| Summary/Abstract |
As India China turn their gaze seaward in search of prosperity and energy security, both have embarked on a naval build up unprecedented in the nation’s modern history. Both countries in earlier centuries participated in mercantile trade and had their association with Southeast and South Asian nations. Indian leadership and strategic experts have been trying to revive the grand old strategy of ‘Indian Ocean being regarded as British lake/Indian lake’, therefore commanding the entire region as maritime power. China’s contemporary leadership also sees their rise as economic, military, and naval power as merely the latest phase in a benign regional dominance that had its origins in the Ming era. India and China, both today are busy in their naval build-up and fierce diplomatic manoeuvres and are trying to prevail upon their neighbours/coastal nations not to align with external powers to balance them.
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