PM Modi sent an indirect message to China while addressing the second annual Raisina Dialogue
Growing military ambitions in the Asia-Pacific are creating security risks, Prime Minister Narendra Modi said in a coded message to China to exercise strategic restraint.
Although couched in diplomatic language and not mentioning China by name, PM Modi's remarks in a keynote foreign policy speech come as US President-elect Donald Trump has declared his intent to curb Beijing's regional clout.
"Rising ambition and rivalries are generally visible stress points," PM Modi told an audience of politicians and top military brass from 65 nations at a security conference in Delhi. "The steady increase in military power, resources and wealth in the Asia-Pacific has raised the stakes of security." He also said that
differences between neighbouring powers are natural.
Mr Trump has, since his shock election victory in November over Democrat Hillary Clinton, called into question the
"One China" policy that Washington has adhered to for decades.
His pick for Secretary of State, former Exxon Mobil CEO Rex Tillerson, also told a confirmation hearing that Beijing's militarisation of reclaimed islands in the disputed waters of the South China Sea must be stopped.
That is a welcome stand in the foreign policy establishment in Delhi.
PM Modi was addressing the second annual Raisina Dialogue, a geopolitical gathering in Delhi sponsored by the Foreign Ministry and the Observer Research Foundation, a think tank, that is competing for attention with the higher-profile World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland.
Speaking in Davos, Chinese President Xi Jinping avoided mention of Mr Trump and instead mounted a
vigorous defence of free trade that the American president-elect has vowed to roll back to protect US jobs.
Although many of the guests in New Delhi were former, rather than current Prime Ministers, they did include the top US naval commander in the Pacific, Admiral Harry Harris.
PM Modi called for a rules-based security architecture in the Asia-Pacific that is "open, transparent, balanced and inclusive, and promote(s) dialogue and predictable behaviour rooted in international norms and respect for sovereignty."
That reflects not only India's concerns about the South China Sea, but fears that Beijing is threading a "string of pearls" in the Indian Ocean theatre by building strategic ports in countries like Sri Lanka, Pakistan and Djibouti on the eastern coast of Africa.
India has maritime interests in all directions that are "strategic and significant", said PM Modi. India is the world's fourth-largest oil importer and juts southward from the Eurasian landmass into the strategic shipping lane running from the Middle East to the rising economies of the Asia-Pacific.
"Primary responsibility for security in the Indian Ocean rests with those who live in this region," he said. "Respecting freedom of navigation and adhering to international norms are essential for peace and growth in the larger and interlinked marine geography of the Indo-Pacific."