Beijing's maritime ambitions

CHRIS RAHMAN, fellow of Maritime Strategy and Security at the University of Woolongong explores the central tenets of China’s maritime security agenda and states that Beijing’s maritime ambitions and behavior indicate a bid for geopolitical pre-eminence in East Asia. In a policy analysis for the Australian Strategic Policy Institute, "China's maritime strategic agenda", he argues that the Chinese navy's growing ability to deny access to East Asian seas in a crisis or conflict, disrupting the security system led by US Pacific Command rather than its blue water capabilities most threatens regional order and harmony at seas.

China's Indian Ocean Strategy

Vijay Sakhuja, director of the New Delhi-based Indian Council for World Affairs traces the history of maritime multilateralism of China's PLA Navy in the wake of the recent Chinese naval deployment in the Gulf of Aden. In an article for Jamestown Foundation's China Brief, "Maritime  Multilateralism:  China’s Strategy for the Indian Ocean", he outlines the increasing albeit selective multilateral role of the Chinese navy among the littorals of the Straits of Malacca and the Indian Ocean and states that Beijing is leveraging its naval power for strategic purposes and the development of military maritime infrastructure in the Indian Ocean would provide China access and a basing facility for conducting sustained operations and emerge as a stakeholder in Indian Ocean security architecture.