A Sri Lankan port being built by China points to Beijing's jockeying with India for regional influence.
... These tankers provide 80% of China's oil and 65% of India's -- fuel desperately needed for the two countries' rapidly growing economies. Japan is almost totally dependent on energy supplies shipped through the Indian Ocean.
For decades the world relied on the U.S. Navy to protect this sea lane. But as India and China gain economic heft, they are moving to expand their control of the waterway, sparking a new, and potentially dangerous, rivalry between Asia's emerging giants.
The Chinese insist the Hambantota port is a purely commercial move, and by all appearances, it is. But some in India see ominous designs behind the project, while others in countries surrounding India like the idea. A 2004 Pentagon report called Beijing's effort to expand its presence in the region China's "string of pearls."
"Each pearl in the string is a link in a chain of the Chinese maritime presence," India's navy chief, Adm. Sureesh Mehta, said in a speech in January, expressing concern that naval forces operating out of ports established by the Chinese could "take control over the world energy jugular."
[in today's world, energy is power - we're the only major nation ignoring that]
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