India has handled the fall out of the imposition of protectionist trade tariffs by the US in mid 2025 and the subsequent developments with strategic patience and without confrontation. The next round of trade weaponisation against India is more likely to come not from the US, but from our arch-rival China.
This is since at least 95% of India's trade by volume and around 72% by value is carried by sea. China today is the undisputed global leader in civil maritime capabilities- including fleet size, infrastructure and technology. This asymmetry carries severe implications for India.
A serious limitation that India faces is that about 95 percent of her trade goes in foreign owned or flagged ships including Chinese vessels, which is a strategic and economic concern. This is since India has a rather small merchant marine; with a share of just 1.2 percent of the global merchant fleet. China meanwhile has one of the largest merchant fleets globally, aggregating about 14–16 percent of the world total in gross tonnage. This is a strategic vulnerability for India, especially in times of war; when foreign ships may avoid Indian waters, refuse to carry Indian cargo, charge hefty insurance premiums- thereby disrupting our supply chain reliability. Moreover, our adversaries, China and Pakistan could either independently or in tandem, target the few Indian flagged vessels, especially crude oil carriers, in a bid to affect India’s war waging capability, since we import almost 80 percent of our crude from overseas.
While India has an impressive record as far as building of warships is concerned; the same cannot be said of the merchant shipbuilding. Decades of inadequate strategic focus have left India with less than one percent of the global merchant shipbuilding market. China on the other hand, is the world’s largest commercial shipbuilder, routinely accounting for around 50–60 % of global shipbuilding orders by gross tonnage, followed by South Korea and Japan. Until India can build competitive capability and capacity for large commercial ships, many Indian companies will continue to turn to established shipyards abroad including China.
Similarly India imports about 90 percent of her shipping container requirements from China, creating vulnerability in export logistics and trade infrastructure .This was driven home effectively during the Covid -19 induced delays and the country has now embarked on a mission to produce containers domestically.
Significantly, 70 percent of India's trade is trans-shipped at foreign ports such as Colombo, Singapore, Port Kelang and Dubai, often in Chinese operated terminals. India lacks the adequate trans-shipment ports in the south of the country. This has several strategic, economic, and logistical implications for a maritime country like India. The inauguration of the Vizhinjam port in Kerala is a welcome step towards overcoming this lacunae .The strategic International Container Trans-shipment Port being built at Galathea Bay in the Great Nicobar Island , is at least a decade away , if not more, before limited operations begin .
Chinese-made cranes dominate most of the Indian ports owing to their cost effectiveness and ready availability in comparison to the ones manufactured in Europe or elsewhere. Estimates suggest that India has about 280 Chinese cranes at its ports. In recent times, however, countries such as the US have raised concerns that Chinese-made port cranes could contain embedded software and could be used to carry out cyber attacks to disrupt critical supply chains. Maritime cyber attacks have risen sharply over the last few years. For instance, in May 2020, Iran’s Shahid Rajaee port experienced a serious cyber attack, possibly by Israel, that disrupted port computer systems controlling traffic and logistics, causing significant backlogs. Therefore India while not banning Chinese cranes is encouraging imports from diverse sources through tax incentives.
India is the world’s third-largest supplier of seafarers, contributing nearly 12 percent of the global maritime workforce, after China and the Philippines. They are a major pillar of our civilian maritime strength. However, there have been instances earlier when Indian vessels or vessels with Indian crew experienced delays in berthing and loading / unloading cargo in Chinese ports; though not conclusively established. Beijing had naturally rejected such reports attributing it to Covid -19 related delays or operational reasons. However in the event of a crisis situation, China could very well adopt such a ‘tool kit’ to stop foreign shipping companies from hiring India seafarers, with attendant problems.
Many of our maritime shortcomings stem from a mix of historical neglect, structural constraints, financial limitations and policy factors. Nevertheless, the Centre is fully seized of the strategic and economic vulnerabilities and is transforming the civil maritime sector through various Aatmanirbhar projects such as the Sagarmala Programme, the Rs 69,725 crore shipbuilding incentive package , Maritime Amrit Kaal Vision 2047, the Rs 25,000 crore Maritime Development Fund, infrastructure status for shipbuilding and five new maritime bills enacted in 2025, to boost ease of doing business, aiming to position India among top shipbuilding nations in the years ahead .
Further, the centre has recently re-designated the DG Shipping as ‘DG Maritime Administration’ (DGMA) with some changes to its charter. Unfortunately it continues to be headed by officers of the IAS or IRS who lack ‘specialist maritime domain knowledge’, something which has been commented upon by strategic and security experts for several years now. India needs domain experts such as officers from the Indian Coast Guard or the Indian Navy to tenet this position since the role of DGMA is highly technical and strategic, not just administrative. Unfortunately the country continues to be afflicted by ‘sea blindness’.
Even as China consolidates its dominance in the global civilian maritime sector, the Chinese People’s Liberation Army (Navy) - now numerically surpassing the US Navy- has been making a surge in to the Indian Ocean Region (IOR) in recent years. China’s so called ‘string of pearls’ strategy and connectivity projects in the IOR are well documented.
If India is to ensure ‘strategic autonomy’, it must adopt a whole-of-nation approach and work in close coordination with friendly maritime countries to take on the ‘Dragon’ at sea.
(The writer is a former Principal Director Naval Intelligence and has served as a Director in the Cabinet Secretariat)