CHINA’S STRATEGIC PRESENCE IN EAST AFRICAN PORTS: IMPLICATIONS FOR INDIAN OCEAN SECURITY Cover Image

CHINA’S STRATEGIC PRESENCE IN EAST AFRICAN PORTS: IMPLICATIONS FOR INDIAN OCEAN SECURITY
CHINA’S STRATEGIC PRESENCE IN EAST AFRICAN PORTS: IMPLICATIONS FOR INDIAN OCEAN SECURITY

Author(s): Sharmistha Hazra, Pranav Bhaskar
Subject(s): Politics / Political Sciences, Politics, Political Theory, Political Sciences, Governance, Government/Political systems, International relations/trade, Security and defense, Political economy, Politics and law, Politics and society, History and theory of political science, Comparative politics, Inter-Ethnic Relations, Geopolitics
Published by: Institute for Research and European Studies - Bitola
Keywords: African Sea Ports; China; Debt Trap; Indo-Pacific; Western Indian Ocean; India; US

Summary/Abstract: This paper examines how China’s presence in the East African seaports has created a threat to the Indian Ocean’s security. In particular, the research empirically analyses whether China’s growing activities in the Western Indian Ocean along the East African coast have dismantled the security architecture of the Indo-Pacific. This paper aims to understand the responses of India and her allies in containing China’s rise in the region. The paper has taken three East African ports, Dar es Salaam, Lamu, and Doraleh port of Djibouti, as a case study to examine how Chinese presence in these three ports could dismantle the security architecture of Indo-Pacific in the Western Indian Ocean region. The paper demonstrates that the present competition of power projection in the Indian Ocean is a power maximization strategy for the national security of each state. Using primary and secondary data available on China, India, and other states’ policies and activities, the study finds that it is a policy failure of the Indo-Pacific, accelerating China’s rise in the region. However, the Indo-Pacific partners are revamping their policies to check China’s rise in the Indian Ocean region.

  • Issue Year: 9/2023
  • Issue No: 3
  • Page Range: 501-517
  • Page Count: 17
  • Language: English
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