ABSTRACT

This book explores the scope and extent of the growing Chinese influence in India’s neighbourhood and its impact on India as well as on Asian power politics.

Through theoretical narratives and detailed case studies, it examines Chinese bilateral relationships in the Indian neighbourhood and looks at the extent and significance of Chinese influence through the lens of strategic, economic and infrastructural arrangements and Chinese interventions in South, Southeast, and Central Asia. The book takes into account regional voices and domestic political compulsions in understanding what they make of the Chinese narrative and examines how and whether the narrative has changed in recent years through the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) as an instrument of Chinese public diplomacy. The volume also discusses how domestic narratives and compulsions in the Indian neighbourhood remain significant and how these, in turn, would impact the trajectory of Chinese public diplomacy. Intertwined through all these themes is a focus on the extent to which these could become potential flashpoints for India.

This book will be a useful resource for academics and researchers working on Asian geopolitics and geo-economics, Chinese foreign policy, Chinese politics, international relations of Asia, Asian dynamics and Asian studies.

chapter 1|26 pages

Introduction

part I|54 pages

Transcendental boundaries in neighbourhoods

chapter 3|21 pages

Bootlegging in South Asia's neighbourhood

Eastern Himalayas, disgruntled geographies, and “Chinese goods”

chapter 4|18 pages

Dance of the dragons

Bhutan–China relationship

part II|56 pages

Connectivity and conundrum in the South Asian neighbourbood

chapter 6|18 pages

Connectivity, capital, and culture

China in Pakistan

chapter 7|16 pages

China in Bangladesh

The evolving relationship

part III|52 pages

Evolving dynamics and networks in the neighbourhood

part IV|50 pages

Negotiating narratives of maritime neighbourhoods

chapter 12|15 pages

India-China rivalry in Sri Lanka

A nexus of historical narratives and political economy

part V|28 pages

Extended Neighbourhood