The great power contest between Washington and Beijing is playing out not just in trade tariffs and technological rivalry — it is increasingly manifesting in steel and concrete, in pipelines and ports, in the tension between sea lanes and land corridors. Where the United States presses forward with its naval empire in the Indo-Pacific, China counters with terrestrial arteries designed to slip around maritime chokepoints. The result is a high-stakes point-counterpoint strategy in which power, logistics, and risk are all in play.
At its heart, the drama revolves around one of the most geopolitically consequential theatres on Earth: the waters and coasts of Eurasia. The U.S. continues to anchor its grand strategy in the Spykman-derived realpolitik of containment — control the margins, as the sea is the gateway to Eurasia. China, in turn, views that maritime dominance as an existential threat: depending too much on vulnerable sea lanes, particularly through the Strait of Malacca, poses a strategic Achilles’ heel. The Chinese answer: build alternate overland lifelines and bind weaker states to dependency through infrastructure. South Asia emerges as the frontline in this tug-of-war.
This deep-dive explores how Washington seeks to command the seas, how Beijing races to bypass them, and what the implications may be for states caught between the two.
From the vantage of American strategists, dominance of the seas remains the lever of global influence. The United States cannot easily be encircled; instead, it has long sought to encircle — projecting naval and aerial power outward from its maritime periphery into Eurasia. In the Indo-Pacific, this takes the form of forward bases, rotational deployments, alliances, and persistent maritime presence.
Spykman’s legacy
Nicholas Spykman’s influence on U.S. strategic thought cannot be overstated. He famously argued that in order to control Eurasian dominance, one must command the periphery—especially the coastal zones and maritime approaches. The logic: if you deny rivals access to the seas, you deny them mobility, influence, and power projection.
This doctrine was adapted to the post–World War II era and eventually shaped the “containment” mindset during the Cold War. While containment was often framed in terms of the Soviet Union and later Russia, many of its geographic assumptions and strategic templates now find renewed relevance in the U.S.–China rivalry. The Indo-Pacific is viewed not just as an arc of islands, but as the outer girdle of Eurasia. Maintaining maritime dominance thereby becomes a way to hedge against threats emerging from Asia’s continental core.
The island-chain strategy and forward posture
The U.S. employs a so-called island-chain strategy, which envisions a series of maritime “fences” — the first, second, and third island chains — that constrain China’s naval maneuverability and give U.S. and allied forces strategic depth.
Through agreements with allies and partners, the U.S. gains access to bases and facilities across the Pacific and Indian Oceans. These allow American naval vessels and air assets to operate within striking distance of contested zones, from Taiwan’s waters to the South China Sea and beyond. U.S. naval presence also signals to regional states that Washington stands ready to defend freedom of navigation — the height of which is the annual deployment of carrier strike groups, submarine patrols, and maritime exercises near contested waters.
Washington’s Indo-Pacific Strategy, released in 2022, underscores this point: the United States intends to invest in alliances, expand maritime cooperation, and bolster security capacity across Southeast and South Asia.
Surveillance, deterrence, and escalation risk
With naval sorties, surveillance flights, and freedom-of-navigation operations, the U.S. presses Beijing to police its assertive maritime claims — especially in the South China Sea. Washington views these operations as enforcing international law and deterring coercive behavior.
At the same time, these deployments carry escalation risk. Near-miss incidents, naval shadowing, or contested interpretations of territorial waters can trigger crisis dynamics in flashpoint zones. The United States must calibrate how assertively to posture — too timid, and it loses deterrent credibility; too aggressive, and it risks confrontation.
Thus, each U.S. naval transit, each freedom-of-navigation mission, is both a power signal to China and a diplomatic gambit with regional states. Behind all this lies Washington’s enduring conviction: that controlling seas and coasts is the key to constraining Eurasian powers.
From Beijing’s perspective, U.S. maritime dominance is not just an irritant — it strikes at the heart of China’s strategic continuity. The prospect of chokepoints being blocked, contested, or leveraged in a crisis has animated decades of Chinese strategic planning.
The “Malacca dilemma”
China’s dependence on the Strait of Malacca – a sea lane that carries much of its oil, LNG, and trade between the Indian and Pacific Oceans — is often described as the Malacca dilemma.
Statistics underscore the vulnerability:
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Each year, roughly a quarter of global maritime trade — about 90,000 merchant vessels — pass through the strait.
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In 2024, it is estimated that around 65 million barrels per day of oil and 24.8 billion cubic feet per day of LNG transited Malacca, much destined for China.
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As of 2022, China imported roughly 74% of its crude oil and 35% of its LNG via this route.
These figures mean that a blockade, political disruption, or even U.S.-backed pressure on littoral states could severely jeopardize China’s energy and trade lifelines.
Thus, China regards the Malacca corridor not just as a shipping channel but as a strategic vulnerability. The possibility that an adversary—in a war or coercive standoff—could interdict or threaten these lines looms large in Chinese strategic imagination.
The Belt and Road and diversification push
In response, Beijing has embarked on a decades-long campaign to build alternative land-based routes and diversify supply lines. The Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), launched in 2013, is the centerpiece: infrastructure investments spanning across Asia, Africa, and Europe, with a strong emphasis on ports, railways, pipelines, and roads. Over 150 countries have become connected under some BRI umbrella.
In the first half of 2025 alone, Chinese contracts reached a record $124 billion, with $66.2 billion allocated to infrastructure (ports, highways, pipelines) and another $57.1 billion toward energy, tech, and manufacturing investments. Over $42 billion flowed into energy projects (both fossil and renewables) — nearly $10 billion directed to wind and solar — reflecting China’s pursuit of energy diversification and strategic redundancy. (Source: projections based on official Chinese and Chinese-linked research data.)
Chinese policy is guided by three strategic imperatives:
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Build alternate routes: create overland or mixed conduits that do not depend on vulnerable maritime chokepoints.
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Reduce exposure: minimize the share of imports reliant on single sea passages.
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Leverage infrastructure: tie partner states into Chinese supply chains and strategic dependency.
One core ambition is to transform South Asia into a terrestrial transit zone that can circumvent Malacca-style risk.
c) South Asia’s strategic centrality
Within the BRI architecture, South Asia holds an outsized role. Its location offers a fertile terrain for routes that skirt U.S.-dominated sea lanes and link China directly with energy-producing regions and global markets.
The China–Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC) is the flagship example. Valued at over $62 billion, CPEC provides China with a land-sea hybrid conduit from the Arabian Sea port of Gwadar in Pakistan’s Balochistan to Xinjiang province, crossing through heavily securitized terrain. It represents an alternative to passage through the Indian Ocean and Strait of Malacca.
Beyond Pakistan, China eyes corridors through Myanmar — such as the China–Myanmar Corridor via the deep-water port at Kyaukphyu — and the conceptual Bangladesh–China–India–Myanmar Economic Corridor (BCIM-EC). However, India remains the most complicated geopolitical actor in these designs.
Yet, building these overland links is fraught with risks: from insurgency, instability, and contested sovereignty to the costs and maintenance burdens of difficult terrains. But for Beijing, the existential need to defend continuous trade and energy flows gives it a powerful motive to press forward.
Among all China’s land-based gambits, CPEC perhaps poses the most unmatched promise — and the greatest dangers.
Strategic logic and promise
CPEC offers a direct overland alternative to Malacca. By bringing oil and gas to Gwadar and sending them on pipelines through Pakistan and onward to China, China effectively reduces its dependence on the narrow ocean strait. In conflict or crisis conditions, this corridor could allow Beijing to sustain energy imports even under partial maritime interdiction.
Beyond raw logistics, CPEC also binds Pakistan tightly to Chinese strategic interests. Chinese investment in Pakistani infrastructure, energy, and development creates a matrix of dependency and leverage that Beijing can exploit in times of tension. In other words, CPEC is simultaneously an energy corridor and a geopolitical tether.
For China, the rewards are manifold: a safer route for energy imports, a reduction in maritime vulnerability, and increased influence over Pakistan’s internal affairs and foreign policy calculus.
Security challenges and internal fracturing
But CPEC is no straw man. It is beset by security risks, local resistance, and political volatility.
Pakistan’s Balochistan province — home to Gwadar — has long been a region of insurgency, separatist movements, and violence. Chinese-built infrastructure is frequently targeted: in 2024 alone, attacks hit major Chinese-linked projects including energy and hydroelectric facilities. These assaults strained both security provisions and confidence. (Open-source local media and intelligence reports confirm such incidents.)
Despite these challenges, China has shown little sign of retreat. Its conviction that energy security is existential seems to outweigh the costs of guarding pipelines and ports in volatile terrain.
The Afghanistan card
Another frontier in Beijing’s overland strategy is Afghanistan. With mineral deposits estimated in the trillions (lithium, copper, rare earths), Afghanistan has long been hyped as a “Saudi Arabia of lithium” — though its promise has repeatedly been deferred by governance vacuums, conflict, and institutional fragility. A 2010 Pentagon memo referenced this potential. (Classified U.S. and academic papers have circulated that assessment.)
The Chinese and Pakistani calculus now seems to extend beyond mere transit: if Afghanistan can be reintegrated economically, it could serve as a mineral corridor and buffer region in the broader South Asian transit matrix. That said, the Taliban’s tenuous legitimacy, internal fragmentation, and external pressures complicate any coherent long-term strategy.
Thus, CPEC and Afghanistan represent two poles of China’s land-strategy: one already under construction, the other speculative but strategically tantalizing.
Neither Washington nor Beijing operates in a vacuum. The strategic competition is mediated through third states, coalitions, and local pushback. In South Asia especially, smaller powers are increasingly playing their own game.
New U.S. moves in Pakistan — Pasni port
In a telling development, Pakistan’s military advisers have floated the idea of building a deep-sea port at Pasni, near Gwadar, but with a twist: they are exploring U.S. participation in its development, potentially giving Washington a direct presence on the Arabian Sea.
If realized, this could provide the U.S. with an alternative base of access in Pakistan — countering Chinese dominance around Gwadar and injecting Washington into regional infrastructure competition on Pakistan’s terms. The move signals how Pakistan may seek to hedge between U.S. and Chinese influence, leveraging its strategic geography for bargaining power.
The “String of Pearls” and India’s counter
From Washington’s perspective, Chinese ventures across ports and sea lanes in Sri Lanka, Maldives, Myanmar, and Pakistan form a “String of Pearls” — a strategic network intended to encircle the Indian Ocean.
India is not a passive bystander. New Delhi has been investing in its own strategic infrastructure (such as Chabahar in Iran, and the ‘Double Fish Hook’ maritime posture via the Andaman & Nicobar and Duqm-Indian Ocean links) to counterbalance China’s encirclement efforts. India also participates in security frameworks like the Quad (with the U.S., Japan, and Australia) and is expanding naval outreach across the Indian Ocean rim.
Thus, India has become a pivot — both as a competitor to China and as a partner to the U.S. — complicating the regional chessboard.
Minilateral frameworks and economic pushback
Washington has not been idle on the diplomatic front. The U.S.-led Indo-Pacific Strategy pledges expanded alliances, multilateral connectivity, and maritime capacity building. The White House The Indo-Pacific Economic Framework (IPEF), launched in 2022, aims to bind Asia-Pacific states into alternative trade, digital, and supply-chain architectures outside Chinese-led structures
Simultaneously, the U.S. is intensifying partnerships with regional armies, navies, coast guards, and intelligence networks — effectively forming a lattice of local capacity against strategic coercion. In congressional testimony, analysts underscore how U.S. alliances (Japan, Korea, Philippines, Australia) provide America with flexibility and deterrence depth in a maritime contest that China cannot easily replicate.
These “minilateral” formations — Quad, AUKUS, trilateral frameworks — inject strategic leverage into regional defense posture without depending on the slow politics of comprehensive alliances.
In sum, each side is arming not only in steel and convoy but in diplomacy, economics, and regional networks.
This dual strategy — sea control by the U.S., land corridors by China — is neither frictionless nor guaranteed. Both sides face structural constraints, local resistance, and systemic risks.
Overextension and cost burden
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For Washington: maintaining a global maritime posture across multiple theaters is expensive. The demands of sustaining naval fleets, bases, and allied logistics stretch budgets and political will. Any overcommitment or reduction invites strategic gaps.
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For Beijing: overland routes across rugged terrain or insecure zones are capital-intensive, vulnerable to disruption, and expensive to maintain. Infrastructure wear-and-tear, security costs, and local pushback (e.g. in Balochistan or Myanmar) can erode returns on investment.
Local backlash and sovereignty concerns
Many South Asian states — India, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, Nepal, Bhutan — are acutely wary of foreign influence. China’s infrastructure overtures often come with strings: debt traps, sovereignty encroachments, and social discontent. The backlash in Sri Lanka over Chinese-financed projects, or protests in Pakistan against BRI terms, illustrate the perils of overreach.
Conversely, U.S. pressure or alignment with local states can also trigger nationalist resistance or nonalignment posturing.
Intraregional power dynamics
South Asian security and political competition complicate any infrastructure corridor. India will resist any corridor that strengthens China’s geopolitical leverage in its neighborhood. Pakistan’s internal fragility, instability in Afghanistan, and shifting alliances create risk. Myanmar’s military rule complicates land route planning. Bangladesh and Nepal must navigate between economic opportunity and strategic alignment.
These fractures mean that Beijing’s land-centric strategy cannot be plug-and-play; it must constantly negotiate the politics of transit states.
When maritime and land strategies collide, escalation risk looms. Suppose China accelerates overland oil transit while U.S. naval forces shadow the Strait of Malacca; or if Pakistan allows U.S. footprint near Gwadar — such instances could provoke crisis standoffs. Mixtures of coercion, interdiction, and show-of-force maneuvers become highly plausible.
Moreover, war or blockade scenarios test the robustness of both strategies. If a conflict breaks out, can Beijing keep its corridors intact under sabotage or aerial interdiction? Can Washington hold chokepoints under missile or submarine threats?
The timeline mismatch
China’s land strategies are incremental and generational. They mature slowly, asset by asset. U.S. sea-based power is more immediate; naval vessels can reposition overnight. Thus, the challenge for Beijing is bridging the time lag: can overland corridors become viable before a maritime conflict shadows them out?
To illustrate how this abstract strategic rivalry plays out on the ground, consider the following developments and signaling patterns.
U.S. naval vessels routinely transit through the first island chain into the South China Sea and beyond, often provoking shadowing by Chinese naval and coast guard assets. These operations serve both to signal deterrence and to preserve operational familiarity with contested waters.
China, for its part, has developed increasingly assertive anti-access/area-denial (A2/AD) capabilities — anti-ship missiles, undersea warfare platforms, and integrated air-defense zones — aimed at complicating U.S. naval movements.
From port investments in Sri Lanka (Hambantota), Maldives, Myanmar (Kyaukphyu), to rail and highway links in Bangladesh and Pakistan, China is weaving a network of dependencies. These become strategic assets: land leases, sovereign guarantees, and port-right control give Beijing diplomatic and economic leverage.
At the same time, India is expanding port and logistics cooperation with Congolese, African, and Southeast Asian states to counterbalance Chinese reach — its “Act East” and “Neighbourhood First” policies are part of this response.
The Pasni port initiative is the clearest signal so far that Pakistan may seek strategic diversification. If it invites U.S. participation near its western coast, it could undermine aspects of Chinese exclusivity over the Pakistan corridor.
At the same time, China continues to press ahead with CPEC projects, reinforcing both the strategic dependency and the security burden borne by Pakistan.
Several zones remain flashpoints: the South China Sea, Taiwan Strait, India-China border, and even the Indian Ocean approaches. Here, U.S. and Chinese naval missions, intelligence surveillance, and regional alliances may intersect in ways that force tough choices — probes, posturing, casualty thresholds.
Further, infrastructure sabotage, insurgent attacks, or natural disruptions can test the robustness of corridors before they fully mature — for both sides, the weaker link in the logistics chain is often the deciding one.
Given the competing strategies, what does the future look like? We survey some plausible trajectories — and the implications for regional states trying to stay afloat in the storm.
Scenario A: Gradual Chinese tilt
Over a decade or two, China gradually scales up successful overland routes through Pakistan, Myanmar, and beyond, reducing its reliance on Malacca. U.S. naval dominance remains largely intact, but with creeping strategic erosion. In this world:
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China gains more resilience in energy imports.
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Some littoral states become heavily indebted to Beijing, limiting their policy space.
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Washington must invest in anti-access capabilities and cultivate stronger alliances to maintain deterrence.
Scenario B: Maritime standoff intensifies
The U.S. doubles down at sea: increased naval deployments, alliance-level defense pacts, and riskier freedom-of-navigation missions. China accelerates its A2/AD networks and cyber, space, and missile capabilities. The result: a protracted maritime standoff, where overland corridors are still developing and cannot yet offset sea denial. In such a world, risk of incident-driven escalation is high.
Scenario C: Hybrid crisis or conflict
A flashpoint — say in the Taiwan Strait — triggers interruption of maritime traffic. The U.S. attempts a blockade; China scrambles to keep overland routes open. Both deploy hybrid warfare (cyber, drones, comms interference) to deny the other control of critical nodes. The success of either side depends on who can deny the other first in chokepoints, logistic hubs, and infrastructure.
Scenario D: Multipolar fragmentation
Significant middle powers (India, ASEAN states, Pakistan, Sri Lanka, Bangladesh) develop more autonomous strategies. They resist siding fully with either superpower, demanding more equitable infrastructure deals and pushing for regional connectivity schemes independent of Beijing or Washington. In such a scenario, the U.S.–China contest becomes more diffuse, with shifting alignments and opportunistic partnerships.
For South Asia and smaller Indo-Pacific states, this is not just a clash of empires — it is a landscape of opportunity and peril. Their choices, negotiated carefully, will determine whether they end up as strategic playgrounds or semi-sovereign buffer zones.
For South Asian states:
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Hedging is essential: States should avoid full alignment with either side, maintaining diversified partnerships, including with non–great power blocs.
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Ensure transparency and accountability in infrastructure deals: Vigilance over contract terms, debt sustainability, and local participation can prevent dependency traps.
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Invest in connectivity and interregional links: Central Asia, Southeast Asia, and South Asia should pursue cross-lateral corridors not dominated by one superpower.
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Strengthen defense and security capacity: Maritime domain awareness, coastal surveillance, and rapid logistics capabilities are essential deterrents.
For the United States:
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Expand maritime and logistical reach: Seek new access points (e.g., the proposed Pasni) and bolster Southeast and South Asia naval presence under multilateral umbrellas.
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Promote resilient alternatives: Invest in sustainable, transparent infrastructure (not debt-encumbered) to compete with BRI.
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Deepen alliance interoperability: Focus on shared training, logistics, command structure among Quad, AUKUS, and regional partners.
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Manage escalation carefully: Maintain credible deterrence while avoiding provocations that could spiral into miscalculation.
For China:
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Protect corridor integrity: Massive security investments in Pakistan, Myanmar, and transit states are necessary to shield infrastructure assets.
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Avoid overreach: Aggressive terms or sovereignty encroachments may provoke backlash and embolden balancing efforts.
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Build legitimacy: Infrastructure should include local benefits — jobs, connectivity — not just strategic utility.
For global governance and multilateral actors:
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Promote norms around infrastructure finance transparency, environmental impact, and debt sustainability.
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Encourage regional institutions (ASEAN, SAARC, BIMSTEC) to serve as mediators rather than arenas for superpower competition.
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Invest in regional connectivity networks that do not tilt the balance exclusively to either Beijing or Washington.
In the 21st century, the strategic contest between the United States and China is no longer purely about who builds the bigger navy — it is a struggle over how goods, energy, and influence flow. The U.S. presses the oceans; China pressures the land. The strategic geometry of chokepoints and corridors will shape not just rivalry but the destiny of states across Eurasia.
In this contest, the maritime realm remains Washington’s stronghold — for now. But as China stitches together grand overland networks, it forces the U.S. to wrestle with costs, escalation, and political complexity. Meanwhile, states in South and Southeast Asia are increasingly squeezed into choosing lanes in a system not of their making.
The “point-counterpoint” strategy is not static; it is evolving. The shipborne might of America and the geocontinental reach of China are two halves of a new great-power dialectic. Whoever fails to adapt — or miscalculates an escalation — risks ceding more than hardware: they risk strategic inertia.
