The current geopolitical arrangement in the Indian Ocean is changing considerably. The recent years have been witnessing an increased Chinese presence in the region, with China making a surprising shift from the Western Pacific and North Sea to the Indian Ocean. Moreover, there is no denial of the fact that with USA losing its strong hold as a superpower since the last decade, China is in the race to fill up this power vacuum. It has already outperformed all the economies of the world in terms of contributing to GDP and Purchasing Power Parity as per IMF data. It is trying to gain the status of being a superpower through granting loans at generous repayable terms to the Asian countries and investing in some of the major infrastructure projects like dams, roads, ports and railways. It has also started providing military assistance to some of the littoral countries by exercising its veto power in the UN Security Council.
Denial means 'the act of denying something.'
The meanings of the above options are:
Confirmation: the action of confirming something or the state of being confirmed$
Viable: capable of working successfully; feasible$
Clamour: $utter or proclaim insistently and noisily$
Despot: a cruel and oppressive dictator$
Elicit: call forth, as an emotion, feeling, or response$
Only confirmations has the opposite meaning of denial, hence the correct answer is option 1.$