India-China Luncheon Lectures – Sino-Indian competition in the Indian Ocean

The ECFR Asia Programme is delighted to invite you to our online webinar which is part of our virtual luncheon series dedicated to the future of India-China relations. 

The webinar series features one prominent Indian speaker a month who will shed light on the various aspects of the Sino-Indian relationship and help to understand what the possible implications are for Europe’s growing engagement in the Indo-Pacific region. In this session, Darshana M. Baruah will explain the many facets of Sino-Indian competition in the Indian Ocean within a new regional geopolitical context.

The India-China land border dispute has become a driving factor for the deteriorating ties between the two nations. As Beijing and Delhi continue to compete and co-exist as neighbors, dynamics between the two nations have significant implications for regional power politics. Today’s competition is also spilling over to the maritime domain in the Indian Ocean, in what is a relatively new development. To understand Beijing’s maritime ambitions, it is critical to understand these evolving developments in the Indian Ocean- a theatre of vulnerabilities for China. What are the features of Sino-Indian competition in the Indian Ocean? What are the regional implications of this intensifying conflict in the maritime realm? And what role do smaller island nations play in shaping geopolitical competition in the Indo-Pacific?

Darshana M. Baruah is a fellow with the South Asia Program at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace where she leads the Indian Ocean Initiative. Baruah is also currently a visiting fellow at the Sasakawa Peace Foundation, Tokyo, where she is working on a book about the significance of strategic islands in the Indian Ocean region. Previously, Baruah was the associate director and a senior research analyst at Carnegie India where she led the center’s initiative on maritime security. In 2018, Baruah was also a visiting fellow at the Japan Institute of International Affairs (JIIA) Tokyo. Prior to this, Baruah was a 2016 national parliamentary fellow at the Australian parliament and a visiting fellow at the Australian National University (Canberra) and the Lowy Institute (Sydney), where her research was centered on India-Australia maritime collaboration in the Indo-Pacific.

The debate will be on the record and held in English. If you have any questions about this event, please contact [email protected].