Maritime security in the Indo-Pacific

This is a timely and incisive study of an important dimension of the emerging Eurasian strategic system. The contributions vary in originality and usefulness, and there is an unfortunate amount of redundancy, but overall the study illuminates an increasingly important dimension of the Asian power system. The central idea of the book is this: the rise of China and India as energy-consuming and export-producing economies has led to rapid growth in shipping traffic carrying those commodities between Bab al-Mandeb and the Strait of Hormuz in the west, Indian ports in the middle and the great economic hubs of coastal China in the east. Many chapters produce statistics documenting this growth in maritime traffic. The concept ‘Indo-Pacific’ is advanced to capture this linkage between the manufacturing hubs of east Asia (including Japan) and the energy- and merchandise-shipping western Indian Ocean choke points. The vulnerability of China's sea lines of communications (SLOCs) to either US or Indian interdiction in the event of a confrontation is an important Chinese concern. ‘The tyranny of distance’ gives India a great advantage over China in the waters west of Malacca. Diego Garcia and multiple US positions in and around the Persian Gulf also give the United States Navy a similar advantage over China in those waters. How to secure this vital ‘Indo-Pacific’ traffic is an important Chinese concern—and a central issue addressed by this book

China · Economics · Economy · Geography · Mainland China · Navy · Maritime Security and History