Competition and Cooperation Between Great Powers Over the Bay of Bengal

Abstract

Since the twenty-first century, with the group rise of emerging economies such as China and India and the implementation of America’s “Asia-Pacific Rebalancing” strategy, the Indian Ocean and the Western Pacific region has become a strategic region more than ever in relations between powers and status changes. The Bay of Bengal, never outstanding in strategic structure of powers, began to see competition and cooperation between great powers, especially the United States, China, India, Japan and other countries which have represented noticeable rivalries and competitions here in recent years. So in the future, whether this backward, diversified and fragile but potential region will be in chaos and failure or in stability and success is closely related to the development and changes in relationship between the regional countries and the great powers. In 2013, great powers began to make their efforts to promote opening and stability in this region. Although there are open and secret struggles and a considerable distance from open cooperation, there are some signs of hope to establish the new relations between big powers in the region, thus raising confidence in preventing the regional countries from falling into failure and chaos.