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Opinion        26/11/2018                 1570. SUB : China’s “String of Pearls” : 4. The encirclement of India & how to break the chakravyuh? : Aashish : Strategic Frontier Research Foundation REF : Chapter - 4 : A maritime perspective to this chakravyuh I. From a baseline perspective, we have seen the following based on previous chapters :- 1. Enhanced Economic outreaches 2. Focus on geopolitical trade 3. Securing Energy routes at any cost for all situations 4. Focussed on maritime aspect and SLOCs 5. Overt usage of economic-political willpower 6. Covert usage of economic-political-military aspects of decision making It is clear that the economic prosperity scope is dependent on maritime nature of the whole mix of sea lanes of communication, strategic shipping/merchant lanes, secured trade routes to access newer markets at reduced logistical costs and protecting all via a dominant mi...

Opinion        25/11/2018                 1567. SUB : China’s “String of Pearls” : 3. The encirclement of India & how to break the chakravyuh? : Aashish : Strategic Frontier Research Foundation REF : Chapter -3.India’s geopolitical issues with String of Pearls : Rear Admiral K Raja Menon (Retd) has summed it up as the following areas of geopolitical concern for India wrt the string of pearls Figure -1. – I. Areas of geopolitical concern :- If we see this figure, it is easier to understand that both India and China basically square off and have no advantage over the whole area of concern. For India one side its the high mountains in the East, Planes in the West and Sea in the South. Each of the places with distinct advantages and disadvantages. For China, the whole of IOR is a long distance away from mainland requiring a formidable Blue Water Fleet to actually protect it. The Tibetan region dispute is well...

Opinion        25/11/2018                 1566. SUB : Arpi comes up with an explosive revelation : that Nehru’s India supplied rice for the invading PLA troops in Tibet in the early 1950s.The Chinese invasion of Tibet, which culminated in the 1962 war between India and China, has often been portrayed as the “Great Chinese Betrayal”—“a stab in the back”, as Jawaharlal Nehru would say with much pain and anguish. Claude Arpi, in his 2017 book, Tibet: The Last Months of a Free Nation, proved with fresh shreds of evidence that the notion of “betrayal” was a farce. It was “a stab from the front”, as M.J. Akbar observed in his eloquent biography on Nehru. For, the then Prime Minister and his comrades refused to see the writing on the wall for more than a decade. Historian Claude Arpi - REF : Nehru helped China conquer Tibet : Historian Claude Arpi : : Utpal Kumar, The Sunday Guardian Live : DEFENCE NEWS INDIA STAF...

Opinion        24/11/2018                 1564. Sub : China’s “String of Pearls”: The encirclement of India & how to break the chakravyuh? :  Aashish : Strategic Frontier Research Foundation December 23, 2017 Ref : Chapter 2 : The String of Pearls First, what is String of Pearls? The earliest definition that emerged is from July 2006 Each “pearl” in the “String of Pearls” is a nexus of Chinese geopolitical influence or military presence. An upgraded airstrip on Woody Island, located in the Paracel archipelago 300 nautical miles east of Vietnam, is a “pearl.” A container shipping facility in Chittagong, Bangladesh, is a “pearl.” Construction of a deepwater port in Sittwe, Myanmar, is a “pearl,” as is the construction of a navy base in Gwadar, Pakistan.Port and airfield construction projects, diplomatic ties, and force modernization form the essence of China’s “String of Pearls.” The “pearls” extend f...