troubles began as early as 2013 when china expanded its belt and road initiative massive construction projects in pakistan sri lanka bangladesh and the maldives caused unease in delhi if you ask me is our relationship normal today my answer to you is no it is not china is clearly becoming a much stronger military power india has also stepped up its participation in the quad which is a group of four countries including the us australia and japan hi everybody in the past three episodes of the geopolitical series we saw how china started with something called the belt and road initiative to conquer the world trade now just to give you a quick recap firstly china strategically used djibouti sri lanka myanmar and pakistan's weak economic situation to surround india secondly china spent billions of dollars into building oil refineries high speed cables railway lines and even gas pipelines to build an alternate trade route around india and lastly china is building an extremely strategic railway line from london to china and another railway line from china to iran passing through kyrgyzstan uzbekistan turkmenistan finally ending at tehran in iran this is how china is literally building its own trade route to become an economic superpower and in this process china intends to surround its rivals like india and eventually gain military and economic advantage over the united states this is what we have covered until now now when china is doing so many things india is obviously not a saint to keep quiet and let china become stronger right so the question over here is what exactly is india doing to tackle the security implications of the belt and road initiative what is india's strategy to face china in case of a military conflict and lastly what are the study materials to help you understand india's geopolitical moves better this video is brought to you by wind wealth but more on this at the end of the video the answer to this lies in a very very important quote by historian named alfred thier in his theory of c dominance alfred here said that whoever conquers the indian ocean will dominate the whole of asia so let's try to understand why is the indian ocean so so important in geopolitics well if you look at the world map you will see that the indian ocean region consists of 28 countries spanning across three continents and covers 17.5 percent of the global land area these countries include 21 members of an association called the indian ocean rim association this includes major nations like australia bangladesh india indonesia iran kenya malaysia oman singapore south africa sri lanka thailand uae and yemen then there are seven others who are not a part of this association which includes brunei cambodia maldives myanmar pakistan timor-leste and vietnam and this region is home to over 35 percent of the world's population which is around 2.6 billion people now if you notice something very peculiar about all these nations that i stated you will realize that the indian ocean region is home to some of the fastest growing countries in the world secondly it is one of the most strategic regions in the world which falls at the crossroads of the global trade itself the indian ocean connects the international economies in the north atlantic to the asia-pacific region and secondly the major sea routes that connect the middle east africa and east asia with both europe and america also lie in the indian ocean itself and what is absolutely mind-boggling about the indian ocean is that 80 percent of the entire world's maritime oil trade flows through just three narrow passages of the indian ocean these passages are at the strait of hormuz strait of malacca and the strait of babel mundip these points are what we call as choke points as in if you choke these points the major part of the world trade itself will come to a standstill if this is very very clear to you let's understand these choke points better the state of homos is a straight between the persian gulf and the gulf of oman the state of malacca as you know is this place between the malay peninsula and the indian ocean island of sumatra the babel monday is a strait between yemen on the arabian peninsula djibouti and eritrea in the horn of africa this trait connects the red sea to the gulf of eden and apart from these three choke points we have four more which are the mozambique channel the swiss canal the sunda strait and the lombok strait now if you remember from our previous episode china is very clearly entered very close to all these choke points to establish dominance over the strait of hormuz china has the guard put in pakistan on a 40-year lease and it also has its infrastructure and railway lines to iran to establish dominance over the strait of babel mandev and the swiss canal china has dead trapped djibouti to build its naval base and then to capitalize on the strait of malacca sunda straight in the lombok strait china has made strategic alliance with indonesia to build its infrastructure projects and if you go through the details of the chinese relations very very closely you will see that china has already established very close relations with the mozumbi government and has established control over a port called the salaam port in tanzania so in short the world trade can be stopped within a jiffy if you have control over these choke points in the indian ocean and at the same time if you do not have control over these points your enemy can block your trade in no time and quite evidently china has slowly extended its dominance over all these choke points this is the reason why the indian ocean is an extremely crucial region with respect to maritime trade and more importantly for india because of china but the story does not end here apart from maritime trade routes the indian ocean contains some of the most precious resources in the world in fact a large portion of the resources of the indian ocean is yet to be explored and it is said that sixteen point eight percent of the entire world's reserves and twenty seven point nine percent of natural gas reserves are in the indian ocean itself and this is where the indo-china conflict comes in the string appears here very simply is that china is trying to encircle india um with a number of naval bases and surrounding countries in such a way that it's like a string of pearls around your neck the chinese can then tighten to choke you and choke your neck there is a cold war that is created between india and china the string of pearls theory has been discussed for more than a decade and the ukraine crisis has renewed interest in the subject my answer to that has always been even if they're trying to do it which is debatable i would say that india has a fairly robust neck and that's not so easily strangled [Music] china has very strategically emerged as one of the most important trading partners of the indian ocean region and it accounts for 16.1 percent of its total good state as of 2017 and like we saw in the belt and road video in the past two decades china has been building infrastructure projects in sri lanka myanmar pakistan and djibouti why because all of these regions fall in the trade route of china's oil imports and their exports to africa middle east and europe so we have the gwadar port in pakistan hamburga port in sri lanka djibouti's naval base and even myanmar's quake few port this is what is being called as the strings of pearl's theory now the burning question over here is what exactly is india doing to tackle it well instead of openly and boldly announcing its strategy like china india has been slowly and steadily operating in a stealth mode with something called the necklace of diamond strategy to understand this let's take a look at the list of strategic bases india has set up with partner countries as well as the various trade agreements that india has signed and by the way you must have seen a lot of people who often criticize the prime minister saying that he is wasting india's money by taking a world tour well for those of you here's why the prime minister of india spends countless hours in traveling all around the world [Music] foreign first let's start from the counter for china's strategic placement at gwadar and djibouti for this india has very cleverly placed its base over here in oman and here's where we have the dhakum port the dhakum bolt is where india's important crude imports flow from the persian gulf this place is strategically located on the south eastern seaboard of oman and is overlooking both the arabian sea and the indian ocean on top of that it is also straddled along the critical sea lanes in the arabian sea and the gulf of eden and all thanks to india's relation with oman we have military access to this port which makes it a great defense point then we come to this region that is close to the second choke point which is the mozambique channel in 2015 modi signed an agreement with the seashells president to develop a place called the assumption island for military use but unfortunately after this deal was done there were a lot of protests there was a change in government because of which this diamond as of now is in a shaky situation then we come to perhaps the most important choke point of all which is the strait of malacca and the other two choke points right beside it here's where we have the changi naval base wherein in 2018 modi signed an agreement with the government of singapore this agreement has provided direct access to the indian navy itself so while sailing through the south china sea the indian navy can refuel and rearm its ship through this space this is followed by the sabhang port in indonesia and again in 2018 india got military access to sabaan port which is located right at the entrance of the malacca strait so theoretically we have a firm grip over the strait of malacca and if you remember from our china's bra video seventy percent of china's oil supply and sixty percent of their trade passes through the strait of malacca so choking this point is like choking the chinese economy itself after that we have the indo-vietnam diamond and long story short we have historically had a great relationship with vietnam we supply some of the most important defense equipment to vietnam and we have signed a comprehensive strategic partnership with vietnam in 2016 itself then we have our important diamond in japan on 9th of september 2020 india and japan signed something called the acquisition and cross servicing agreement that would allow militaries of both these countries to exchange supplies and services on a reciprocal basis so again japan and india can use each other support as per their strategic requirements and the best part about this point is that if you look at the map you will see that it gives us a very very close placement to the main land of china itself and then we have mongolia where modiji became the first indian prime minister to visit and more importantly india has established a very strong relation with mongolia by giving out a one billion dollar credit to develop an air corridor for mongolia and lastly we have the chabahar port in iran and if you remember from our china video again iran is also a part of the chinese bri initiative wherein they have a railway line from china to iran passing through kyrgyzstan uzbekistan turkmenistan to finally ending at tehran in iran so here's where india very cleverly understood the importance of iran so in 2015 itself when iran was facing crippling economic sanctions and diplomatic isolation india agreed to develop a deep water port in chabar on the gulf of oman and as a part of this deal modi ji visited iran and signed the agreement worth 500 million dollars to develop this port and related infrastructure and if you see it's not just strategic with respect to china's infra in iran but also very very close to the guadalupe in pakistan now if you connect all these points together on the world map you will see that it's literally a necklace around china and more importantly they are strategically located points that can be used to counter the chinese in case of any military conflict now although the relations with all these countries is not as ideal as we would like it is a very very significant step to make sure that the dragon is not left completely loose this is what india is doing to make sure that we are protected from the notorious chinese moves and this brings me to the most important part of the episode and that are the study materials to help you understand india's geopolitical relations and strategy better before we move on i want to thank our partners wind wealth for supporting our content for full disclosure think school is also an investor in wind wealth wind wealth is a wonderful platform by which you can invest in bonds of nbfcs with strong backers and earn 9-11 percent interest now most of you might be investing in the stock market as a long-term investor but if you want to make steady returns for a short-term goal that's where wind assets can come in very very handy the investment process is super simple you can see the asset page over here that has detailed information about the asset on the right hand side you can see a table by which you can determine how many units of the bond you want to buy and finally the payment process is also super easy you can pay by upi net banking or the wind wealth fund itself and that's it you are done by investing in wind wealth you can earn returns that are higher than fd and at the same time not as volatile as stocks always remember you must also check out the risks explained on their website before deciding on your investment wind wealth is backed by zero does rain matter kunal shah the ceo of cred and many more reputed investors and you can check them out from the special link in the description moving on the first document i am attaching comes from the international relations and strategic studies institute this document explains the importance of the indian ocean and this document will give you a very very clear understanding as to why is indian ocean so important for the global economy secondly i am attaching a document on the belt and road initiative of china which will give you a deeper understanding of what exactly is china trying to do and for this you can even check out our previous video and lastly i am attaching the super important quad summit fact sheet which will teach you about the important relationship that we are forming with the us australia and japan read through this document very very carefully because it will give you a very deep understanding about how india and other nations actually collaborate together to actually tackle their common threats and to capitalize on their opportunity so as citizens of india using these documents you will very easily be able to understand the international relations strategy of india to counter china and other threats that's all from my side today guys if you learned something valuable please make sure to the like button in order to make beauty bubba happy and for more such insightful business and political case studies please subscribe to our channel thank you so much for watching i will see you in the next one bye bye [Music] you