India - China maritime cooperation

In a significant move, India and China will have a high-level group to address their fast-growing, and, at times, overlapping ambitions at sea.
The two countries will look at common interests of providing security at sea for merchant shipping. Crude oil is carried on ships and billions of dollars of trade is done through the route. Protection of the Sea Lanes of Communication (SLOCS) - a designated international sea trade corridor - is one area where cooperation is a must for both countries heavily dependent on sea trade to run their economies, sources said.
New Delhi will set up an inter-ministerial group on its side while Beijing would have an official team that would periodically exchange views with each other on “maritime trade and security”. The Indian group is expected to have the Ministry of External Affairs, Ministry of Defence, Ministry of Shipping and the Department of Oceanography.
In Brazil today, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and Chinese counterpart Wen Jiabao met on the sidelines of Rio+20 Summit, where they agreed to step up defence and security dialogue. The maritime cooperation is an important part of that.
Earlier in March, just ahead of the BRICS summit, it was announced that a maritime cooperation interaction will be finalised between the two Asian giants who aspire to have a “blue-water’ navy and project themselves as dominant players at sea. Naval warships of China and India, are in common grouping with Japan - South Korea will join on July 1 -- in anti-piracy patrols in the pirate-infested waters in the Gulf of Aden which, when traversed westwards, leads to the Red Sea and the Suez Canal.
New Delhi is also keen to have a Naval ‘protocol at sea’ with Beijing. The US and the USSR had such an agreement during the Cold war era. This prevented misunderstandings from escalating into skirmishes. India perceives that a misunderstanding could occur with China as warships of both Navies, nowadays, traverse the oceans on different duties like anti-piracy operations and long-range deployments.
Last year Indian naval warships had separate face-offs on high seas in international waters with Pakistan Navy and Chinese Navy. On both occasion, it led to a war of words and a blame game between the two countries. Indian warship INS Godavari had a brush with Pakistani ship PNS Babur in the Arabian Sea earlier this year.
Babur had rammed into Godavari damaging its flight deck net. After that, INS Airavat sailing in the South China Sea was asked over open radio by a person identifying the area as Chinese territory to back off. The Indian warship continued on its course.