
sphere of distrust persists”.29 However China’s own growth in power has
been worryingly exacerbated for India by China’s wider presence around
India on sea and land; for Khanwal (1999) Chinese activities “clearly
indicate that concerted efforts are underway aimed at the strategic
encirclement of India . . . quite obviously designed to marginalise India in

the long-term and reduce India to the status of a sub-regional power . . . it
[China] is unlikely to countenance India’s aspirations to become a major
regional power in the Asia-Pacific region”.30 This sense of strategic encir-
clement remains high for Indian analysts.31 China’s perceived spatial threat
to India is through four avenues: its own land frontier, its land links with
India’s neighbours, its own maritime presence in the Indian Ocean, and its
maritime links with India’s neighbours – power projection from China
itself and through its “strategic proxies”.32
To the north, China’s encirclement of India starts in the distance where
China’s direct control of Xinjiang is complemented by her growing position
in ex-Soviet Central Asia, a development which has caused discomfort in
Indian circles.33 More immediately comes China’s direct hold on Tibet since
1950. Vatikiotis argues, “Luckily, geography makes it hard for China and
India to confront one another. The Himalayas pose a formidable barrier to
military adventurism in either direction, which explains why the month-long

border war the two countries fought in 1962 ended in stalemate”.34 His
argument contains two flaws. First, it did not end in stalemate; Chinese
forces decisively ejected and defeated Indian forces wherever encountered
and it was Chinese forces that decided where to draw their Lines of Control
when the fighting ceased. Second, the Himalayas do not pose any funda-
mental barrier to military operations from Chinese-held Tibet against India,
especially in an age of missiles and with China holding the heights. Tibet
was part of the original Great Game, and recognised as a potent base for
airpower by British strategists in 1946.35
This is no hypothetical point, for China’s strategic advantage has
become even more pronounced with their current military build-up in
Tibet. Permanent long-distance highways and railway lines have been built.
The questions surrounding their construction have been recognised by
Indian strategists as significant, a “strategic challenge”.36 Tibetan “road and
access issues are classic geopolitics” in which “roads and connectivity are
crucial issues around which nations [China] develop strategic plans” but
which cause “anxiety though at the same time” to India.37 The opening of
the Lhasa to Golmund railway in summer 2006 has been seen by Indian
analysts as “China’s strategic masterstroke”; as “the most important strategic
development since the 1950s. It alters the military balance” in China’s favour
and enables significantly greater and quicker “feeder” facilities for China’s
military supplies and garrisons and airfields.38 Missile systems have been
installed, irrelevant to quelling domestic discontent inside Tibet, but point-
ing towards the north Indian heartland, the capital Delhi and other major
Indian cities like Calcutta. Such “power projection” makes “India vulnerable
to Chinese pressure”.39 Installation of medium range missiles lets the PRC
immediately and easily threaten India, whereas the main centres of China,
like Beijing, Shanghai, and Guangzhou, remain far away from India.
6 David Scott
China’s land threat from the north has been extended downwards
through its ‘all-weather friendship’ with Pakistan, a link symbolised by the
Karakorum Highway, currently being upgraded, which “concretizes an
enduring Sino-Pakistani alliance. It also installs China as a major player in
South Asia”.40 Pakistan originally gravitated towards China as a counter-
weight to India’s greater adjacent strength. This enabled China to threaten
India’s northern flank from Tibet, her western flank through West Pakistan,
and her eastern flank through East Pakistan. Whilst China could not prevent
the breakaway of East Pakistan/Bangladesh in 1971, she was able to pro-
vide significant help to Pakistan’s nuclear weapons programme. Pakistan’s
1998 bomb was in many respects China’s bomb.41 Pakistan’s recent empha-
sis on its role as a ‘land corridor’ for China, upgrades China’s land access
from its central Asian hinterland and continues to outflank India on the
western land approaches. 2004 saw China’s first joint military exercises on
land with Pakistan, in Xinjiang.42
At sea, China’s “oceanic offensive”, her drive for a blue water fleet and
her application of Mahan have brought her into the Indian Ocean.43 This
was already apparent in 1993 with Zhao Nanqi, PRC General Staff, arguing
“we can no longer accept the Indian Ocean as only an ocean of the Indians”.44
Consequently, Hari Sud notes, “The Indian Chinese are also slowly moving
into the Indian Ocean . . . the Indian Ocean is not a Chinese Lake”, an
assertion but also a fear.45 Since 1999 Chinese naval vessels have been
making calls around the littoral, at Singapore, Malaysia, Pakistan and South
Africa, all part of what Sakhuja has called “Chinese creeping assertiveness in
the Indian Ocean” to test its strategic reach.46 As India’s Chief of Naval Staff,
Admiral Arun Prakash, delicately put it, “We wonder what their [Chinese]
long-term intentions are – this is a legitimate area for speculation”.47 China’s
‘string of pearls’ strategy focuses around the establishment of a series of
access points in and across the Bay of Bengal and the Arabian Sea,
challenging India’s own Sea Lanes of Communication (SLOC) and her
general control, a “new game” for Mohan.48
To the east of India, China’s maritime challenge to India starts with the
Malacca Straits. As India has moved forward to project its presence and
‘guardianship’ of the area, the PRC has been trying to circumvent this through
discussions with Thailand on building a canal across the isthmus of Kra. This
would directly link the South China Sea to the Bay of Bengal, and bypass the
Malacca Strait. China’s burgeoning links with Myanmar are well established
on land but also at sea, the source of long-established Indian concerns.49 Base
facilities have been established at Sittwe, along with various intelligence posts
in the Coco Islands, and elsewhere. From India’s point of view this is highly
disturbing. In Prakash’s eyes, “It is not for us to say whom Myanmar should
choose as her friends or allies. However, it would cause us considerable con-
cern if any outside power [i.e., China] were to find its way into the Bay of
Bengal and the Andaman Sea through Myanmar, since this is an area of vital
interest to us”.50 China has also developed military links with energy-resource
rich Bangladesh, including a comprehensive Defense Cooperation Agreement
in December 2002.51 China’s involvement in building a deep-water port entry
at Chittagong has also raised Indian eyebrows, the defence pact with Bang-
ladesh able to be invoked to allow use of the harbours at Chittagong and
Cox’s Bazaar as well as refuelling facilities for PRC aircraft.
To the south of India, China’s oil exploration in Sri Lanka, her develop-
ment of port and bunker facilities at Hambantota, growing bilateral trade
and increased military cooperation with Sri Lanka “are causes of worry to
Indian policy makers”.52 Hambantota forms part of “China’s strategic trian-
gle” around India, an involvement in India’s “backyard”.53 China has also
made its influence felt in the Maldive islands, a crucial link between China’s
presence in the Arabian Sea (Pakistan) and in the Bay of Bengal (Myanmar
and Bangladesh). Direct “intrigue” and rivalry is evident between India and
China with regard to the Maldives.54 Local commentators have speculated,
amidst diplomatic visits between the Maldives, the PRC, and India, that “a
great game is on between India and China to take Maldives in its sphere of
influence for the control of the Indian Ocean region . . . India and China
both are keen to woo Maldives for their strategic interests”.55 China seem-
ingly negotiated a deal with the Maldives from 1999 to build a naval base in
Marao. This quasi-secret base deal was finalised after two years of negotia-
tions when the Chinese prime minister, Zhu Rongji, visited the Maldives in
May 2001. An airbase at Gan would complete the picture for China. Hu
Jintao’s visit to the Seychelles in February 2007 raised further Indian eye-
brows. A “balance of power game” between India and China is entwined
with geo-political location in these areas surrounding India.56
To the west, Pakistan has long been the lynchpin of China’s presence in
South Asia, on land but also at sea. In 2005, China also conducted its first joint
naval exercises in the Indian Ocean with Pakistan, the first outside PRC terri-
torial waters. Chinese maritime “Grand Strategy” is most evident at Gwadar,
“China’s pearl in Pakistan’s waters” situated on Pakistan’s far western shores,
looking towards the entrance of the oil-rich Gulf, and capable of offering
ongoing berthing facilities for the Chinese navy.57 This deep-water port was
opened in March 2007, with 80% of Phase-1 costs met by the PRC. In this
context, one can note the question raised by India’s Chief of Naval Staff, Arun
Prakash, “China has provided massive assistance for construction of the
Gwadar deep-sea port on Pakistan’s Makaran coast. One can only wonder if
there will be a quid pro quo for this support”.58 The understanding seems to
be that it will operate as “China’s naval outpost on the Indian Ocean”.59
India’s Encirclement of China

Such encirclement moves by China have been recognised as such in India,
with the perception that “China presents the biggest geopolitical test”.60
8 David Scott
India has responded to this strategic nightmare posed by China’s military

encirclement in two ways. First, India has been building up its own nuclear
and conventional military strength, “modernising its own military and
enhancing its power projection. This is [to match] what China has [already]
done”.61 Second, India has achieved some degree of land and sea encircle-
ment of China. This is probably not as much as China’s encirclement of
India, but nevertheless evident enough. Any encirclement strategy has been
‘officially’ denied by the Indian government. Nevertheless, the Indian media
and Indian commentators have been quick to discern the encirclement out-
comes, and presumably intention, of a whole series of Indian deployments
and augmentations of strength around China. Although China has generally
not officially commented on such moves, PRC domestic literature does by
contrast show much more “critical comments” and perceptions of India’s
aims cutting across those of China.62
On land, India has been attempting to improve its infrastructure along
her disputed northern border with China, thereby enabling more effective
future deployment of military power.63 India continues to assert its preemi-
nence in Nepal, though worried about Maoist groups. India also continues
to give refuge to the Tibetan government in exile at Dharmashala. Further
around China’s land frontiers, post-Taliban Afghanistan has seen an Indian
“geo-strategic” political and economic presence established, and noticed by
Beijing.64 Indeed, calls are currently being made for Indian troops to be
committed alongside the more overt US-NATO military forces.65 For India,
all this obviously brings Afghanistan in against Pakistan and reduces terror-
ism activities, but it also gives India another friendly voice on China’s fron-
tier, its “broader agenda” there.66 Some Indian military penetration can be
seen in Tajikistan to the north of Afghanistan. India’s “military shadow” was
first seen in 2002 with Indian “defence advisers” quietly setting up an air-
base at Farkhor, near the border with Afghanistan.67 An overt military pres-
ence was established at Aini airbase, to be operated from Spring 2007 by
Tajikistan, Russia and India.68 Tajikistan gives India a further friendly voice
on China’s border. Finally, India has established military openings with
Mongolia. Bilateral military exercises took place in Mongolia in 2004, were
reinforced with more bilateral exercises in 2006 in India and 2007 in Mon-
golia, and were seen by some analysts as a balancing move “to counter
China”.69 Russian and Chinese influences remain more evident there, but
nevertheless Chinese sources were quick to pick up the “most notably . . .
prolonged meetings” taking place, and how Indian-Mongolian discussions
over base facilities “will add to India’s overseas muscle”.70 Generally one
should not overestimate such military appearances by India; they are mod-
est and overshadowed by the much more evident Russian, Chinese and
American presences across the region. Nevertheless they are a new devel-
opment for India, part of the jigsaw puzzle in which, “as a small but not
insignificant player in the ‘New Great Game’ in Central Asia”, India is asserting
its geopolitical “interests beyond its immediate neighborhood”, which in

part bring it up against China’s interests.71
China may have land superiority over India, but India probably has the
maritime edge, e.g., aircraft carriers. Her infrastructure has been strength-
ened; her more northerly command centres shared with commercial ship-
ping at Mumbai and Visakhapatnam have been supplemented with two
new purely naval deep-sea port facilities on the southwest coast at Kawar
and on the southeast coast some 50 kilometres south of Visakhapatnam.
Both bases will enable Indian power to be felt further around the Indian
Ocean, and thereby enable India to more easily cut China’s Sea Lanes of
Communication between the Persian Gulf and Straits of Malacca. The exten-
sion and build-up of Campbell Airport on Great Nicobar island gives India
the chance to strike against the southern and central Chinese zones, avoid-
ing the geographical problems for India of trans-Himalayan operations.
2005 saw the setting up of India’s Far Eastern Naval Command (FENC), at
Port Blair in the Andaman Island. The islands look westwards back to India
and the Eastern Naval Command at Visakhapatham, thereby securing the
whole Bay of Bengal as a consequence. They also look eastwards, to South-
east Asia and the South China Sea; indeed they geographically pull India
into Southeast Asia, being in between Indonesia and Myanmar. India’s
MILAN naval operations with Southeast Asian neigbours have been a regu-
lar feature of its Bay of Bengal operations since 1995, buttressed still further
by the quadrilateral naval exercises conducted by the Indian navy with
American, Japanese, Australian and Singaporean units in September 2007,
near the Andaman Islands, close to China’s monitoring stations at Coco
Islands and near the strategic Strait of Malacca.
Here, India has been edging further and further eastwards. India’s pro-
posals to take a lead in security operations along the Malacca Straits has
been raised, though the sensitivities of smaller states to such potential con-
trol of SLOCs remains discernible. One key player is tiny Singapore, at the
tip of the Malacca Straits, facing northwestwards towards India and north-
eastwards towards China. Despite Singapore’s Chinese ethnic background,
she has pursued close military-security cooperation with India since 1994,
strengthened with their Defence Cooperation Agreement of 2003. A signifi-
cant message was sent in 2005 when the India-Singapore SIMBEX naval
exercises took place, not in their usual Bay of Bengal/Malacca Straits set-
ting, but eastwards in the South China Sea, an area claimed by China. Other
Indian naval deployments into the South China Sea were carried out in
2000, 2003 and 2004. Indian commentators were happy enough to see them
as challenge and containment of China.72 PRC sources expressed unease;
India in Mahan-style was “stepping up navy building or enhancing its ability
to control the ocean . . . in an effort to hinder China, the Indian navy will
enter the South China Sea”.73 By 2004 PRC sources were warning “world
powers such as . . . India have increased their military infiltration in the
10 David Scott
South China Sea regions. . . . The situation allows no room for optimism”
over China’s undisturbed hegemony in these waters.74
Indian links with Vietnam, nestled in what Karnad sees as “China’s ‘soft
underbelly’”, have further extended India’s presence and Chinese concerns,
Kapila’s “China factor” as an underpinning “strategic calculus of India and
Vietnam”.75 Both Vietnam and India have unresolved territorial disputes
with China, both have China as a looming northern land neighbour, and
both have faced war with China (India in 1962, Vietnam in 1979). Moves
towards military cooperation were already evident by the mid-1980s.76 An
initial India-Vietnam defence agreement in 1994 was further strengthened
by a joint protocol on defence cooperation in March 2000 which included
sharing of strategic threat perceptions and intelligence. Naval exercises
between India and Vietnam in 2000, not surprisingly, drew protests from
China. India would be hard pressed to send any effective land aid to
Vietnam in the event of another Sino-Vietnamese war; but then China found
it difficult to inflict any decisive blow against Vietnam during its failed puni-
tive war against Vietnam in 1979. However naval cooperation does seem a
rising factor, with India’s aircraft carrier power able to enter the strategic
equation. Karnad’s analysis from the Centre for Policy Research, New Delhi
remains fresh. On the one hand discussions are underway for the transfer of
India’s new Brahmo medium-range missiles to Vietnam, in Karnad’s view
“to keep the Chinese navy on the defensive in the South China Sea”.77
Meanwhile other discussions have taken place on naval berthing rights for
Indian ships, possibly at Cam Ranh deep-water bay. In the 1980s this had
been a Soviet base and the scene for Chinese fears of encirclement.
Karnad welcomed reports of such discussion, “to allow the Indian navy a
basing option in Cam Ranh bay, unarguably the finest natural deep water har-
bour in Asia, to match the planned Chinese naval presence in Gwadar on the
Baluchistan coast”.78 Generally, geopolitical reciprocity could be applied: “By
cultivating a resolute Vietnam as a close regional ally and security partner in
the manner China has done Pakistan, India can pay back Beijing in the same
coin”, for there was a “Vietnam card” able to be played against China.79
Kapila used the visit of Vietnam’s Prime Minister to India in April 2007, to
similarly argue for India deploying Vietnam, in the way that China has
deployed Pakistan, as a geographic pressure point on the flank of the other.80
Such has been India’s projection into this region that Daly noted that in
future Taiwan scenarios, “China must also take into account the growing
naval power of its nearest significant military rival, India”.81 Japan’s maritime
exercises with the Indian navy in the Indian Ocean have been mirrored by
India’s maritime exercises with the Japanese navy in East Asia. The outlines
of a geopolitically orientated naval web can be seen running from Japan-
Taiwan-Vietnam-Singapore-India’s Eastern Command. Behind this immedi-
ate mesh stands India’s developing naval links with Australia, and even
more so her developing close links and sustained operations (including
aircraft carriers) with the powerful US naval force structure in the Indian
Ocean, and indeed in the Pacific as well. A ‘quadrilateral alliance’, and
military-security convergence, between the USA, Japan, Australia and India
is emerging to some extent. It is of some significance that whereas India
starting sending observers to America’s RIMPAC naval exercises off Hawaii
in 2004 and 2006, China did not. India’s future full-blown participation in
these exercises is likely; the PRC’s is not. India’s deployment of a powerful
long-range five-ship flotilla into Southeast Asia and East Asia, from March to
April 2007, was a significant signal to China, including as it did war-game
exercises with the US forces between Okinawa and Guam, further trilateral
TRILATEX 07 exercises with Japanese and American naval units off the
western coast of Japan, bilateral exercises with the Vietnamese navy, and
passage through the South China Sea.
THE DIPLOMATIC FIELD
Meanwhile, both India and China have been engaged in vigorous diplo-
matic efforts to spread their presence into the other’s backyard. Regional
organisations across Asia have become the board for their rivalry, “locked in
a bitter struggle for Pan-Asian leadership” in the South Asian Association for
Regional Cooperation (SAARC), the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation
(SCO), and the Association for Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN), which
“symbolize their jostling for power”.82 Competition in and through regional
organisations were not a feature of the nineteenth-century Great Game
between the British and Russian Empires, since they did not exist, but this is
a feature of Sino-Indian relations. Globalisation has not erased regionalism,
where Sino-Indian geopolitical dynamics remain evident.
On the one hand India has long been pre-eminent in SAARC, the South
Asian Association for Regional Cooperation, set up in 1985. Ironically India’s
very size, 75%-odd of SAARC’s area and population, has made other coun-
tries wary of ceding too much power to the organisation. 2005 saw India
lobbying for Afghanistan’s inclusion in SAARC, but Pakistan turned the
tables by making Afghanistan’s entry conditional on China being granted
observer status in SAARC. Initially India resisted this linkage, correctly see-
ing this as something that would weaken her general sway in SAARC and
which would conversely increase China’s role in the region, but she had to
concede. In achieving this observer status in SAARC, China in effect pushed
aside India’s regional position of institutional dominance. Great Power
politics in a multilateral setting was evident as India counterbalanced
China’s observer status, by insisting in turn that Japan be given observer sta-
tus as well, an extra voice with whom India shared common concerns about
Chinese expansionism. China’s observer impact was further diluted by India
facilitating SAARC observer status for the United States in 2006.
12 David Scott
India has also taken the diplomatic game into China’s own arena. Bilat-
eral relations have been vigorously pursued with Tajikistan, Uzbekistan and
Kazakhstan, and watched carefully by the official Chinese media, who
readily cited Indian comments that “for us central Asia is our ‘immediate
and strategic neighborhood’”, and concluded “for sure, more and closer
contacts between India and Central Asia can be expected in the future”.83
Multilateral avenues have also been pursued by India, where China and
Russia were instrumental in setting up the Shanghai Cooperation Organisa-
tion in 2001. This has operated as a fairly low-level organisation for settling
territorial boundaries and dampening down ‘terrorism’, i.e., Islamic radical-
ism. More recently it has started to edge into security cooperation and eco-
nomic projects, and push back American post-9/11 presence in the region.
It was significant that India joined the SCO as an observer in 2005, yet the
SCO remains an ambiguous organisation for India, for Kapila “China-centric
and aimed at serving more of China’s current interests”.84 Its role as the
world’s largest democracy sits uncomfortably with the authoritarian nature

of the organisation which has been labelled a ‘club for dictators’! It was no
coincidence that the 2006 and 2007 SCO summits saw other states sending
their national leaders, whereas India sent a low-ranking minister.
India has also looked in other directions, eastwards towards Southeast
Asia and East Asia. Here, “when it comes to facing a rising China, India’s
tendency to engage in regional balancing with Beijing has not come to an
end . . . indeed preventing China from gaining excessive influence in India’s
immediate neighbourhood and competing with Beijing in Southeast Asia are
still among the more enduring elements of India’s foreign policy”.85 This
regional balancing underpins much of India’s Look East policy, initiated in
1992. The Look East policy is officially described in positive terms as help-
ing India and its eastern partners in ASEAN, Pacific Asia and the western
Pacific. As her Foreign Secretary puts it, “The ‘Look East’ policy was a strate-
gic shift in India’s vision of the world and her place in the evolving global
economy. It was also a manifestation of our belief that developments in East
Asia are of direct consequence to India’s security and development”.86
Despite official disavowal, “in this great game, competition and rivalry with
China has become a significant component. . . . A critical review of India’s
Look East strategy as part of her overall foreign policy in Asia reveals that
one of the important objectives behind this strategy is to play a new balanc-
ing game against China in the Southeast Asian and the Asia-Pacific
region”.87 From China’s point of view this Look East policy is all too readily
an unwelcome intrusion into China’s own backyard and interests, part of
India’s “rising profile” in East Asian security matters.88
At the bilateral level, India’s potential balancing of China have already
been well established through strategic and security partnerships with
Singapore, Vietnam and Indonesia.89 Even more significantly, India’s bilateral
security and strategic links were further strengthened with America during
2005–2006, Australia in 2006, and Japan in 2006. The last one showed clear
“realpolitik concerns over China’s growing influence”, as indeed did those
security links.90 Certainly, despite government reticence over competing
with China, Indian analysts point out that “India should not be diffident
about embracing bolder political and strategic relationships with China’s
neighbours . . . India will find that a closer and active engagement with the
rest of East Asia will begin to yield results on the China front as well. It also
does not take a genius to figure out that the India-Japan-US relationship is a
far more promising triangle than the India-China-Russia chimera, espoused
some years ago”.91 This is a classic containment line-up, around China’s
periphery. Meanwhile moves by India towards a quadrilateral ‘axis of
democracies’ with America, Australia, and Japan, whilst not couched in
overt anti-China terms, does have an element of China containment inherent
in it.92
India’s ‘strategic partnership’ with America, announced in 2005 and
strengthened in 2006 represents, in part, classic balancing tactics towards

China. It has rapidly become much more substantive in military terms than
the India-China ‘strategic partnership’ announced in 2005. Ironies abound
here. If one goes back half a century, Jawaharlal Nehru was writing,
“Geopolitics has now become the anchor of the [IR] realist and its jargon of
‘heartland’ and ‘rimland’ . . . became the guiding light of the Nazis, fed their
dreams and ambitions of world domination, and led them to disaster. . . .
And now even the United States of America are told by Professor Spykman,
in his last testament, that they are in danger of encirclement, that they
should ally themselves with a ‘rimland’ nation” like India, something Nehru
considered “is supremely foolish for it is based on the old policy of expan-
sion and empire and the balance of power”.93 The irony here is that it is
now just as much India as the United States that has reached out to the
other, that containment of the Soviet Union has become de facto contain-
ment of China, that India’s embrace of a balance of power (with some
seeing a degree of expansionistic hegemonism) is apparent, and that
Nehru’s awareness but dismissal of Mackinder and Spykman has not been
followed by subsequent Indian politicians and strategists who have
embraced such geopolitical avenues.
Regionalism involves regional organisations for Sino-Indian dynamics
to unfold. BIMSTEC, set up in 1997, now includes Bangladesh, India,
Myanmar, Sri Lanka, Thailand, Bhutan and Nepal, but not China. The MGC
(Mekong-Ganga Cooperation) was set up in 2000 bringing together India
and five Southeast Asian Nations, namely Thailand, Vietnam, Laos, Cambodia
and Myanmar, but not China despite her Mekong tributaries. Conversely,
the Greater Mekong Subregion Economic Cooperation Programme, set up
in 1992, brought together China, Thailand, Vietnam, Laos, Cambodia and
Myanmar, but not India. India and China have circled around the regional
organisation ASEAN, the Association of Southeast Asian Nations, set up in
14 David Scott
1967, keeping each other as well as ASEAN in mind. India became a sec-
toral dialogue partner with ASEAN in 1992, a full dialogue partner in 1995, a
member of the ASEAN Regional Forum (ARF) in 1996, and a summit-level
partner in 2002. Meanwhile China became a sectoral dialogue partner in
1994, a full dialogue partner in 1996, was an original member of the ARF in
1994, and a summit-level partner in 1997. An ASEAN-India Free Trade
Agreement was drawn up in 2003, to be achieved by 2013, but matched by
a similar ASEAN-China Free Trade Agreement signed in 2004 to be achieved
by 2010! Both China and India signed ASEAN’s Treaty of Amity, Cooperation
in Southeast Asia in 2003.
Diplomatic fun and games also surrounded the East Asia Summit held
in December 2005. Controversy surrounded the absence of the United
States, and the invitation extended to Australia to attend. Yet equally signifi-
cant was the push by India for inclusion and the invitation extended to her,
despite not geographically being in the Asia-Pacific. Here “Great Powers . . .
do compete. India and China are no exception . . . the mutual competition

for power and influence is interminable. This was evident in the recent East
Asia Summit . . . just one example how India and China are competing to
influence regional groups and associations”.94 Political undercurrents were
apparent, as “over China’s initial objections, India was accommodated in the
East Asian Community last year, helping to offset concerns in some ASEAN
countries that the arrangement was too China-centric”.95 In Lee Kuan Yew’s
word’s, “India would be a useful balance to China’s heft” in the EAS.96
Indian analysts recognised this, for “India must be aware that it has not
been invited to EAS because of its rising economic potential alone but more
as a balancing force to offset the China factor”.97 Elsewhere in the Asia-
Pacific, India’s thrust to gain membership of the Asia-Pacific Economic
Community APEC was halted by Chinese reluctance at the 2007 Summit to
lift the moratorium on new members.
THE ECONOMIC FIELD
As Manmohan Singh puts it, “Our relations with major powers . . . more
recently China, have increasingly been shaped by economic factors”.98 Eco-
nomics though, is entwined with strategic and geopolitical factors. In their
‘rise’ as Great Powers, both China and India have embraced and sought to
use globalisation to facilitate future multipolarity. In Hu Jintao’s words,
“China will actively promote the process of multipolarization, globalisation . . .
the process of multipolarization and globalisation” provide “precious oppor-
tunities” for the PRC.99 From Beijing’s point of view, globalisation not only
helps China’s economic development, but also helps restore balance of
power to the international system, gives space for multi-polar state relations,
aids constrainment of American uni-polar preeminence, and gives breathing
space for China’s general ascent to Great Power status.100 Similar linkages
are seen by India, her Foreign Secretary arguing that India’s “policy seeks to
promote multipolarity in international relations . . . [and] harness the positive
forces of economic globalisation”.101 Both China and India each see them-
selves as significant rising powers, helped not hindered by globalisation.
Here some have argued that “recently, geoeconomics has risen to rival,
even outweigh, geopolitics as a desideratum determining a country’s
national interest and its foreign policy behavior”, since “in the geo-economics
age, matters pertaining to manufacturing, marketing, financing, and research
and development (R & D) are transnationalized and eventually global-
ized”.102 The opposition is a bit forced though. Geography does after all
include economic geography as a sub-field, and geopolitical theorists are
themselves weaving geoeconomics into their horizons.103 Globalisation is
taking place, but state identities remain and with it geopolitical interests,
cooperation and rivalries shaped by their respective state location and state
access/control of vital industrial and energy resources.

Economics do underpin their perceptions of their place in the world.
Under Manmohan Singh, and the Manmohan Doctrine, an explicit economics-
driven Grand Strategy is underway, whereby “leveraging economic and
technology growth, India can realize its desire to be a reckonable world
player. The key to the success of the Singh Doctrine is sustaining economic
progress while building strategic capabilities”.104 Consequently, “sustained
economic growth is not only a strategic interest but also the key to what
kind of great power India will become, how Delhi will view its role in the
world”.105 Deng Xiaoping’s logic in commencing China’s long-term 70-year
programme of economic modernisation in 1978, was simple: “The role we
play in international affairs is determined by the extent of our economic
growth. If our country becomes more developed and prosperous, we will
be in a position to play a greater role in international affairs”.106 However
whereas China’s economic growth rates ran at 9–10% for the subsequent
decades after 1978, India’s was around 5–6%, respectable but still measur-
ably lagging behind China, on that and other economic indicators like FDI
investment from abroad and GDI domestic savings ratios. In 1982 their
respective GDPs were reasonably close, but subsequently diverged. Here, in
terms of billions of dollars rounded up, China > India comparative figures
were 221 > 195 (1982), 455 > 244 (1992), 1,167 > 479 (2001), 1,233 > 510
(2002), 2,226 > 720 (2005), 2,680 > 906 (2006). This Sino-Indian economic
growth rate divergence has concerned Indian leaders: “At the moment,
among developing Asian economies, China continues to outperform India.
India believes it needs to emulate the Chinese success for translating its
potential into outcomes. Keeping up with China is, to an important degree,
behind the policy shifts in India”.107 As Pranab Mukherjee, the Defence
Minister, acknowledged, “China’s economic growth and economic strength
is more compared with India’s but the impression that they have outpaced
16 David Scott
us in the region or on the world stage is not correct. They are playing their
role and we are playing ours”.108
On the other hand India’s economy has finally been accelerating, her
GDP growth hitting 9.0% for 2005–2006 and 9.4% for 2006–2007, though still
beaten by China’s 11.1% growth in 2006. Indeed widely envisaged slow-
down in China’s growth rate coupled with India’s acceleration has led to
speculation on India’s growth rate overtaking China’s during 2008. This eco-
nomic surge makes India a larger player in the surrounding regions, partic-
ularly Southeast Asia, though still overshadowed there by China’s bigger
economic presence. Prestige is at play in this field for both states, where
they offer competing models of development. India’s argument is that its
bigger deregulated economy brings with it a bigger entrepreneurial grass-
roots potential, whereas China’s state regulated system is hampering long-
term sustainable dynamism. India’s democracy may make decision making
slower (and corruption easier!), but it also perhaps makes it more durable
and less under threat of regime meltdown. India’s growth and future pros-
pects may be more organic, less dependent on foreign investment, and
more able to use its local entrepreneurship. It may also be a better market
for Western investors, in the game to attract FDI investment.
Globalisation is generally opening up world markets for India and
China, but issues of geopolitical proximity remain notable. For India,
“globalisation has also opened the prospects of reconnecting India’s frontier
regions with the markets in Yunnan, Tibet, Xinjiang, Central Asia, Afghanistan
and the Persian Gulf”.109 However it also brings direct trade competition with
China in markets such as Central Asia and Southeast Asia. Although immedi-
ate border trade remains at a low level, the wider trade between the two
countries is markedly on the increase; in 2004 two-way trade increased over
80%, in 2005 up almost 40% from the previous year at US $18.7 billion. As
Manmohan Singh said in 2005, “Who would have imagined a decade ago
that China would emerge as our second largest trade partner?”110 In 2006
bilateral trade increased to 24.9 billion, well on the way to surpass 40 billion
by 2010. India’s high-tech companies, such as Infosys and Satyam Computer
Services, are flocking to China, where there are opportunities for applying
research and innovation in cost-effective ways. Conversely, China’s manu-
facturers increasingly view India as a potentially vast market for its manufac-
tures, particularly appliances and cars as well as steel. The role of the
adjacent border zones are ambiguous in this economic setting. Certainly the
quickest access routes for Tibet and for the upper Yangtze lie through
northern and eastern India rather than through China’s far away coastal
region. On paper the potential is there for cross-border regional trade hopes
to replace cross-border security fears.111 July 2006 saw front page news, par-
ticularly in the Chinese official media, over the reopening of the trade route
between India and Tibet through the Nathu La Pass. A more jaundiced geo-
political onlooker would have perhaps stressed the simultaneous opening
of the through Qinghai-Tibet Railway service, capable of funnelling tourists

but also further military supplies from China into the region overlooking
India. In reality, trade between Tibet and India is relatively small-scale in
the economic stakes at issue. Attempts to open up trade between northeast
India and southwest China also cut across China’s strategic drive to open up
routes through Myanmar and away from India.
One aspect of geoeconomics, ‘energy resources’, are becoming increas-
ingly important for both countries as they become ever more dependent on
importing energy resources in ever bigger quantities to feed their growing
industrialisation. As India’s Minster for External Affairs admitted in 1999,
“Energy is security. Any deficiency in energy will compromise the nation’s
security”.112 Similar “energy security” needs arise for China, heavily depen-
dent on oil imports from the Middle East that traverse the Indian Ocean en
route to China. Quite simply, “One of the major military objectives of China
is to secure its energy sea-lines in the Indian Ocean . . . to attenuate the
strategic ‘control’ of . . . India, on these lifelines”.113 China’s own oil diplo-

macy has seen state interest and direction. Here India and China are in
competition with each other for access and control of resources, particularly
oil and gas. Already by 2005 around 70% of India’s oil was imported. China
had been a net exporter of oil until 1993, but now its soaring economic
needs have pushed it into increasing deficit, importing 42.9% of its oil in
2005 and set to rise still further, crude oil imports in June 2006 already a fur-
ther 19% up on May 2005 rates. The two countries are up against each other
in the regional and global markets, in which Ganguly for one argued to the
US Senate that “although some analysts in India’s strategic community do
harbor hopes of potential cooperation between India and China in their glo-
bal quest for energy resources, these hopes represent the triumph of fond
wishes over harsh realities. India is in a fundamentally competitive if not
conflictual relationship with China”.114
What is noticeable is how “ferocious bidding wars, most of which
China has won” have been taking place over energy resources, in which
“hovering over India’s energy quest is its biggest competitor: China”.115
Ganguly explained to the US Senate that “India sees China as its principal
competitor in this global quest for energy. Indian officials are loath to admit
publicly the existence of such competition, to avoid possible political fric-
tion with their behemoth northern neighbor”, able to stir up trouble all
around India’s borders.116 Nevertheless, with the two countries “locked” in
their “energy game”, India’s prime minister raised the issue in 2005, “China
is ahead of us in planning for its energy security. India can no longer be
complacent”.117 As analysts looked on, the feeling was “China and India can
compete for oil in a new version of the Great Game”.118 China’s 2005 oil
success in Kazakhstan, where her National Petroleum Corporation brought
up PetroKazakhstan over the heads of India’s Oil & Natural Gas Corpora-
tion, was “grim news” for India, in a zero-sum situation.119 Within India’s
18 David Scott
“energy crisis”, “geographical contiguity” plays a discernible role in the varied

oil manoeuvrings and associated transport schemes carried out in Central Asia
by China and India, as it does in Myanmar and the South China Sea.120
The stakes are high. Some moves to coordinate rather than compete
have been seen between India and China. January 2005 saw India acquiring
a 20% share in the development of the largest onshore oil field in Iran,
operated and 50% owned by Sinopec, China’s state-run oil company; a sim-
ilar arrangement to the earlier deal struck in the Sudan where India’s Oil &
Natural Gas Corporation bought a 25% stake in 2002 in Sudan’s Greater Nile
oil field operated by the China National Petroleum Corporation. In such a
vein, India and China signed a bilateral agreement in January 2006 for the
two states to cooperate in securing crude oil resources overseas, which
Vatikiotis regarded as “the start of a new era of energy geopolitics focused
on Asia, and reveals something of how Asia’s emerging superpowers intend
to behave”.121 Dadwal saw such Sino-Indian agreement as a “historic collab-
oration” reflecting how “in today’s globalised and environment-conscious

world, regional cooperation in the energy sector is increasingly becoming a
necessity if individual countries have to gain access to secure and sustain-
able energy resources to achieve their desired economic goals”.122 Certainly
India’s signatory, Minister for Petroleum & Natural Gas, Mani Shankar Aiyer,
was optimistic when interviewed: “It is clear to me that any imitation of the
‘Great Game’ between India and China is a danger to peace. We cannot
endanger each other’s security in our quest for energy security”.123 In China,
Aiyer also delivered a keynote speech on ‘India and China in Asia’s Quest
for Energy Security’, in which he stressed the growing importance of energy
resources to both states, though admitting “it is, therefore, hardly surprising
that almost everywhere in the world that an Indian goes in quest of energy,
chances are that he will run into a Chinese engaged in the same hunt. The
Chinese hunter has been rather more successful than the Indian on several
occasions in the recent past”.124 For him the vision was of an Asian Oil and
Gas Community. Two problems jump to mind with this. First, China’s con-
cerns to maintain its sovereignty are pronounced and are not likely to
change in the foreseeable future. Second, China still seems ready to cut
bilateral state-state deals. Indeed, before the ink was even dry on the January
2006 cooperation agreement, Indian oil ministry officials found out that
Myanmar had agreed to sell natural gas from a field partly owned by an
Indian company exclusively to China – a “jolt” repeated in 2007 as well.125
Economics feeds into the wider considerations. China has its “Malacca
dilemma”, the choke point posed by the Malacca Straits where most of its
oil from the Middle East comes through.126 The Chinese leadership is well
aware of its strategic significance, and the ability of potential adversaries
like America and India to establish their control over that zone. As the
China Youth Daily (June 15, 2004) put it, “It is no exaggeration to say that
whoever controls the Strait of Malacca will also have a stranglehold on the
energy route of China”. China’s alternative options, a Kra canal through

southern Thailand, road links to the Myanmar coast, the building up of
Gwadar as a land corridor, all reflect China’s “oil obsession” which bring
China further into the Indian Ocean, thereby in turn threatening India’s own
maritime routes.127 A security dilemma in the making? Sea Lines of Commu-
nication, SLOCs, are of course highly charged issues. Different motives over
SLOCs are discernible amongst military analysts (to control and show power
projection in), politicians (as a spatial map within their Grand Strategies and
diplomatic relations) and business figures (as something to be maintained
most effectively); and between different states along its reaches. Khurana
argues from an explicit IR neo-liberal point of view, and in the wake of glo-
balisation, that “geo-strategic convergence between the two” is feasible, over
the issue of securing stable energy supplies and their common maritime life-
lines (“securing the maritime Silk Route”) against third party disruption.128
CONCLUSIONS
Sino-Indian relations present a mixed picture. Admittedly, “In the aftermath of

the end of the Cold War, much of the debate on security in the Asia-Pacific
was dominated by how geo-economics would emerge as a dominant theme
as opposed to geo-politics”.129 In fact the opposition is too forced; geopoli-
tics at times involves geoeconomics when it comes to questions of how
easily or difficult a state might find it to access resources, especially in the
energy field. Sea Lines of Communication are a question of geopolitics, but
also of geoeconomics. Trade and investment patterns are not necessarily
global, they remain at times very regionalised. Geopolitics remains an
important vehicle for analysing both powers. Such dynamics are why
Vaughn is correct in arguing that “the dynamics of interstate tensions in Asia
continue to be defined most accurately in geopolitical terms”.130 Mackinder-
Mahanian paradigms on land-maritime power projection remain relevant for
understanding India and China’s drive and responses to each other.
Geography comes back into consideration with Saran’s comment that
“the simultaneous emergence of India and China as Asian and global pow-
ers in fact makes it imperative for them to be sensitive to each other’s inter-
ests and aspirations . . . that they work together to mutually support their
rightful place. . . . We in India believe that there is enough space and
opportunity in Asia and beyond for the two countries to grow”.131 The only
trouble is that the immediate spaces in Asia where they are going into, i.e.,
Southeast Asia and Central Asia, and their respective backyards of East Asia
and South Asia, are ones where their interests are involved, and often in
diverging rather than converging ways. To take one example China’s ‘string
of pearls’ geopolitical projection cuts across India’s SLOC, whilst India’s
‘necklace of friendship’ with countries like Singapore, Vietnam and Japan
20 David Scott
can seem more like a choker for China. Quite rightly Saran judged, “If we
are looking at Asia in the coming years, there is no doubt about a major
realignment of forces taking place in our continent”, but that tends to pitch
India against China, as the two leading Asian heavyweights.132
Finally there was Saran’s response to “perceptions in some quarters that
India and China seek to contain each other. To the protagonists of such the-
ories, I would only like to say that India and China, as two continental-size
economies and political entities, are too big to contain each other or be
contained by any other country”.133 In one sense he was right, they are big,
approaching parity, they cannot easily contain the other. But of course in
conjunction with others, which is usually what a containment strategy
involves, they can try to achieve that very thing. China has probably estab-
lished a more comprehensive encirclement of India than has India of China.
China’s ability to directly threaten the heartland of India from its adjacent
base of Tibet (shades of Mackinder?) is unmatched by any comparable
Indian land position. China’s links with Pakistan, and also Myanmar, are not
matched by India’s land presence in Afghanistan, Tajikistan and Mongolia,
either in terms of depth or size. However there are some countervailing
trends, where India’s links with Japan and most of all with the United States
make India a worrisome factor for Chinese strategists. Specifically evoking
Mackinder and Spykman, Karnad argues that “India – as the premier
‘rimland’ power – will have to quickly consolidate its comprehensive mili-
tary strength and choose its options wisely in order to play the key role of
system balancer and stabiliser, whose support can tip the balance for or
against the mainly maritimist [shades of Mahan] US in its tussle with the pro-
spective Eurasian heartland giant, China”.134 This is why Mohan sees that
“India is now emerging as the swing state in the global balance of power, it
will have an opportunity to shape outcomes on the most critical issues of
the twenty-first century . . . and to play a key role in the great struggles of
the coming decades”.135 In other words, in terms of its geopolitical location
“to emerge as the indispensable element of the future balance of power in
Asia”.136 This is why Beijing reckons that “most importantly, India is the best
bet to restrict a future strong China, as per U.S. regional strategy in Asia”.137
Faced with each other, both China and India have similar policies.
India’s ‘Great Game’, its Grand Strategy in effect, vis-à-vis China is a hedging
strategy, one of congagement, with elements of containment (with the USA
and Japan) as well as bilateral engagement, whilst driving for its own pre-
eminence in the Indian Ocean. As van Praagh put it, India’s “Greater Game”
may indeed be “India’s race with destiny and China”.138 China’s Great Game
with India is a similar hedging one, i.e., containment (through encirclement
and ‘strategic proxies’) as well as engagement, whilst driving for preemi-
nence in Pacific Asia. Both are hoping to gain enough energy resources and
time to complete their respective peaceful rises by the mid-twenty-first cen-
tury. As Goldstein said for China, but which also is applicable for India,
such an approach of peaceful rise “finesses questions about the longer

term”, they both have such “a strategy of transition”.139 As two Rimland
powers, they may over time emphasise a Mahan path to the oceans and to
sea power, or they may seek a Mackinder path to establish land power and
preeminence inside Asia. Conflict or cooperation remains possible in either
direction. Geopolitics and ‘the logic of geography’ remain relevant for these
two giants, these two emerging Great Powers from, in, and around Asia.
NOTES
1. E.g., ‘The Rise of China’, special issue, Foreign Affairs 85/5 (2005); ‘The Rise of India’, special
issue, Foreign Affairs 85/4 (2006). Also W. Schurer, ‘A Geopolitical and Geo-Economic Overview: On the
Rise of China and India as Two Asian Giants’, The Fletcher Forum of World Affairs 29/2 (2005) pp. 145–164;
G. Wacker (ed.), China’s Rise: The Return of Geopolitics (Berlin: German Institute for International and
Security Affairs 2006).

2. M. Malik, ‘India-China Relations: Giants Stir, Cooperate and Compete’, Special Assessment (Asia-
Pacific Center for Security Studies) (Oct. 2004) pp. 1, 8. More generally, G. Fuller and J. Arguilla, ‘The
Intractable Problems of Regional Powers’, Orbis 40/4 (1996) pp. 609–621.
3. O. Osterud, ‘The Uses and Abuses of Geopolitics’, Journal of Peace Research 2 (1988) p. 191.
4. J. Agnew and S. Corbridge, Mastering Space: Hegemony, Territory and International Political
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(London: Pinter 1998) p. 5.
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7. Agnew and Corbridge, Mastering Space (note 4).
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14. N. Spykman, The Geography of the Peace (New York: Harcourt, Brace and Company 1944).
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15. Mackinder (note 13) p. 437.
22 David Scott
16. A. Mahan, The Influence of Sea Power Upon History (1890), The Interest of America in Sea
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each other and with regards to International Relations.
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22. See Zhang Guihong, ‘The Rise of China. India’s Perceptions and Responses’, South Asian Sur-
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cally Untenable’, South Asia Analysis Group Papers 1848 (15 June 2006), available at <http://
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24 David Scott
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73. PRC sources cited N. Koshy, ‘Looking From India at the Spy Plane’, Foreign Policy in Focus
(May 2001) p. 2.
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Vietnam Strategic Partnership: The Convergence of Interests’, South Asia Analysis Group Papers 177
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76. Garver, ‘Indian-Chinese Rivalry in Indochina’, Asian Survey 27/1 (1987) pp. 1205–19.
77. Karnad, ‘India Uses Pak’ (note 75).
78. Ibid.
79. Ibid.
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82. T. Niazi, ‘Sino-Indian Rivalry for Asian Leadership’, China Brief 6/4 (2006) p. 5.
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Also S. Dikshit, ‘India not Keen on Political, Military Ties With SCO’, The Hindu (1 Aug. 2007).
85. S. Mohan, ‘India and the Balance of Power’, Foreign Affairs 85/4 (2006) p. 30.
86. Saran, ‘Present Dimensions’ (note 8).
87. A. Batabyal, ‘Balancing China in Asia. A Realist Assessment of India’s Look East Strategy’,
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and Vietnam in Changing East Asia’, Article (IPCS) (13 April 2007).
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91. J. Jacob, ‘India-Japan-US Security Cooperation’, Peace & Conflict 9/3 (2006) pp. 8–9.
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93. J. Nehru, The Discovery of India (1946; New Delhi: Oxford University Press 1981) pp. 538, 540.
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98. Cited in S. Mohan, ‘Rethinking India’s Grand Strategy’, in N. Sisodia and C. Bhaskar (eds.),
Emerging India. Security and Foreign Perspectives (New Delhi: Institute for Defence Studies and
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106. D. Xiaoping, ‘The Present Situation and the Tasks Before Us’, Jan. 1980, in Selected Works of
Deng Xiaoping (Beijing: Foreign Languages Press 1984–94) 2.225.
107. Ibid.
108. ‘India, China Do Not Consider Each Other a Threat: Pranab’, The Hindu (14 June 2006).
109. Mohan, ‘Rethinking India’s Grand Strategy’ (note 98) p. 35.
110. M. Singh, ‘Speech by Prime Minister Dr. Manmohan Singh at India Today Conclave,
New Delhi’, 25 Feb. 2005, available at <http://meaindia.nic.in/speech/2005/02/25ss01.htm>.
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The Case of Southwest China and Northeast India’, Working Paper (Centre for Economic Studies) 1508
(July 2005), available at <http://ideas.repec.org/p/ces/ceswps/_1508.html>.
112. ‘Interview with External Affairs Minister Jaswant Singh’, Economic Times (14 March 1999).
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India. Security and Foreign Perspectives (note 98) p. 202.
114. Ganguly, ‘Energy Trends in China and India’, 26 July 2005, available at <http://
lugar.senate.gov/energy/hearings/pdf/050726/GangulyTestimony.pdf>.
115. Vatikiotis, ‘China, India and the Land Between’ (note 95); S. Sengupta, ‘India’s Quest for
Energy is Reshaping its Diplomacy’, International Herald Tribune (6 June 2005).
116. Ganguly, ‘Energy Trends’ (note 114).
117. C. Bajpaee, ‘India, China Locked in Energy Game’, Asia Times (17 March 2005).
118. M. Kripalani , ‘India and China: Oil-patch Partners?, Business Week (7 Feb. 2005). Also
P. Aiyar, ‘No “Great Game” Between India, China’, Asia Times (13 Jan. 2006).
119. K. Chaube, ‘India Loses Out to China in Oil’, India Daily (28 Aug. 2005).
120. S. Dadwal, ‘An Energy Crisis in the Making?: India’s Policy Options’, in Sisodia and Bhaskar
(eds.), Emerging India. Security and Foreign Policy Perspectives (note 98) p. 315.
121. Vatikiotis, ‘India and China: A Delicate Dance’ (note 34).
122. Dadwal, ‘An Energy Crisis in the Making?’ (note 120) p. 323.
123. M. Aiyar, ‘Asia’s Quest for Energy Security’, 13 Jan. 2006, rep. Frontline (11–24 Feb. 2006).
124. Ibid.
125. Y. Singh, ‘India’s Energy Diplomacy Gets a Jolt in Myanmar’, Article (IPCS) 2244 (30 March
2007), available at <http://www.ipcs.org/whatsNewArticle1.jsp?action=showView&kValue=2260&status=
article&mod=b>.
126. I. Storey, ‘China’s “Malacca Dilemma”’, China Brief 6/8 (2006) pp. 4–6.
127. D. Blumenthal and J. Lin, ‘China’s Oil Obsession. Energy Appetite Fuels Beijing’s Plans to
Project Vital Sea Lanes’, Armed Forces Journal (June 2006), available at <http://www.armedforcesjour-
nal.com/2006/06/1813592/>.
128. G. Khurana, ‘Securing the Maritime Silk Route: Is There a Sino-Indian confluence?’, China
and Eurasia Forum Quarterly 4/3 (2006) pp. 89–103.
129. G. Naidu, ‘Looking East: India and the Asia-Pacific’, in Sisodia and Bhaskar (eds.), Emerging
India. Security and Foreign Policy Perspectives (note 98) p. 217.
130. B. Vaughn, ‘Indian Geopolitics, the United States and Evolving Correlates of Power in Asia’,
Geopolitics 9/2 (2004) p. 456.
132. Ibid.
26 David Scott
133. Ibid.
134. B. Karnad, ‘India’s Future Plans and Defence Requirements’, in Sisodia and Bhaskar (eds.),
Emerging India. Security and Foreign Policy Perspectives (note 98) pp. 62–63. See also A. Wolfe, ‘Courting
New Delhi: Washington and Beijing Compete for Influence’, Power and Interest News Report (20 April
2005), available at <http://www.pinr.com/report.php?ac=view_report&report_id=290&language_id=1>.
135. S. Mohan, ‘India and the Balance of Power’, Foreign Affairs 85/4 (2006) pp. 17–18.
136. Mohan, ‘Rethinking India’s Grand Strategy’ (note 98) p. 39.
137. Z. Lijun, ‘A Passage to South Asia’, Beijing Review (16 March 2006) p. 14.
138. D. Van Praagh, The Greater Game. India's Race with Destiny and China (Montreal:
McGill-Queen’s University Press 2003).
139. A. Goldstein, ‘An Emerging China’s Emerging Grand Strategy’, in J. Ikenberry and M.
Mastanduno (eds.), International Relations Theory and the Asia-Pacific (New York: Columbia University
Press 2003) p. 60; A. Goldstein, Rising To The Challenge: China’s Grand Strategy and International Secu-
rity (Stanford: Stanford University Press 2005) p. 38.

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The Great Power ‘Great Game’

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The Great Power ‘Great Game’ between India

and China: ‘The Logic of Geography’

Department of Politics and History, Brunel University, London, UK

The simultaneous rise of China and now India is a fundamental

Great Powers, a relative term, they are coming up against each

Address correspondence to David Scott, Department of Politics and History, Brunel

directly and indirectly, and at times in competition with each other.7 In

pessimistic antagonistic containment (IR realism) are discernible in both

China’s Encirclement of India

encirclement of India . . . quite obviously designed to marginalise India in

military adventurism in either direction, which explains why the month-long

India’s Encirclement of China

India has responded to this strategic nightmare posed by China’s military

its geopolitical “interests beyond its immediate neighborhood”, which in

THE DIPLOMATIC FIELD

world’s largest democracy sits uncomfortably with the authoritarian nature

strengthened in 2006 represents, in part, classic balancing tactics towards

do compete. India and China are no exception . . . the mutual competition

THE ECONOMIC FIELD

access/control of vital industrial and energy resources.

of the through Qinghai-Tibet Railway service, capable of funnelling tourists

strategic ‘control’ of . . . India, on these lifelines”.113 China’s own oil diplo-

“energy crisis”, “geographical contiguity” plays a discernible role in the varied

oration” reflecting how “in today’s globalised and environment-conscious

energy route of China”. China’s alternative options, a Kra canal through

Sino-Indian relations present a mixed picture. Admittedly, “In the aftermath of

such an approach of peaceful rise “finesses questions about the longer

Security Affairs 2006).

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