1st Edition
China in India's Neighbourhood Shifting Regional Narratives
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.
List of Figures vii
List of Tables viii
List of Contributors ix
Acknowledgements xvi
1 Introduction 1
Anita Sengupta
PART I
Transcendental boundaries in neighbourhoods 27
2 China, India, and the aporia of neighbourhood 29
Samir Kumar Das
3 Bootlegging in South Asia’s neighbourhood: Eastern Himalayas, disgruntled geographies, and “Chinese goods” 42
Anup Shekhar Chakraborty
4 Dance of the dragons: Bhutan–China relationship 63
Jigme Yeshe Lama
PART II
Connectivity and conundrum in the South Asian neighbourbood 81
5 Comrades in arms? Decoding China’s Taliban gamble 83
Raghav Sharma
6 Connectivity, capital, and culture: China in Pakistan 103
Priya Singh
7 China in Bangladesh: The evolving relationship 121
Sriparna Pathak
PART III
Evolving dynamics and networks in the neighbourhood 137
8 The manifold aspects of Chinese presence in Iran 139
Bahram Amirahmadian
9 Prospects of continuity and change of China’s role in Central Asia: Case studies of Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan 156
Yunus Emre Gurbuz, Mehmet Yahya Çiçekli, Maksat Ajykan Uulu
10 The ethnic dynamics in Myanmar-China strategic interests: Implications for the region 172
Soma Ghosal
PART IV
Negotiating narratives of maritime neighbourhoods 189
11 Security narratives of China’s impingement in the Indian Ocean theatre 191
Anindya Jyoti Majumdar
12 India-China rivalry in Sri Lanka: A nexus of historical narratives and political economy 206
Shiran Illanperuma and Sumanasiri Liyanage
13 The impacts of Chinese economic policies on Myanmar 221
San San Khine
PART V
Extended neighbourhood 239
14 The collapse of China’s cooperation with Central and East Europe 241
Emilian Kavalski
Conclusion 259
Priya Singh
Index 267
Biography
Anita Sengupta is an area studies specialist engaged in the study of the Eurasian region. Her areas of interest include issues of identity politics, migration, gender, borders, critical geopolitics and logistics. She is a regular commentator on debates on Asian affairs. She has been Fellow, Maulana Abul Kalam Azad Institute of Asian Studies, Kolkata, Senior Fellow, Indian Council of Social Science Research, New Delhi, and Director, Calcutta Research Group, Kolkata.She is currently Director, Asia in Global Affairs, Kolkata.
Priya Singh is Associate Director at Asia in Global Affairs, Kolkata (AGA). Priya has a PhD from the University of Calcutta. Her thesis, Jewish and Democratic: Ethnicity, Gender and the Israeli State, mapped the intersectionality of ethnicity, gender and marginality situated in a receding democratic space from a South Asian perspective. Priya is a political scientist whose research encompasses issues pertaining to nationalism/ post-nationalism, identity, state formation, ethnicity, gender,migration and marginalisation in the West and South Asian context.
