Manoj Ambat's Blog dealing with Defence, Foreign Affairs, Strategic Affairs and Politics

Among China’s relations with Asian neighbors, its ties with the countries in South Asia are generally considered to be the weakest. Now, with Sino-Japan tensions over the East China Sea and conflict with many Southeast Asian countries over the South China Sea, the role of South Asian countries has become more prominent. South Asia is now a focus in China’s regional strategy, as shown by President Xi Jinping’s recent visit to the area. When it comes to South Asia, people think of India and Pakistan first. China has an “all weather friendship” with Pakistan but an ambivalent, often testy relationship with India. But the future is sometimes different from both the past and the present. Moving forward,  which country is more important for China? Even without a clear answer, just puzzling through this question can help make many issues clear. In fact, we only to need to answer two questions to know whether India or Pakistan is more important for China. First, which one is a major

India-China Border ( Image credits- Indian Express) Reacting strongly to reports that China has in its recent map shown Arunachal Pradesh as its territory, India on Saturday said "cartographic depiction" does not change reality on the ground and asserted that Arunachal Pradesh was an integral part of the country. Asked about recent China maps which show disputed areas in Arunachal Pradesh and South China Sea as its own, the Spokesperson in the External Affairs Ministry said, "The cartographic depictions do not change the reality on the ground. "The fact that Arunachal Pradesh is integral and inalienable part of India has been conveyed to Chinese authority at several occasions including at the very highest level."  He also indicated that this may be raised by the Indian delegation, headed by Vice President Hamid Ansari, currently in China to participate in an event to commemorate the 60th Anniversary of Panchsheel or Five Principles of Peaceful Coexistence.

SU-30MKI ( Image credits- Wikimedia Commons/ Author) It's all about China in Asia these days. But enough about China and its dominance of the headlines. Let's talk about India. What does India think of China? One thing is clear: Indians do think about China, which has steadily expanded its strategic footprint in the Indian Ocean. And they worry about Asia's would-be Big Brother. Indian strategists see ulterior motives at work even in such nondescript endeavors such as the counterpiracy mission in the Gulf of Aden, where by most accounts, the People's Liberation Army Navy (PLA Navy) has been a valuable partner. Angst-ridden words have issued from New Delhi at times. Yet Indian leaders have modulated their rhetoric in recent years. They appear increasingly comfortable with the strategic outlook in South Asia. Anxieties have receded, though they haven't evanesced entirely and probably never will. And the leisurely pace (and fitful progress) of India's naval an

Indian Prime minister with the American President ( Image courtesy- Wikimedia commons and The White House) (The original work by Divya Srikanth as appeared in the E-International Relations Students website. All credits goes to Divya Srikanth for such a well researched work. The original copyright of the owner is acknowledged) Introduction: Brief Significance of Indo-US and Sino-Indian Relations Since 2001, there has been an upswing in US-India relations, greatly facilitated by the Bush Administration’s reversal of the decades-long US policy of indifference towards India. The signing of the Next Steps in Strategic Partnership (NSSP) between the Bush Administration and the Manmohan Singh government heralded a new beginning to Indo-US relations and cemented India’s growing rising power status. The 2005 civilian nuclear deal, which facilitated US technology assistance to India’s civilian nuclear program and allowed the Nuclear Suppliers Group (NSG) to trade with India, a non-si

The Chinese have fired yet another salvo in its cloak and dagger strategic games directed at India. It has gone totally unnoticed in the Indian media but for the last few days, both the  Peoples' Daily  of China and the  China Daily along with their Indian Sinophile minions have been crowing about the latest Chinese “smart” success in invading India's international strategic space. By itself, the current Chinese salvo seems pretty innocuous but it has far reaching consequences. The stapled visa issue also started as an innocuous action by low level visa officers in the Chinese embassy. One has to read in between the tea leaves to ascertain Chinese motives. By these aggressive containment efforts, China has proved once again that it is not a friend or an ally of India but at worst a determined and hostile strategic adversary and at best a peer competitor. There is a very clear cut pattern to Chinese geo-political endeavours. China is behaving as a classical hegemon that