IN-DEPTH: Indo-China Tug of War Over Maldives Highlights New-Age Geopolitics in Indian Ocean

NEW DELHI—Maldives is set to host a Chinese survey and research vessel, the Xiang Yang Hong 03, equipped with advanced surveillance. The incident has triggered concerns in India, a giant neighbor to both Maldives and China. Experts said it is indicative of new-age geopolitics characterized by the ideological polarity between Beijing and New Delhi. “If true, it would obviously be concerning for India in terms of the longer-term geostrategic situation. In the short-term, if a Chinese research vessel does arrive in Malé at this particularly sensitive time, I’d say it indicates that neither China nor the Muizzu administration has any interest in easing tensions with India,” British journalist Daniel Bosley, author of “Descent into Paradise: a Journalist’s Memoir of the Untold Maldives,” told The Epoch Times in an email....