For part I in this series, please click here.

Confronted with a heavily militarized land frontier that erupted into clashes in 2020, India’s Great Nicobar project signals that Chinese pressure along the Himalayas could carry significant costs at sea—through the chokepoints that carry most of China’s trade and energy—thereby strengthening New Delhi’s overall deterrence vis-à-vis Beijing.

Containment begets containment

India has also unveiled plans to expand its naval fleet from 140 to over 200 by 2035—an ambitious buildup to secure its seas, including four nuclear submarines and three carrier battle groups—deployed in the Arabian Sea, Bay of Bengal, and northern Indian Ocean. The tri-service Andaman and Nicobar Command (ANC) at Port Blair and the Island Development Agency are transforming the archipelago into a forward military base and economic hub. The island already hosts the Indian Navy’s INS Baaz airbase. Since 2017, the Indian Navy has maintained round-the-year, mission-ready deployments near key maritime chokepoints and has conducted joint exercises with Japan, the U.S., Australia, and Southeast Asian partners, emphasizing anti-submarine warfare to track Chinese submarines transiting from the Western Pacific into the Indian Ocean. India’s participation in the QUAD’s Indo-Pacific Partnership for Maritime Domain Awareness, the US-led Combined Maritime Force in the Arabian Sea, and arms transfers to Vietnam and the Philippines further enhance its deterrence posture.

The Indian Navy’s Maritime Infrastructure Perspective Plan aims to transform minor island detachments on ANI into fully developed maritime hubs. Upgrades to airfields, jetties, and military facilities will link the archipelago to major trade routes while enhancing surveillance and rapid-response capabilities across the Andaman Sea and Bay of Bengal. These measures reinforce India’s Act East Policy and its commitment to a “free and open” Indo-Pacific, while turning a remote outpost into a linchpin of India’s maritime power and strategic reach. Despite tensions over trade and Russia, defense cooperation remains a cornerstone of India–US relations. India’s planned $4 billion purchase of six additional P-8I aircraft, supplementing its existing fleet of 12, will enhance anti-submarine warfare and surveillance in the eastern Indian Ocean, especially when deployed from the Nicobar Islands. As part of this effort, plans are afoot to deploy an initial network of unmanned surface vessels patrolling key sea routes and chokepoints by March 2026, strengthening early-warning and situational awareness.

By the end of 2027, Andaman Port will include liquefied natural gas storage facilities, providing additional energy security for military and civilian vessels. Complementing this, India has invited Japan to invest $30 million (4.02 billion yen) through an Official Development Assistance program, reflecting deepening cooperation in maritime infrastructure and security. Tokyo is boosting cooperation with both India and Southeast Asia, with reported investments in the Andamans and Indonesia’s Sabang port. The Andamans are poised to anchor a coordinated surveillance network across the Malacca, Sunda, Lombok, and Ombai-Wetar Straits, leveraging India’s archipelago alongside Australia’s Cocos (Keeling) Islands, cementing their role as a cornerstone of India’s integrated deterrence strategy.

Nautical games

Once fully implemented, the Great Nicobar project could prove to be a masterstroke. Economically, it aims to position India as a major hub in global shipping and logistics on par with Colombo and Port Klang, reducing reliance on foreign ports that drive up costs and delays. The potential offshore deposits of cobalt, nickel, copper, and manganese further enhance the project’s significance, offering a path toward mineral self-sufficiency at a time when China’s near-monopoly on rare earths and export restrictions threaten India’s industrialization. Strategically, the project counters China’s growing naval investments in Cambodia, Myanmar, Sri Lanka, Pakistan, and Africa while enhancing India’s maritime and underwater domain awareness across the eastern Indian Ocean. By aligning economic and security goals, Great Nicobar enhances India’s deterrence against China.

Beijing, for its part, watches warily as India deepens tighter security ties with Southeast Asian littorals, Japan and Australia. China perceives the Nicobar development ominously as aggravating its “Malacca Dilemma.” Following India’s 2018 strategic investment in Indonesia’s Sabang port, near the northwestern entrance to the Malacca Strait, China’s Global Times warned that Beijing would not “turn a blind eye” if New Delhi sought “military access” to Sabang, cautioning that India could “entrap itself into a strategic competition with China and eventually burn its own fingers.” Just as the U.S. and allies cannot let China dominate the Western Pacific, China will resist India’s influence in the eastern Indian Ocean. For, whoever dominates the Andaman Sea controls the Malacca Strait. Expect Beijing to counter the project through support for domestic critics in India, calibrated military countermeasures, and diplomatic pressure on Myanmar, Thailand and Bangladesh. Circumventing American and Indian defenses and penetrating the Andaman Sea are crucial to China’s Indian Ocean goals.

An enduring rivalry

In short, as China’s navy goes south to the Indian Ocean, India’s navy is moving east toward the Pacific. For both powers, forward presence has acquired greater salience in their national security strategies to achieve situational awareness in areas of strategic interest. For Beijing, this means having a presence in the Indian Ocean; for New Delhi, having a naval presence in the Pacific is critical to its strategic deterrence against Beijing, particularly since $66 billion worth of exports and roughly one-third of India’s trade transit through the South China Sea.

India’s Great Nicobar project is more than an infrastructure initiative; it is a strategic gambit to monitor key maritime chokepoints, counter Beijing’s naval expansion, and enable rapid deployment of naval and air assets as a first security provider. Unlike the United States and India, which have never gone to war, Beijing and New Delhi share a long history of clashes over territory, strategic space, and competing visions of Asia and the world—their tensions sharpened by the widening economic and military gap between them. India’s trade deficit with China is almost three times the size of its trade surplus with America. Despite occasional tactical thaws, mutual containment will remain the defining feature of their relationship, from the Himalayan heights to the the depths of the Indian Ocean. Their rivalry is not episodic but structural and will remain the central axis of Asian geopolitics. If the 20th century’s geopolitical competition played out across the Atlantic and Pacific, the 21st century’s geopolitical contestation is unfolding in the Indian and Pacific Oceans.

Should Trump’s America choose retrenchment, ceding spheres of influence to Russia in Europe and China in Asia, the consequences would be profound: Beijing’s appetite for risk-taking and expansion, after consolidating control over the First Island Chain, will grow—making the northern Indian Ocean as contested and conflict-prone as the South China Sea and compelling India to deepen counter-containment with partners such as Japan and Russia. History shows that even a weaker and more isolated India did not kowtow to China; with far greater capabilities today, New Delhi is even less likely to do so in the future.

Conclusion and recommendations

The Great Nicobar project is New Delhi’s clearest signal yet that it intends to contest—not partner with—China in the Indo-Pacific. It is also a litmus test of India’s ability to integrate economic development with national security imperatives despite formidable domestic and external challenges. Success will hinge on aligning domestic political will with state capacity and international partnerships, while blunting Chinese efforts to stoke local dissent. As China entrenches itself as a resident power in the Indian Ocean, it is in the interests of the United States, Japan, Australia, and the Southeast Asian littorals to back a joint Indo-Pacific Maritime Infrastructure and Surveillance Initiative (MISI). Such an initiative would enable real-time maritime and underwater domain awareness, while integrating logistical upgrades—ports, LNG hubs, and repair facilities—across strategic island outposts in the eastern Indian Ocean. MISI would complement India’s Act East policy and America’s Indo-Pacific Strategy, while drawing in Japanese and Australian co-financing for resilient infrastructure in the Nicobars and across the wider littoral. Crucially, it would bolster regional defenses against Chinese expansion without requiring formal alliances or risking overextension.

PacNet commentaries and responses represent the views of the respective authors. Alternative viewpoints are always welcomed and encouraged.

Dr. Mohan Malik ([email protected]) is Professor of Strategic Studies at the UAE National Defence College and Non-Resident Fellow at the NESA Center for Strategic Studies. From 2001 to 2019, he was a Professor in Asian Security at the U.S. Defense Department’s Asia-Pacific Center for Security Studies (APCSS) in Honolulu. His books include China and India: Great Power Rivals (Lynne Rienner, 2011) and Maritime Security in the Indo-Pacific (Rowman & Littlefield, 2014). The views expressed here are those of the author.

Photo: Nicobar island off of India’s east coast || Credit: Getty Images