China in the Indian Ocean
by D. S. Rajan
Abstract
( April 20, 2016, Chennai, Sri Lanka Guardian) The People’s Republic of China (PRC) has not so far come out with a codified Indian Ocean Region (IOR) strategy. The country however has a maritime vision involving the IOR in particular. For the first time in a party congress, the Work Report of the 18th Chinese Communist Party (CCP) Congress, held in November 2012, defined China as a “maritime power” that will “firmly uphold its maritime rights and interests.” The report listed following aims- enhancing capacity for exploiting marine resources, developing the marine economy, protecting the marine ecological environment, resolutely safeguarding its maritime rights and interests, and building itself into a maritime power.
The aims were included in the Work Report’s section on protecting resources, signaling China’s new perception that the maritime domain concerns both developmental and security interests. It was left subsequently to an authoritative Chinese academician to identify China’s six-fold legitimate maritime interests: i) reunifying its offshore islands; ii) safeguarding its territorial waters; iii) assuring its exclusive economic zone for its sole use, reasonably and economically; iv) protecting high sea collaboratively for global legitimate access; v) respecting those legitimate maritime rights of other states as per relevant international law; vi) resolving maritime disputes with other claimants as peacefully as possible when they may arise, while reserving all means for sovereign purpose[1]. The two- protecting high sea and use of all means on sovereignty matters, are striking in importance.
