This book is a collection of contributions related to India–China relationship beyond the issue of borders. It focuses on those elements that play important role in defining, continuing, and strengthening the interaction between the two countries. In doing so, it explores roles of language and linguistics, history and culture, politics and economy, and philosophy and sociology that mediated ancient and modern interfaces. The book observes the role of silk route in the economic, political, and scholarly exchanges between ancient civilizations and in the movement of Buddhism to China and other Asian nations. The contributors highlight how the two countries have co-existed in various eras and tackled issues of conflict and cooperation during lows and highs in the past and present. It pays special attention to the role of language and linguistic competence as an important component of socio-cultural comprehension of a society and introduces major innovations and challenges in teaching and learning the Chinese language. The wide-ranging contributions make the book an attractive resource for academics, think-tanks, diplomats, and researchers working on Asian/India–China studies across the globe.

At the outset, this book must be viewed as a policy relevant document rather than an abstract historical research paper. The authors have revisited the seemingly intractable India-China border dispute from a contemporary conflict resolution perspective and thus are relatively detached from the historical baggage that has so often influenced other commentaries on this controversial subject. The great natural defensive line of northern India, the mighty Himalayas, separating Tibet from north-east India, is a barrier which, by tradition, was impenetrable. This defensive line is embodied by the 1914 Line, India s non-negotiable interest. Thus, from an Indian perspective, it can never be conceived that its frontiers with China are ever formalized on the Brahmaputra plains. Further, the 1914 alignment, aside from its strategic sanctity, also upholds the ethnic and linguistic affinities to peoples south of it, who are distinct from the homogenous Tibetan or Han people. Similarly, from China s perspective it too is in possession of its non-negotiable interest the Aksai Chin plateau. And therein lies the essence of an east-west swap. By retracing the historical record, the authors argue that such a swap is eminently feasible and historically justifiable. Moreover, realpolitik demands it. From the Indian perspective, however, it should be equally clear that a bipartisan national consensus is imperative for any breakthrough resolution to emerge. It remains to be seen, however, if political managers on both sides are able to muster the necessary will to resolve a dispute that has lasted for more than half-a-century. Contents: Introduction · Acknowledgments · The Legacy of the Great Game · India, Tibet and China · India Inherits the Frontiers :1947-1954 · The Debacle of 1962 · Road to Rapprochement: Diplomacy since the 1970s · The Way Forward: Mutual accommodation and accommodation of reality · Appendices · Bibliography · Index

Challenging the Westphalian view of international relations, which focuses on the sovereignty of states and the inevitable potential for conflict, the authors from the Borderlands Study Group reconceive borders as capillaries enabling the flow of material, cultural, and social benefits through local communities, nation-states, and entire regions. By emphasizing local agency and regional interdependencies, this metaphor reconfigures current narratives about the China India border and opens a new perspective on the long history of the Silk Roads, the modern BCIM Initiative, and dam construction along the Nu River in China and the Teesta River in India. Together, the authors show that positive interaction among people on both sides of a border generates larger, cross-border communities, which can pressure for cooperation and development. India China offers the hope that people divided by arbitrary geo-political boundaries can circumvent race, gender, class, religion, and other social barriers, to form more inclusive institutions and forms of governance.

This book examines the changing dynamics of the issues between India and China in the wake of extensive globalisation, economic slowdown, the trade wars, Covid 19, Galwan and the undercurrents in the emerging new global order. Providing a comprehensive overview of India–China relationship and the role of the USA in the context of India’s economic and security cooperation in the region, it argues that India–China relations are too complex to be defined through the binary of friendship and enmity, since it includes an element of cooperation, competition, coordination and as well as conflict and confrontation. The book also opens new avenues for research. As such it is of interest to researchers and students of Asian studies, Asian history, China studies, peace and conflict studies and international relations.

Despite the compelling immediacy of a 4,056 km long border, it is intriguing that when we think of India and China, we typically think of Delhi and Beijing and not locations along the shared border. The book will engage with this interesting puzzle through a critical comparative analysis of India–China relations at the subregional level. It will locate the massive state-led developmental thrust that India’s Northeast and China’s western border regions are witnessing under the rubric of the Look East policy and the Western Development Strategy respectively. As India and China reimagine their borders as bridges, what role will border regions play in the evolving foreign policy orientation? The book offers a new orientation to the study of India–China relations by bringing people back into the centre of these subregional conversations of change. The book will be of primary interest to those working on international relations, border studies, comparative regionalism and India–China relations.

Just like seven decades ago when the dramatic re-emergence of India and China from their traumatic encounter with colonialism, followed by a war between them in 1962, transformed this region’s geopolitical landscape, the equation of the two countries is once again poised to influence the future course of Asia. Wider interests demand that both countries craft a tenuous co-existence and stabilize a fragmenting world order. There are also circumstances that are bringing new frictions and differences to the fore as India and China pursue their regional interests and attempt to settle old scores. Although both leaderships have chosen to delicately manage this see-saw, recurring border crises have repeatedly questioned whether Delhi and Beijing can maintain such a balancing act for much longer. The emerging multipolar world has brought the relationship at a crossroads where today’s choices will set in course events that will profoundly impact India’s economy, security and the regional order. It is, therefore, critical that India’s leaders get our China policy right. Powershift helps us make sense of a complex relationship and how India and China are learning to cope with each other’s rise on the world stage. Whether it is intricacies of the border dispute and the complicated history of their Himalayan frontier, the flux in US-China relations, the geopolitics of Greater Eurasia and the Indo-Pacific, China’s belt and road initiative and growing connectivity footprint in the region, BRICS and a changing world order, or the conundrum of formulating a far-sighted China policy, the book casts a wide net in unpacking India-China relations. Powershift provides much-needed context for Indians to start thinking more strategically and realistically about their largest neighbour.