India backs off from a confrontation with China over oil prospecting in the South China Sea alongside Vietnam. Discretion, evidently, is the better part of valour.

Discretion, it is often said, is the better part of valour. Indian diplomacy appears to abide by that aphorism, going by India’s imminent decision to withdraw from prospecting for oil along with Vietnam in the South China Sea – after China, which claims the area as its own, warned India of trouble ahead.

Although the decision to withdraw is ostensibly grounded in “techno commercial reasons” – Indian officials claimed that the prospects of producing oil were rather low – the move is being perceived as a tacit admission by India of the futility of operating in China’s “backyard” in a way that China considers “provocative”.

Last year, for instance, when India proclaimed that it was in talks with Vietnam to prospect for oil in the South China Sea, a loud bellow of warning emanated from Beijing.

Official Chinese media, which are known to give voice to and amplify bellicose sentiments that authorities couch in diplomatese, said starkly that “India should bear in mind that its actions in the South China Sea will push China to the limit.” China, it noted, “cherishes the Sino-Indian friendship, but this does not mean China values it above all else.”

Even more ominously, the commentary suggested that China had been “peaceful” for so long that some countries were beginning to take peace for granted.

And although External Affairs Minister SM Krishna pointedly said then that India’s teaming up with Vietnam to explore oil was only motivated by commercial considerations, it was widely perceived as a muscular assertion of India’s diplomacy, perhaps egged on by US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s exhortation to India to “not just Look East, but also Engage East.”

India, commentators noted, had for years been watching China choke it with its “string of pearls” strategy by making inroads into South Asia and establishing footholds of strategic consequence. It was not paying China back in its own coin, they said.

But the prospect also alarmed analysts who pointed out that unlike conflicts across land borders, which would amount to a formal declaration of war (and therefore restrain aggressors unless the stakes were sufficiently high), it was easy for naval powers to “drift into a serious military confrontation” that neither side intended.

About the same time, an Indian naval ship was told by a Chinese naval that it was in Chinese waters, when it was in fact off the Vietnam coast. Although both sides sought to play down the incident, it showed up the risk that India and China would descend into inadvertent conflict in the high seas. International media commentators wondered then if “this is how wars start.” Those fears have now effectively been put to rest after India’s strategic withdrawal from oil prospecting alongside Vietnam.

According to media accounts, Vietnamese diplomats are disappointed with India’s decision, and wonder if it was taken under pressure from China, which has consistently opposed the entry of foreign oil prospectors in areas in the South China Sea over which it claims absolute sovereignty.

In more recent days, tension has been brewing between China and the Philippines over similar assertions of its sovereignty over an outcrop that the Philippines calls the Scarborough Shoal and China calls Huangyan. Official media in China has once again gone on overdrive, whipping up jingoistic sentiments that some commentators said also served the purpose of distracting Chinese people’s attention from a scandal at home involving disgraced former Communist Party leader Bo Xilai and the recent diplomatic standoff between China and the US over blind activist Chen Guangcheng.

Alongside the stern warnings from authorities and the official media, China has also enforced a virtual “economic squeeze” of the Philippines – by directing Chinese tour groups to not travel to the Philippines (ostensibly for safety reasons), and subjecting fruit imports from the Philippines to heightened border checks (ostensibly after discovering some “harmful organism” in them!).

In response to that build-up of tension between the two countries, India issued a statement urging both sides to exercise restraint and maintain peace and security in the region, which held vital interest to the international community. The statement also urged both sides to resolve the issue diplomatically according to principles of international law.

The statement is not without diplomatic significance, and points to an intention on India’s part to remain engaged with developments in the South China Sea. Yet, as the withdrawal from oil exploration interests alongside Vietnam shows, diplomatic discretion is likely to be India’s watchword for fear of “provoking” China.