INDIA – JAPAN MARITIME SECURITY COOPERATION IN THE INDO–PACIFIC: AN ANALYSIS OF THEIR EFFORTS TO BALANCING CHINA’S MARITIME EXPANSION IN THE INDO– PACIFIC (2007 – 2017)

Abstract

India–Japan bilateral relationship started to spark again right after the brief talk between Prime Minister Mori and Prime Minister Vajpayee in India in August 2000, resulting in the Global Partnership between Japan and India in the 21st Century. Since then, the maritime security cooperation between these two major actors has grown stronger with the purposes of protecting their territorial sovereignty and commercial activities. Furthermore, the enhancement of India–Japan maritime security cooperation also due to the rise of China’s maritime expansion in the Indo–Pacific region. China as a giant spectre roaming around in the Indo–Pacific, is considered as a threat to regional maritime stability and the security of India and Japan. China’s desire to aggressively broaden its maritime footprints in the Indo–Pacific gives geopolitical anxieties to India and Japan as maritime nations which defines as a state that borders with the sea and rely much on sea transportation for vital resources such as trade and maritime security. However, what rose as a question is how India–Japan maritime security cooperation can be the way to balancing China’s maritime expansion in the Indo–Pacific region. As we are aware that the Indo–Pacific region is basically like the US and China’s competition playground to channel their national interests, and it affects India and Japan’s stability as a maritime nation. Therefore, this thesis seeks to analyse India and Japan’s efforts to balance China’s maritime expansion in Indo–Pacific by intensifying the security in the sea lines of communication (SLOCs) in their respective sea with the time frame from 2007 until 2017. The author will focus on the reinforcement of India–Japan maritime security cooperation as the key element of maritime defence cooperation in order to obtain their national interests. And will be using balance of threat by Stephen M. Walt and defensive realism as a fundamental theory for this thesis.