Silk Cage Series – Webinar III: Corridors, Coasts, and Contestation: China’s Influence Operations in the Bay of Bengal and the BCIM Space
Debates over China’s expanding role in the Bay of Bengal and the BCIM (Bangladesh–China–India–Myanmar) space increasingly revolve around a fundamental question: is China building connectivity to promote regional integration, or is it operationalising influence through corridors, coasts, and political access? While Beijing frames its engagement as economic cooperation and subregional development, critics argue that China is using the Bay of Bengal as a laboratory for influence operations that blend infrastructure, diplomacy, security engagement, and narrative power. This tension between integration and influence provides the analytical entry point for this webinar.
The Bay of Bengal occupies a critical position in China’s regional calculus. It connects South Asia to Southeast Asia, links continental corridors to maritime routes, and sits astride vital sea lines of communication in the northeastern Indian Ocean. For China, the Bay of Bengal serves as both a gateway and a buffer, providing access to maritime trade routes while enabling a strategic presence along India’s eastern seaboard. The region also overlaps with China’s long-standing interest in sub-regional frameworks such as the BCIM corridor, which seeks to link and integrate Chinese plans with southwestern China with eastern India, Bangladesh, and Myanmar.
Originally conceived as an economic corridor, BCIM was promoted as a platform for trade facilitation, infrastructure development, and people-to-people connectivity. Over time, however, the corridor has become strategically contested—particularly as India grew wary of China’s expanding footprint and the political implications of deepened connectivity. While BCIM has stalled institutionally, its strategic logic has not disappeared. Instead, China has pursued its objectives through bilateral and minilateral pathways, embedding itself in ports, industrial zones, energy projects, and digital infrastructure across the Bay of Bengal littoral.
A key debate underpinning this webinar concerns the nature of Chinese influence operations in the region. Unlike overt military expansion, China’s approach in the Bay of Bengal relies on cumulative, indirect mechanisms. Infrastructure financing is paired with elite engagement, bureaucratic training, media outreach, and security cooperation. Port development and coastal connectivity are complemented by access arrangements, maritime capacity-building, and growing naval familiarity. Together, these instruments enable China to shape policy environments, strategic preferences, and threat perceptions without formal alliances or visible coercion.
Another contested issue is regional agency and fragmentation. Bay of Bengal states actively seek external investment to support development and diversification, yet they face uneven bargaining power vis-à-vis China. Bangladesh’s balancing strategies, Myanmar’s political volatility, and India’s concerns over strategic encroachment illustrate how Chinese influence operates differently across national contexts while contributing to a broader regional pattern. The Bay of Bengal thus becomes a space where China exploits political asymmetries and institutional gaps to consolidate long-term leverage.
For India, China’s expanding presence in the Bay of Bengal presents a multidimensional challenge. It links continental concerns in the eastern Himalayas with maritime pressures in the Indian Ocean, blurring the boundary between land and sea competition. Ports, corridors, and digital infrastructure collectively alter the strategic geometry of India’s eastern neighbourhood, raising questions about deterrence, maritime domain awareness, and regional leadership.
For external stakeholders such as the European Union, Japan, and the United States, China’s activities in the Bay of Bengal highlight the limits of existing regional frameworks and the difficulty of offering credible alternatives to Chinese engagement. Competing connectivity and maritime initiatives exist but often lack the political embeddedness and sustained presence that characterise China’s approach.
This webinar, the third in the Silk Cage Series, will examine how China uses the Bay of Bengal and the BCIM space to operationalise influence across South Asia and the northeastern Indian Ocean. By focusing on influence operations rather than infrastructure alone, the discussion will explore how corridors and coasts function as strategic tools, and how this reshapes regional order, autonomy, and contestation. This Silk Cage Series is a part of the Stockholm Center for South Asian and Indo-Pacific Affairs (SCSA-IPA) research project titled, ‘The Silk Noose: China’s Power Architecture in South Asia and Indian Ocean Region’.
In general, this webinar will address some of the following questions:
- How does China integrate corridors like BCIM with its maritime strategy in the Bay of Bengal?
- To what extent are China’s engagements in the region economic initiatives versus influence operations?
- How are the Bay of Bengal states managing opportunities and constraints arising from China’s presence?
- What are the implications of China’s eastern outreach for India’s maritime and neighbourhood security?
- How should external actors respond to China’s growing influence in the Bay of Bengal space?
Speakers:
Dr. Jessica C. Liao is an Associate Professor of Asian Studies in the Department of National Security and Strategy at the U.S. Army War College and an Adjunct Professor at Georgetown University’s Walsh School of Foreign Service. Previously, she served as an Associate Professor of Political Science at North Carolina State University (2016–2025). A former 2020–21 Wilson China Fellow, she also served as an Economic Development Specialist at the U.S. Embassy in Beijing, where her portfolio included China’s relations with Africa, the Middle East, and Southeast Asia. She holds a Ph.D. in International Relations from the University of Southern California. Her research focuses on China’s foreign policy and economic statecraft, US-China relations, and China–Southeast Asia relations.
Professor J Mohan Malik teaches Strategic Studies at the UAE National Defence College, and is a Non-Resident Fellow at the NESA Center for Strategic Studies, Washington, DC. Prior to joining the UAE National Defence College, he was Professor in Asian Security at the U.S. Defense Department’s Asia-Pacific Center for Security Studies in Hawaii, and Director of Defence Studies Program at Deakin University, Australia. He specializes in great power politics, maritime security and the geopolitics of the Indo-Pacific region. Professor Malik is the author and editor of several books, including Maritime Security in the Indo-Pacific (Rowman & Littlefield, 2014), China and India: Great Power Rivals (Lynne Rienner Publishers, 2011), Religious Radicalism and Security in South Asia (APCSS, 2004), and Australia’s Security in the 21st Century (Allen & Unwin, 1999). He has contributed numerous book chapters and published over 200 articles in research journals and his op-eds have appeared in Wall Street Journal, International Herald Tribune, Japan Times, The American Interest, The Diplomat, and YaleGlobal Online.
Mr. Sanjay Pulipaka is currently the Chairperson of the Politeia Research Foundation and an expert on Indo-Pacific geopolitics and India’s foreign policy, with prior senior roles at leading Indian think tanks and fellowships at the University of Cambridge and under the Fulbright Program. He has published widely on geopolitics, connectivity projects, the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), democracy, federalism, and international relations theory.
Dr. Shahab E. Khan is a Professor at the Department of International Relations at Jahangirnagar University, Dhaka, Bangladesh. His areas of expertise focus on Foreign Affairs, Defence, and Security, i.e., terrorism and extremism; Migration (particularly the Bay of Bengal region, Rohingya, and Northeast India); and energy. Furthermore, his regional focus includes Southeast and South Asia and the Indo-Pacific Region. Prof. Khan is currently supervising doctoral research focusing on Myanmar, security policy, countering violent extremism, and maritime affairs in the Indo-Pacific Region.
Ms. Su Myat Thwe is a Visiting scientist at the Global South Studies Center and a PhD candidate in Social and Cultural Anthropology at the University of Cologne. Trained as a lawyer in Myanmar, she holds degrees in law and business administration, with professional experience in corporate communications and social responsibility. Her research focuses on displacement and refugee studies, marginalization and access to justice, and humanitarianism and educational equity in conflict settings. Her current doctoral research explores resilience and agency among displaced Myanmar youths in Thailand, focusing on education in borderlands.
Moderator:
Dr. Jagannath Panda is the Head of the Stockholm Center for South Asian and Indo-Pacific Affairs (SCSA-IPA) at the Institute for Security and Development Policy (ISDP), Sweden. Dr. Panda is also a Senior Fellow at The Hague Center for Strategic Studies in the Netherlands. As a senior expert on China, East Asia, and Indo-Pacific affairs, Prof. Panda has testified to the US-China Economic and Security Review Commission at the US Congress on ‘China and South Asia’. He is the Series Editor forRoutledge Studies on Think Asia.
More webinars in the series: