China’s Underwater Expansion: Implications for Indo-Pacific Maritime Security
Cristee Arora
Research intern at the Indo-Pacific Studies Center
Key Highlights
- UDA holds immense strategic significance, encompassing undersea cables, a vast range of rich mineral resources, advanced submarine operations, and sophisticated information-sharing capabilities.
- China has emerged as a frontrunner, steadily expanding its capabilities and asserting influence in the UDA, through a variety of unmanned and manned naval operations.
- China currently owns around 59 submarines, and according to reports by the NTI, it is expected to grow its fleet to 65.
- The United States of America and India have already started to intensify their cooperation in the UDA Technologies.
The Indo-Pacific region is more than just a geographical territory or a diplomatic alliance, it is the epitome of 21st-century strategic rivalry. While countries continue to assert their maritime influence through surface-level naval operations, enhancing their domain awareness through cooperation, and port development, one crucial horizon remains often overlooked in the discourse of this strategic space: the underwater domain. This submerged landscape, hidden beneath the waves, holds immense strategic significance, encompassing undersea cables, a vast range of rich mineral resources, advanced submarine operations, and sophisticated information-sharing capabilities. Among various regional powers, China has emerged as a frontrunner, steadily expanding its capabilities and asserting influence in this invisible battlefield beneath the sea through a variety of unmanned and manned naval operations, underwater warfare, hypersonic warfare equipment, sea infrastructure, sending comprehensive scientific research ships for deep sea global exploration especially in the colder seas, and additionally to keep surveillance of submarines of the US, Japan, and other nations, deployed to monitor the Chinese themselves.
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Cristee Arora
Research intern at the Indo-Pacific Studies Center
Cristee is a second-year political science student and a research intern at the Indo-Pacific Studies Center. She is also a member of Global Youth and the Indian Foreign Policy Project and has previously worked in policy analysis under the Union Ministry of Culture, Government of India. Further, Cristee is currently working as an impact officer at ASEAN Youth Organization India and has also been a delegate to the Harvard Conference of Asian and International Relations 2024 and the World Bank Group Youth Summit 2025. Her articles range from the maritime issues in the Indo-Pacific to the tensions and the nuclear history in the Middle East.