The Maritime Silk Road, Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank, China-Pakistan Economic Corridor, and a Chinese submarine anchored at harbor in Sri Lanka: China's strength is felt like never before in the Indian Ocean.

If there is one country that is most concerned with all these developments, it can only be India. Unlike Sri Lanka, Bangladesh, the Maldives, and Pakistan, who all embrace China's Maritime Silk Road initiative with open arms, India's attitude cautious and suspicious. Prime Minister Narendra Modi's recent visit to Seychelles, Mauritius, and Sri Lanka was largely taken as a counter-balance to China's growing influence in India's periphery. Despite Sri Lanka being only a narrow strait away, the Indian Prime Minister's visit to Sri Lanka was the first 27 years, and to Seychelles, 34 years.

What can India do? First, China's involvement is primarily in economic field, especially in infrastructure. Secondly, India could be a beneficiary. India herself is involved in negotiating a China-Bangladesh-Myanmar-India Economic Corridor and it is a founding member of Asia Infrastructure Investment Bank. Both were initiated by China.

India's utmost concern is in security, with the so-called "string of pearls" strategy of China. Allegedly these "pearls" are naval bases or electronic eavesdropping posts built by Chinese in Myanmar, Bangladesh, Pakistani and Sri Lanka. Ten years have elapsed since the term was coined by an American defense contractor in 2005. The "bases" are found nowhere in the Indian Ocean. The most convincing proof is that the PLA naval vessels have been conducting counter-piracy operations in the Gulf of Aden and Somali Basin for over 6 years without any bases of their own. Indian navy is equally involved in counter-piracy and is working in tandem with the Chinese navy. Both of them coordinate with some 20 international naval forces within a multi-national framework called SHADE. In May 2011, the Indian navy helped rescue Chinese merchant ship "Full City" and Chinese naval vessels helped escort many foreign ships, including Indian ships.

But if Chinese presence in the Indian Ocean is not a question for alert, what about India's argument that if the Indian Ocean doesn't belong to India, the South China Sea, too, doesn't belong to China? In other words, could China accommodate India's presence in the Asia-Pacific?

India government adopted a "Look East" policy since 1991. It represents initially an effort to cultivate economic and strategic relations with the nations of Southeast Asia and to counterweight the influence of China. After two decades, this policy was widely criticized as superficial, especially when compared to China's tremendous achievement. Today China is the largest trading partners of over 120 countries and the second largest trading partner of India. Since Prime Minister Modi took office, he brushed aside the "Look East" policy and rebranded it as "Act East" policy, in the hope that India will act rather than look east in the future.

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