South Asia Conundrum offers fresh ideas and enlightening narratives about how geopolitical and geostrategic entanglements of extra-regional powers, notably the United States, Russia and China, in South Asia and its extended neighborhood have transformed the Af-Pak region into a theater of unending conflict and political instability. The book addresses and illuminates the impending challenges and evaluates policy options before the Trump administration and US allies in dealing with the Afghan imbroglio. The book argues how the emerging strategic alliance among Russia, Iran, China and Pakistan has not only constrained US options in the region but has also constricted the US role and influence in South Asia, Afghanistan, and Central Asia. South Asian Conundrum further illustrates how the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC), a part of Beijing’s mega Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), constitutes a direct challenge to economic and security interests of India and the United States in the region. The scope of the book is not exclusively limited to South Asia. Its geostrategic and geo-economic ramifications are much larger and deeper in global and regional contexts, involving the Greater Middle East Asia, the triangular Russian-Chinese and Iranian strategic partnership, and the long term fallout of CPEC and China’s BRI on global political and economic architecture.

This edited volume examines global power-rivalry in and around South Asia through Bangladeshi lenses using imperfect and overlapping interest concentric-circles as a template. Dynamics from three transitions —the United States exiting the Cold War, China emerging as a global-level power, and India’s eastern interests squaring off with China’s Belt Road Initiative, BRI—help place China, India, and the United States (in alphabetical order) in Bangladesh’s “inner-most” circle, China, India, and the United States in a “mid-stream” circle, and the United States and Latin America, among other countries, in the “outer-most” circle, depending on the issue. In an atmosphere of short-term gains over-riding long-term considerations, the desperate, widespread search for infrastructural funding inside South Asia enhances China’s value, raises local heat, releases new challenges, with costly default consequences looming, issue-specific analysis overtaking formal bilateral relations and a stubborn uncertainty riddling the Bangladeshi air as its policy preferences stubbornly show more certainty.

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.

As the world's most dynamic region, Asia embodies explosive economic growth, diverse political systems, vibrant societies, modernizing militaries, cutting-edge technologies, rich cultural traditions amid globalization, and strategic competition among major powers. As a result, international relations in Asia are evolving rapidly. In this fully updated and expanded volume, leading scholars from Asia, Europe, and North America offer the most current and definitive analysis available of Asia's regional relationships. They set developments in Asia in theoretical context, assess the role of leading external and regional powers, and consider the importance of subregional actors and linkages. Combining interpretive richness and factual depth, their essays provide an authoritative and stimulating overview. Students of contemporary Asian affairs—new to the field and old hands alike—will find this book an invaluable read. Contributions by: Amitav Acharya, Sebastian Bersick, Nayan Chanda, Ralph A. Cossa, Michael Green, Samuel S. Kim, Edward J. Lincoln, Martha Brill Olcott, T.V. Paul, Phillip C. Saunders, David Shambaugh, Sheldon W. Simon, Scott Snyder, Robert Sutter, Hugh White, and Michael Yahuda

The US-China trade war instigated by President Trump has thrown the multilateral trading system into a crisis. Drawing on vast interview and documentary materials, Hopewell shows how US-China conflict had already paralyzed the system of international rules and institutions governing trade. The China Paradox – the fact that China is both a developing country and an economic powerhouse – creates significant challenges for global trade governance and rule-making. While China demands exemptions from global trade disciplines as a developing country, the US refuses to extend special treatment to its rival. The implications of this conflict extend far beyond trade, impeding pro-development and pro-environment reforms of the global trading system. As one of the first analyses of the implications of US-China rivalry for the governance of global trade, this book is crucial to our understanding of China's impact on the global trading system and on the liberal international economic order.