China's Maritime Relations with South Asia

The People’s Republic of China’s (PRC) turn towards the oceans since the 1980s can be correlated with its turn towards international trade as a result of reforms initiated in the late-1970s. China’s ‘Malacca dilemma’ implies a greater interest in the security of sea lanes in the Indian Ocean. However, increased Chinese involvement with South Asia in the maritime sphere has added fuel to pre-existing concerns in India regarding ‘encirclement’ by China. The American geopolitical construct ‘China’s string of pearls’ has fed into these Indian concerns. This book argues that regional maritime cooperation through multilateral institutions such as the Indian Ocean Rim-Association for Regional Cooperation (IOR-ARC),Indian Ocean Naval Symposium (IONS), the ASEAN Regional Forum (ARF) and the South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation (SAARC) conducted in accordance with the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS) and other relevant mechanisms could give China and the South Asian countries the opportunity to share these mutual concerns with each other in an amicable manner.