By Zhang Wenmu
The Indian Ocean occupies the center of the world sea power system. In particular, the northern Indian Ocean is the center of the world's resources politics, which makes it a core objective of competition for world hegemony.
Russia, the US and India are the powers with direct interests in the Indian Ocean and its northern shores, and they have a direct competitive relationship there, while Europe and China have an indirectly competitive relationship. From China's point of view, Indian development on the Indian Ocean is good for China's security.
The more India develops toward the Indian Ocean, the safer China's Tibetan border is. The more influence India has in the area, the better it can contain US power. The Indian Ocean is the heart of Western energy networks and is thus important for the Western powers to control.
Some people in India say that the development of the Indian Navy is aimed at "containing China." This is not true - if it wants to do so, it can just focus on its northern border.
Why should it bother to contain China at the Indian Ocean? If India can contain China on the Indian Ocean, it means that it can also contain other maritime powers, including the US. If the long-range missile launched by India from the Indian Ocean can reach major cities in China, it can also cover major cities in the US or other Western countries.
History shows that India's future security lies in the Indian Ocean. Several US-led wars in the northern regions of the Indian Ocean in the early 21st century show that India's real opponent in the area is the US rather than China.
The most direct threat to India is the US military presence backed by the bases at Diego Garcia, part of the British In-dian Ocean territory, and elsewhere. So the development of Indian strength on the Indian Ocean will first influence the interests of the US and other Western countries rather than those of China.
This is why Russia's main policy toward India is to expand Indian maritime influence. Russia sells large amounts of military equipment, particularly sea combat equipment, to India in order to support its development of sea power.It should be noted that control of the sea is the lifeblood of US and British national strategy.
In the past, the Soviet Union and the US seemed to clash over Afghanistan in Central Asia, but in fact they were fighting for the sea control power over the Indian Ocean.
In the 1970s and 1980s, Sino-US relations improved on the premise that China had no urgent need to develop on the Pacific while the escalation of conflict between China and the US since the late 1990s is due to China's increasingly urgent demand for sea control power, due to Taiwan question, resource imports and protection of overseas interests, especially in the Western Pacific.
In recent years, India has strengthened relations with Vietnam and its ships have moved into the South China Sea, which was thought to indicate that India has a large "Indian Ocean control strategy."
But it is impossible for India to have the appropriate financial resources to support such a large ocean strategy in a long time. In modern history, only the UK and the US, who dominate the world's resources, have had the capacity to implement such a maritime strategy.Even if India really implements such a strategy, it will first threaten the US and Western countries, instead of China.
The West has a directly competitive relationship with India in the Indian Ocean and the North Shore region. India will face the same pressure from the US as China in the Taiwan Straits and South China Sea.
In this sense, India's maritime expansion is complementary to the reunification of the Chinese mainland and Taiwan and the expansion of Chinese sovereignty in the West Pacific, and will benefit both countries.
The author is a professor of Beijing University of Aeronautics and Astronautics. forum@ globaltimes.com.cn
http://opinion.globaltimes.cn/commentary/2010-06/546356.html
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