The Bay of Bengal is located in the northeastern part of the Indian Ocean(also known as the“Northeast Indian Ocean”by some scholars),covering an area of about 2.17 million square kilometers.It is the largest bay globally,with coastal countries including Sri Lanka,India,Bangladesh,Myanmar,Thailand,Malaysia and Indonesia.1 For a long time,the Bay of Bengal has been far from the center of international affairs.Yet,with the eastward shift of the global economic center,the rising strategic importance of the Indian Ocean region and the political and economic changes in the littoral countries of the area,the Bay of Bengal has gradually become a new strategic competition locus or center under the“Indo-Pacific”perspective,which has attracted the attention of governments and scholars.
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