The PLA at Home and Abroad - Strategic Studies Institute - U.S. Army

tential threat to China’s most important oil shipping
lane. 38 For this reason, India pays close attention to
any Chinese activities that would grant Beijing intelligence
collection facilities and access to ports in the
Indian Ocean region. Particular attention has been
focused on reported naval facilities, radars, and signal-intelligence
collection posts constructed by China
along Myanmar’s coast, on the Cocos Islands, and the
new port of Gwadar on Pakistan’s coast.
Beijing’s strategic goals in South Asia writ large are
difficult to discern. On the one hand, cooperating with
India serves China’s interests well. Beijing nonetheless
obviously views India’s deepening defense-related
links with the United States with concern. China’s
response to these expanding defense ties has been one
of making Beijing’s unease clear while simultaneously
avoiding the charge that India has become a U.S. ally.
For example, on June 28, 2005, the U.S. Secretary of
Defense and India’s Minister of Defense signed the
“New Framework for the U.S.-India Defense Relationship.”
39 The English language edition of People’s
Daily on July 7 published an unsigned commentary
on this development that had appeared a week earlier
in the Global Times, a subsidiary of People’s Daily, entitled
“Washington Draws India in Against China.” 40
The commentary asserts that the agreement is “partly
intended to diminish China’s influence in the region
and to safeguard and expand U.S. strategic interest in
Asia.” Nevertheless, citing India’s Defense Minister
Pranab Mukherjee, the commentary continues by stating
that India is suspicious of U.S. intentions and has
no intention of joining an India-U.S. strategic alliance
against China.
Beijing, perhaps partially in response to the U.S.
initiative upgrading American defense links with India,
signed a memorandum of understanding (MOU)
69