The May 28-31 visit to the Maldives by the most senior Chinese official ever to visit the Islamic archipelago-nation, went largely unreported in the Western media. The significance of the visit by Wu Bangguo, Chairman of the Standing Committee of the National People’s Congress, underscored the increasing importance of the Maldives to China’s regional strategic calculations.

China and the Maldives first established diplomatic relations in 1972. Since then, relations have gradually developed. More recently, Indian policy analysts referred to China’s soft power rise throughout South Asia as a “creeping expansionism”. They went so far as to accuse China of harboring ambitions to set up a submarine base facility in the Maldives.

For instance, in 2005, Indian commentator, A.B. Mahapatra, asserted that: “China has engineered a manner of a coup by coaxing Maldives’ Ab...