Coming to terms with the nascent international agency of regional powers with global intentions has become a dominant topic in the study of world affairs. This rash of attention to the emergent dynamics of international interactions has been facilitated by the break-up of the Cold War order which has allowed a number of actors to extend their international roles and outreach. India and China feature prominently among those actors and their agency in global life is subject to a growing public, policy, and scholarly scrutiny.
Labelled as the “rise of Asia,” the discussion of the growing prominence of New Delhi and Beijing has provoked a hoard of animal allegories to assist the understanding of their international outreach. On the one hand, India tends to be depicted either as a fearful, yet prickly “porcupine,” a cumbersome “elephant,” or a dazzling “peacock.” On the other hand, China conjures up images of either a cuddly “panda,” or a fire-breathing “dragon.” In either case, however, the question remains: what does this menagerie of representations tell us about the future roles of, and interactions between, India and China? Do such images assist or obfuscate current engagements with the rise of Asia?
The three books reviewed in this essay contribute meaningfully to this inquiry by offering thoughtful examinations of the possible trajectories of the Sino-Indian relationship. Very few commentators today will question the validity of the claim that India and China are the central drivers of the nascent “Asianization” of global politics. In this respect, whether New Delhi and Beijing choose to develop co-operative or conflictual interactions will have important bearing on the patterns and practices of international affairs. Thus, the volumes discussed here offer plausible projections of the Sino-Indian relationship in the coming decades in the context of their distinct historical experience and socio-political systems, while still taking into account the contingencies and uncertainties underpinning the dynamics of world politics.
In this setting, the animal allegories used to depict the rise of India and China offer practical – if not always relevant – snapshots for the strategic cultures, animating the perceptions of decision makers in New Delhi and Beijing. In other words, these representations outline the discursive horizon for the engagement with the rise of Asia in global life. As the three books under review confirm, what emerges from the menagerie of images populating the analyses of international relations is a bifurcated view – that is, most commentators anticipate either a peaceful or a belligerent pattern of interactions between the two Asian giants.
What the authors of the three volumes seem to suggest is that while such a bifurcated perspective is perhaps unavoidable, it should not blind observers to the nuances of a profoundly complex relationship. Thus, despite their distinct scope, all three books are preoccupied with the same underlying question: how to approach the investigation of the complex framework of interactions between India and China? The volumes offer three distinct responses to this query: (i) by utilizing the explanatory potential of the dynamics of globalization; (ii) by engaging the emergence of a “constructive” form nationalism in both countries; and (iii) by developing an “indigenous” perspective on their growing international prominence. The following sections detail these propositions.
Looking at the Sino-Indian Relationship through the Lens of Globalization
Globalization has become shorthand for the profound alterations in post-Cold War international affairs. Its patterns reflect the complex interaction between societies and states that result from the speed and scope of technological innovation, the proliferation of affordable means of travel, and the grown levels of economic interdependence. While it is difficult to render legible such a dynamic international environment, this has not deterred a number of state and non-state actors to engage in creative entrepreneurship on the global stage.
Globalization has provided analytical lens for the discussion of emerging patterns. Its framework has been utilized for the understanding of India's and China's rise to global prominence. As Jonathan Holslag suggests, the processes of globalization have contributed to the reduction of “mutual fear” (p. 31) between the two countries. As he is quick to point out, however, this has not precluded the likelihood for both New Delhi and Beijing to develop either a “benevolent or malign” (p. 32) engagement with each other in the future; yet, what globalization has done is to assist them to begin engaging with each other.
Thus, while the spectre of the 1962 war continues to inflect relations between India and China, globalization has made possible a series of exchanges and dialogues that have consequently provided the rudiments of confidence-building measures. In this respect, it is Shalendra D. Sharma's China and India in the Age of Globalization that delves in the complexities of the globalization perspective on the Sino-Indian relationship. His point of departure is that it is the opening of China and India to the global economy that offers insights into their prospective bilateral relations.
Owing to this research focus, Sharma undertakes a detailed tracing of the different processes and contexts in which both countries engaged in globalization. Thus, while China initiated its opening to the world as early as 1978, India abandoned its policy of self-reliance only in the wake of Soviet dissolution in 1991. Such divergent starting points illuminate the more “favorable initial conditions” (p. 92) for China, which allowed it to take an early lead. Sharma demonstrates that “globalization is not a seamless or linear process” (p. 133). Consequently, while China's development will surpass that of India “for the foreseeable future,” in the long term it is India that offers a “more sustainable and productive” (p. 163) model for reforms. This assertion notwithstanding, Sharma maintains that “globalization has been and continues to be the singular powerful engine behind China's and India's rise” (p. 4).
For this reason, it is the framework of globalization that elicits the likely patterns of interactions between India and China. Sharma indicates that the bilateral relationship will be significantly impacted by the way in which both countries resolve the main tensions underpinning their participation in the global economy. For China, the central dilemma is whether it will pursue the path of further “democratization” or will opt for a “trapped transition,” in which the country “continues to be ruled by an authoritarian regime dominated by a Leninist party” (pp. 256–57). For India, the challenge is the “growing crisis of governance” that results from the failure of the state to provide “public goods” (p. 263).
Thus, the lens of globalization reveals a much more nuanced picture than the “friends–enemy” dichotomy usually presented in the literature. While such bifurcation is perhaps inevitable, the globalization perspective allows engagement with the complexity of the Sino-Indian relationship. As Sharma's analysis reveals, neither India nor China perceives the outreach of their international agency to be restricted to their respective South Asian and East Asian context. It is in this setting that the globalization approach offers a consequential interpretation of New Delhi's and Beijing's impact on the changing patterns of world affairs.
Looking at the Sino-Indian Relationship through the Lens of “Constructive Nationalism”
While the dynamics of globalization have produced a growing level of economic and socio-political interdependence, they have not led to the homogenization of global identities. On the contrary, as Sharma himself points out, the processes of globalization illustrate “both the euphoria and the trauma of nation-building” (p. 6). Prospective patterns of Sino-Indian relations will be dependent on the ways in which both countries project their “global identity” (Lam and Lim, p. 18).
The identity politics of the Sino-Indian relationship are at the heart of Holslag's China and India: Prospects for Peace. His contention is that the end of the Cold War has brought about the realization that far from being the “homogenous billiard balls” that they were assumed to be, states are in fact a “complex amalgamation of actors” (p. 3). This assertion rings particularly true in the populous and ethnically diverse societies that make up China and India. Thus, national self-conceptions about a country's place and role in the world have a significant impact on the framework of its international interactions.
Thus, unlike Sharma, Holslag insists that the opening of India and China to the world is significant not so much because of the processes of globalization that came to characterize it, but because of the specific identity constructions that made such participation in the global economy possible. As Holslag suggests, what is important in this context is not when India and China began opening to the world, but that both of them made a “choice for ‘constructive nationalism’” (p. 5). The emergence of this constructive form of nationalism assisted the interaction between the two Asian giants by helping them to develop mutual perceptions and understandings of each other's policy objectives.
In particular, as Holslag demonstrates, constructive nationalism “permitted national elites to reinvent themselves” (p. 30) and made possible both India's and China's opening to the world and each other. The ingredients that went into the production of this new global outlook were: (i) the channelling of “the people's energy to strive for their own economic welfare through national greatness”; and (ii) the construction of popular support not “by means of direct patronage, indoctrination, or compulsion,” but “indirectly by connecting the national reform agenda to tangible economic improvements in citizens' personal life spheres” (p. 30; emphasis in original).
According to Holslag, the prospective pattern of interactions between China and India is dependent upon the direction that the dynamics of identity politics in both countries takes. As he suggests, the tension still remains “between an economy-driven constructive engagement and a negative nationalism based on military strength” (p. 49). To the extent that New Delhi and Beijing manage to structure their interaction along the axis provided by the “new formula of constructive nationalism” (p. 166), they will be able to maintain peaceful, if not necessarily co-operative, relations. The failure to do so, Holslag indicates, will reveal that even in the context of pervasive globalization, trading states such as India and China still remain conquering states – that is, “commerce and conquest are not mutually exclusive” (p. 172).
Looking at the Sino-Indian Relationship through the Lens of an “Indigenous” Perspective
The third perspective on the implications of India's and China's rise to global prominence queries the capacity of conventional approaches to uncover the complexities of their bilateral relations. In other words, while the dynamics of globalization assisted the practices of economic interdependence and the emergence of new forms of identity politics in the international domain, they also assisted the proliferation of voices on the appropriate modes for engaging the rise of Asia in the study of global politics. The underlying theme in this cacophony of perspectives is the demand for non-Western alternatives to the dominant disciplinary framework.
The collection edited by Lam Peng Er and Lim Tai Wei, The Rise of China and India is an instance of this trend. As the editors acknowledge, the aim of their volume is to present some of the “indigenous worldviews and concepts” (p. 5) on the Sino-Indian relationship. As the contributors demonstrate there are at least two problematic issues confronted by this kind of investigation. On the one hand, it raises the question whether it is possible to apply Western standards and notions for gauging the international behaviour of non-Western actors. On the other hand, the rise of India and China has confronted the study of global politics with the absence of appropriate language to both articulate and engage the novelty of this development.
In fact, from this perspective, the “friends–enemy” dichotomy that dominates literature on Sino-Indian relations reveals a particular Western perception of international life that demands the bifurcation between “us” and “them.” The volume's intention, therefore, is to reveal that the rise of China and India “should not be seen solely in the context of a zero-sum game or a balance-of-power rivalry” (p. 39). In this respect, apart from three analytical chapters on New Delhi's and Beijing's growing prominence in world politics, the collection provides Malaysian, Philippine, Japanese, Singaporean and Thai perspectives on the rise of the two Asian giants.
What emerges in this process is an eclectic “indigenous” engagement with what the volume calls “the new Asian drama.” In other words, just as the kind of bilateral relationship that India and China develop will have a crucial bearing on the patterns and practices of global affairs, the ability to account for their rise to prominence through the language of an “Asian” International Relations theory will be of equal consequence. Thus, what is particularly relevant about the volume's engagement with the Sino-Indian relationship is the realization that the rivalry for structural power in world politics is no longer only “the great game” of Western actors. Instead, India and China demonstrate that non-Western actors are equally capable of wielding global agency.
In Lieu of a Conclusion: Whither “Chindia”
Thinking about the changing economic and political context of contemporary international relations gravitates easily towards the realms of fantasy. Thus, an ungainly but important task is to distinguish between the phantoms and substance in the engagement with the foreign policy attitudes of China and India. The volumes under review do just that by offering a much-needed and an extremely erudite reconsideration of the international interactions between New Delhi and Beijing.
At the same time, the books reveal three distinct approaches for engaging the rise of India and China and discussing their prospective bilateral relations. Firstly, Sharma demonstrates the explanatory potential of the dynamics of globalization. Secondly, Holslag draws attention to the emergence of a “constructive” form nationalism in both countries. Thirdly, the contributors to the volume edited by Lam and Lim argue for the development of an “indigenous” perspective for the explanation and understanding of the shifting dynamics of international relations. In this respect, all three books offer valuable insights on the conceptualization both of the rise of Asia and assessing the prospective trajectories of the Sino-Indian relationship.
Apart from the prescience and attention to detail that marks these investigations, what is also noteworthy is that none of the three volumes offers a definitive trajectory on the future path of “Chindia” (Holslag, p. 55; Sharma, p. 11; Lam and Lim, p. 141). Thus, while all three volumes indicate their leanings towards either a co-operative, a conflictual, or third way for the prospective relations between the two Asian giants, their authors leave it up to readers to make their own conclusions. And, perhaps, this is what sets the investigations of the books under review apart from most in the field. Their investigation is not prejudiced by specific agendas or dogmatic subscription to limited and limiting analytical models. Their perceptive accounts of the content, implications and frameworks of the global agency of China and India will be welcome by students, scholars and policy-makers alike.
The tandem of the three books offers a veritable 3D view on the challenges confronting the engagement with the growing prominence of China and India in global life. In this respect, it is expected that the books by Holslag and Sharma, and the collection edited by Lam and Lim will be invaluable for the purposes of teaching and theorizing the ongoing transformations in global life as a result of China's and India's increasing centrality in the patterns and practices of world affairs. While all three books will be of interest both to students and scholars of Asian international relations, their authors have also produced the kind of studies that is bound to trigger debate and invite (if not beckon) its readers to pursue further the ideas discussed on their pages.
