♤ India-Japan-Australia trilateral

♤ India-Japan-Australia-US Quadrilateral, Quad Met at the Sidelines of the ASEAN summit at Manila in November 2017. It is perceived as a coming-together of likeminded Asia-Pacific democracies to balance China.

♤ Metal Chain and Iron curtain: Naval analyst Zhang Ming recently proclaimed that the Islands of India’s Andaman and Nicobar Archipelago could be used as a ‘metal chain’ to block Chinese access to the Straits of Malacca. China has gone further to claim that India is building an ‘Iron Curtain’ in the Indian Ocean, which is debatable.

♤ String of flowers: since 2015, agreements have been signed by India to develop infrastructure on Agalega islands in Mauritius and Assumption Island of Seychelles. They add to an Indian listening post on Madagascar, off the coast of Africa, commissioned in 2007 to monitor activities of foreign navies in the Indian Ocean Region (IOR). These are termed as the emergence of an Indian 'String of Flowers' to counter China's 'String of Pearls'.

♤ However both countries have denied having either a string of pearls or a string of flowers strategy.