ABSTRACT

This book analyses the structure of the India–China relationship and the two prominent powers’ positions with and against each other, bilaterally and globally, in a complex Asian environment and beyond. India and China’s perceptions of one another are evaluated to reveal how the order of Asia is influenced by engaging in different power equations that affect equilibrium and disequilibrium.

Contributors address three critical perspectives of India and China in Asia which are increasingly shaping the future of Asia and impacting the Indo-Pacific power balance. First, they examine the mutual perceptions of India and China as an integral part of Asia’s evolving politics and the impact of this on the emerging Asian order and disorder. Second, they assess how classical and contemporary characteristics of the India–China boundary and beyond-border disputes or conflicts are shaping Asia’s political trajectory and leaving an impact on the Indo-Pacific region. Additionally, contributors observe the prevailing power equations in which India and China are currently engaged to reveal that they are not only geographically limited to the Asian region. Instead, having a strong global or intercontinental character attached to it, the India–China relationship involves extra-territorial powers and extra-territorial regions.

This book will be of interest to academics, students and policymakers working on Asian studies, international relations, area studies, emerging powers studies, strategic studies, security studies and conflict studies.

chapter |18 pages

Introduction

Equations and equilibrium in Asia – a primer

part 19I|64 pages

Bilateral perspectives

chapter 2|22 pages

Asian equilibrium

India’s overture to China

chapter 3|18 pages

China’s major-country diplomacy, Asia policy and Sino-Indian relations

Chinese officials’ narrative explained

part 83II|72 pages

Boundary and beyond borders

chapter 5|14 pages

India–China boundary dispute

A Taiwanese perspective

chapter 6|17 pages

The Tibet factor in the China–India territorial dispute

Issue-linkage leverage and coercion

chapter 7|18 pages

India, China and the South China Sea

Politics beyond the territorial disputes

part 155III|76 pages

Barriers of equations

chapter 9|16 pages

How will the Belt and Road Initiative shape the rise of Asia?

A Chinese outlook

chapter 10|16 pages

Economic dreams and geopolitical realities

How will the India–China–Russia dynamic unfold in Greater Central Asia?

chapter 11|22 pages

Footholds and footprints

China’s inroads in emerging Europe and some of their outcomes