Though considerable research literature is now available on China–India relations, most of it still follows a conventional narrative, viewing the relationship through the narrow conflictual prism limited to South Asia than in the new, larger perspective, especially in the context of emerging East Asian dynamics. This book offers comprehensive analyses of some of these issues in papers addressing two broad themes. One, significant trends in the relationship between China and India on a range of issues, including economic development models, their military strategies, and the boundary dispute; and two, how others are responding to the rise of India and China and their impact on East Asia. Together, the chapters constitute a comprehensive study on both China–India relations and their concurrent rise, including a variety of perspectives and methodologies. Written by some of the top experts on the subject from India, China, Japan, and Taiwan and covering a broad range of issues, the book will generate considerable interest in understanding this relatively neglected dimension of today’s East Asia.
As the aspirations of the two rising Asian powers collide, the China-India rivalry is likely to shape twenty-first-century international politics in the region and far beyond. This volume by T.V. Paul and an international group of leading scholars examines whether the rivalry between the two countries that began in the 1950s will intensify or dissipate in the twenty-first century. The China-India relationship is important to analyze because past experience has shown that when two rising great powers share a border, the relationship is volatile and potentially dangerous. India and China’s relationship faces a number of challenges, including multiple border disputes that periodically flare up, division over the status of Tibet and the Dalai Lama, the strategic challenge to India posed by China's close relationship with Pakistan, the Chinese navy's greater presence in the Indian Ocean, and the two states’ competition for natural resources. Despite these irritants, however, both countries agree on issues such as global financial reforms and climate change and have much to gain from increasing trade and investment, so there are reasons for optimism as well as pessimism. The contributors to this volume answer the following questions: What explains the peculiar contours of this rivalry? What influence does accelerated globalization, especially increased trade and investment, have on this rivalry? What impact do US-China competition and China’s expanding navy have on this rivalry? Under what conditions will it escalate or end? The China-India Rivalry in the Globalization Era will be of great interest to students, scholars, and policymakers concerned with Indian and Chinese foreign policy and Asian security.
The world’s freshwater supplies are increasingly threatened by rapidly increasing demand and the impacts of global climate change, but current approaches to transboundary water management are unsustainable and may threaten future global stability and international security. The absence of law in attempts to address this issue highlights the necessity for further understanding from the legal perspective. This book provides a fresh conceptualisation of water security, developing an operational methodology for identifying the four core elements of water security which must be addressed by international law: availability; access; adaptability; and ambit. The analysis of the legal framework of transboundary freshwater management based on this contemporary understanding of water security reveals the challenges and shortcomings of the current legal regime. In order to address these shortcomings, the present mindset of prevailing rigidity and state-centrism is challenged by examining how international legal instruments could be crafted to advance a more flexible and common approach towards transboundary water interaction. The concept of considering water security as a matter of ‘regional common concern’ is introduced to help international law play a more prominent role in addressing the challenges of global water insecurity. Ways for implementing such an approach are proposed and analysed by looking at international hydropolitics in Himalayan Asia. The book analyses transboundary water interaction as a ‘case study’ for advancing public international law in order to fulfil its responsibility of promoting international peace and security.
Exploring geopolitics of the Indo-Pacific Region, a major hub of global, economic, commercial, military, diplomatic, and cultural activities in the 21st century, this textbook provides students with an introduction to the existing debates, frameworks, and issues surrounding the Indo-Pacific. The second edition has been revised, updated, and expanded to explain the major build-up of deterrence hubs during 2022–2023 in the Indo-Pacific Region (IPR). The hubs have a clear focus on North Asia (Japan and South Korea), the Taiwan Strait and Taiwan and the South China Sea (the Philippines, Vietnam, and Australia), and India and the Indian Ocean littoral areas (the Persian Gulf and the Bay of Bengal). This edition takes into account the effects of the Ukraine–Russia and Israel–Hamas/Iran proxies’ conflicts on the build-up of Russia–China–North Korea–Iran ties and the naval projections by China and Russia in North Pacific, off the Alaska coast, and in relation to Myanmar and Bangladesh and the Gulf/Red Sea areas. Within the purview of maritime security and NATO, the present century is critical with the introduction of missiles and nuclear submarine technology into IPR and by the fragmentation of arms control and nuclear and missile non-proliferation arrangements of the 1960s–2000 period. This volume predicts that China’s oft-proclaimed rise to global hegemonic status is not inevitable because of its many economic–social problems and foreign policy dilemmas. Nor is World War III inevitable because no one seeks unlimited warfare, but the regions in conflict will likely remain on a low boil. However, problem-solving and crisis resolution will remain problematic, keeping the 21st century at its toes, due to the inability of regional powers to unite for the common good. Complete with a list of further reading, Geopolitics and the Indo-Pacific Region fills a gap in the market and will be of great interest to upper-year-level undergraduates, postgraduate students, and researchers studying international relations, IPR geopolitics, Asian politics, and Asian security studies.