Littoral South Asia or Maritime South Asia is the region of the Indian subcontinent which borders the Indian Ocean. It includes the South Asian republics of Bangladesh, India, and Pakistan, as well as the South Asian island countries of the Maldives and Sri Lanka. It is contested between China and India as a part of what is sometimes referred to as an alleged "String of Pearls" strategy by China to contain India. [1] [2] [3]
The Indian Ocean is the third-largest of the world's five oceanic divisions, covering 70,560,000 km2 (27,240,000 sq mi) or approximately 20% of the water area of Earth's surface. It is bounded by Asia to the north, Africa to the west and Australia to the east. To the south it is bounded by the Southern Ocean, or Antarctica, depending on the definition in use. The Indian Ocean has large marginal, or regional seas, such as the Andaman Sea, the Arabian Sea, the Bay of Bengal, and the Laccadive Sea.
The South China Sea is a marginal sea of the Western Pacific Ocean. It is bounded in the north by South China, in the west by the Indochinese Peninsula, in the east by the islands of Taiwan and northwestern Philippines, and in the south by Borneo, eastern Sumatra and the Bangka Belitung Islands, encompassing an area of around 3,500,000 km2 (1,400,000 sq mi). It communicates with the East China Sea via the Taiwan Strait, the Philippine Sea via the Luzon Strait, the Sulu Sea via the straits around Palawan, and the Java Sea via the Karimata and Bangka Straits. The Gulf of Thailand and the Gulf of Tonkin are part of the South China Sea.
The East China Sea is a marginal sea of the Western Pacific Ocean, located directly offshore from East China. China names the body of water along its eastern coast as "East Sea" due to direction, the name of "East China Sea" is otherwise designated as a formal name by International Hydrographic Organization (IHO) and used internationally.
The Indo-Pacific is a vast biogeographic region of Earth.
Strategic depth is a term in military literature that broadly refers to the distances between the front lines or battle sectors and the combatants' industrial core areas, capital cities, heartlands, and other key centers of population or military production.
China and India have historically maintained peaceful relations for thousands of years of recorded history, but the harmony of their relationship has varied in modern times, after the Chinese Communist Party's victory in the Chinese Civil War in 1949, and especially post the Annexation of Tibet by the People's Republic of China. The two nations have sought economic cooperation with each other, while frequent border disputes and economic nationalism in both countries are major points of contention.
A blue-water navy is a maritime force capable of operating globally, essentially across the deep waters of open oceans. While definitions of what actually constitutes such a force vary, there is a requirement for the ability to exercise sea control at long range.
The Indian Ocean Rim Association (IORA), formerly known as the Indian Ocean Rim Initiative (IORI) and the Indian Ocean Rim Association for Regional Cooperation (IOR-ARC), is an international organisation consisting of 23 states bordering the Indian Ocean. The IORA is a regional forum, tripartite in nature, bringing together representatives of Government, Business and Academia, for promoting co-operation and closer interaction among them. It is based on the principles of for strengthening Economic Cooperation particularly on Trade Facilitation and Investment, Promotion as well as Social Development of the region. The Coordinating Secretariat of IORA is located at Ebene, Mauritius.
Maritime security is an umbrella term informed to classify issues in the maritime domain that are often related to national security, marine environment, economic development, and human security. This includes the world's oceans but also regional seas, territorial waters, rivers and ports, where seas act as a “stage for geopolitical power projection, interstate warfare or militarized disputes, as a source of specific threats such as piracy, or as a connector between states that enables various phenomena from colonialism to globalization”. The theoretical concept of maritime security has evolved from a narrow perspective of national naval power projection towards a buzzword that incorporates many interconnected sub-fields. The definition of the term maritime security varies and while no internationally agreed definition exists, the term has often been used to describe both existing, and new regional and international challenges to the maritime domain. The buzzword character enables international actors to discuss these new challenges without the need to define every potentially contested aspect of it. Maritime security is of increasing concern to the global shipping industry, where there are a wide range of security threats and challenges. Some of the practical issues clustered under the term of maritime security include crimes such as piracy, armed robbery at sea, trafficking of people and illicit goods, illegal fishing or marine pollution. War, warlike activity, maritime terrorism and interstate rivalry are also maritime security concerns.
The Act East policy is an effort by the Government of India to cultivate extensive economic and strategic relations with the nations of Southeast Asia to bolster its standing as a regional power and a counterweight to the strategic influence of the People's Republic of China.
The String of Pearls is a geopolitical hypothesis proposed by United States political researchers in 2004. The term refers to the network of Chinese military and commercial facilities and relationships along its sea lines of communication, which extend from the Chinese mainland to Port Sudan in the Horn of Africa. The sea lines run through several major maritime choke points such as the Strait of Mandeb, the Strait of Malacca, the Strait of Hormuz, and the Lombok Strait as well as other strategic maritime centres in Somalia and the littoral South Asian countries of Pakistan, Sri Lanka, Bangladesh, and the Maldives.
The 21st Century Maritime Silk Road, commonly just Maritime Silk Road (MSR), is the sea route part of the Belt and Road Initiative which is a Chinese strategic initiative to increase investment and foster collaboration across the historic Silk Road.
Srinath Raghavan is an Indian historian of contemporary history. He is a professor of history and international relations at Ashoka University and a senior fellow at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. He is also a visiting senior research fellow at the India Institute of the King's College London and previously was a senior fellow at the Centre for Policy Research, specialising in contemporary and historical aspects of India's foreign and security policies.
The countries of the Bay of Bengal include littoral and landlocked countries in South Asia and Southeast Asia that depend on the bay for maritime usage. Historically, the Bay of Bengal has been a highway of transport, trade, and cultural exchange between diverse peoples encompassing the Indian subcontinent, Indochinese peninsula, and Malay Archipelago. Today, the Bay of Bengal region is the convergence of two major geopolitical blocs- the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) and the South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation (SAARC). The Bay of Bengal Initiative for Multisectoral Technical and Economic Cooperation (BIMSTEC) promotes regional engagement in the area.
Underwater Domain Awareness (UDA) is the aspect of maritime domain awareness focused on the underwater sector, including, from a security perspective, sea lines of communication (SLOC), coastal waters and varied maritime assets with reference to hostile intent and the proliferation of submarine and mine capabilities intended to limit access to the seas and littoral waters. The military requirement is not the only motivation for undersea domain awareness. The earth's undersea geophysical activities as they relate to the well-being of humans is also relevant, as monitoring such activities can provide vital clues to minimize the impact of devastating natural disasters.
Sir Mohammad Abdur Rahman (1888–1962) was a lawyer and judge from Pakistan born in Delhi, India. He served as a representative of the country of India for the United Nations Special Committee on Palestine (UNSCOP) in the summer of 1947.
Illicit drug trafficking in the West Indian Ocean (WIO) has increasingly become a major security concern for many States in the region, and is gaining international attention. The Indian Ocean borders 24 states, and accounts for a third of the world’s ocean area. Until recently, other challenges, such as piracy off the coast of Somalia, has been at the forefront of international action. However, the utilisation of the Southern route by drug traffickers, and the consequent issues this has caused, has led to increased focus on how to tackle this issue.
Michael Naylor Pearson was an historian and academic known for his studies on the Indian Ocean. He was a professor at University of New South Wales, Sydney.
Free and Open Indo-Pacific is an umbrella term that encompasses Indo-Pacific-specific strategies of countries with similar interests in the region. The concept, with its origins in Weimar German geopolitics, has been revived since 2006 through Japanese initiatives and American cooperation.
Sri Lankans in Japan consist of Sri Lankan migrants that come to Japan, as well as their descendants. In June 2024, there were 56,179 Sri Lankans living in Japan. They are the fourth largest nationality group from South Asia after Nepalis and Indians.
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