The Chinese Factor in India’s Indo-Pacific Policy
This article explains how the intensifying Sino-Indian rivalry, which has crystalized around New Delhi’s oppostion to China’s Belt and Road initiative, has led India to reconceptualize its immediate strategic environment and redimension its foreign policy instruments. India’s regional policy now extends beyond the concept of a South Asian regional security complex developed by Barry Buzan and Ole Weaver to integrate into a transregional space, the Indo-Pacific zone. The construction of this new geoeconomic and geopolitical space is aided and abetted by the strategic and normative convergence between India, the United States, Australia, and Japan. Deployment of the Indian policy in the Indo-Pacific Zone is characterized by active diplomacy aimed at guaranteeing India’s maritime security, providing a political and economic alternative to China’s silk road ambitions, and strengthening Indian influence in the region.