shutterstock_301382870 Courtesy: Shutterstock
26 December 2019

Building an India-owned merchant fleet

India needs its own merchant fleet to run parallel with its increasingly strong navy. The geopolitical and geoeconomic compulsions have never been greater. India’s growing imports and exports of crude oil, LPG, and coal are all carried on foreign-owned shipping vessels, depriving the country of revenue and creating a geopolitical imbalance with an increasingly strong Indian navy that is set to play a significant role in the Indo-Pacific

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5 December 2019

India and France converge in Indo-Pacific

India and France have converging interests in the Indo-Pacific – diplomatic, strategic and economic. The 4th Indo-French Maritime Security Dialogue held in New Delhi in December 2019 was an example of major bilateral cooperation. By working together, the two countries became the model for fostering a rules-based, free, open and inclusive region.

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26 September 2019

Quad in the Indo-Pacific

The foreign ministers of the Quad countries meet for the first time in New York today even as the Indo-Pacific has turned into a keenly contested geopolitical arena. Some countries are offering to play a mediatory role while other triangular equations are also undergoing change. An analysis of some of the relationships at work here

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26 February 2019

Indo-Pacific, the contested theatre

The key global powers are redefining their roles in the Indo-Pacific to promote national interest. China’s rise and increased activism in South Asia and the Indian Ocean region is an uncontested reality even as Asian countries worry about the new cold war in which the U.S. and China are locked. The Quadrilateral Dialogue has reemerged to prevent a unipolar Asia — these are some of the trends unfolding in this arena

jf19_cover_large2 Courtesy: Foreign Affairs
13 February 2019

The Stealth Superpower

Although China does not want to usurp the United States’ position as the leader of a global order, its actual aim is nearly as consequential. As one Chinese official put it, “Being a great power means you get to do what you want, and no one can say anything about it.” In other words, China is trying to displace, rather than replace, the United States.

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22 January 2019

Maritime Security for India and Vietnam

The following remarks were given by Ambassador Rajiv Bhatia, Distinguished Fellow, Foreign Policy Studies, Gateway House as the chair at a panel discussion on 'Geopolitics in the Indo-Pacific: Implications on Maritime Security for India and Vietnam', organised by the Centre for Indo-Pacific Studies, SIS, Jawaharlal Nehru University on January 22, 2019.