Geography confers advantages and imposes restrictions on regions. Regional powers over the millennia, leverage the former and aim to overcome the latter to maximize their gains. Such behaviour has been more consistent than political or religious ideologies.This can be seen in turmoil in Pakistan despite religious homogeneity and the failure of the erstwhile USSR – China – Vietnam axis at the height of Cold War despite similar ideology and structures. Likely emergence of China as a global power has placed its neighbours on the horns of dilemma, where some portray it as expansionist and hegemonistic power, others believe it to be an engine for economic rise. The challenge of managing China would require understanding its long term goals and likely means it would employ to achieve them. The process initiated by Deng Xiaoping has made China an economic giant which many believe is Communist only in name. Even while the Third Plenum of November 2013 seeks to strengthen the process, it also has recognized vulnerabilities in society, which have the potential of causing internal collapse. The book aims to understand China’s geographical advantages and restrictions along with its history and economic structure; the themes that emerge are important indicators to understand its Geo-Strategy. China’s international behaviour of the last few decades not only validates these but also points to the means that China is employing to achieve its aim. Important lessons thus emerge for managing partnership with China.

Examining China's changing role in the UN security council, in the context of policy decisions and the Iraq intervention.

This book examines India’s foreign and defence policy changes in response to China’s growing economic and military power and increased footprint across the Indo-Pacific. It further explores India’s role in the rivalry between China and the United States. The book looks at the strategic importance of the Indian Ocean Region in the Indo-Pacific geopolitical landscape and how India is managing China’s rise by combining economic cooperation with a wide set of balancing strategies. The authors in this book critically analyse the various tools of Indian foreign policy, including defence posture, security alignments, and soft power diplomacy, among others, and discuss the future trajectory of India’s foreign policy and the factors which will determine the balance of power in the region and the potential risks involved. The book provides detailed insights into the multifaceted and complex relationship between India and China and will be of great interest to researchers and students of international relations, Asian studies, political science, and economics. It will also be useful for policymakers, journalists, and think tanks interested in the India–China relationship.

What is China’s high-speed rail diplomacy? What is China’s infrastructure diplomacy? How do they relate to each other and to the country’s Belt and Road Initiative? Can China finance the numerous projects around the world under the initiative? This book assesses the important implications of China’s new diplomacy for the global political economy. It argues that a new developmental path called ‘geo-developmentalism’ is in the making: China plays a leading role in promoting growth and building connections across Eurasia and beyond.

This book explores the very latest developments in the South China Sea maritime dispute. It examines the South China Sea as an arena for geostrategic competition between China and the United States and why the dispute is so important for regional and global geopolitics. It outlines the most recent developments in the sea itself and assesses the role of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) and the current views of the contesting claimants. It considers the position of countries from outside the region, India as well as Japan; surveys military and naval developments; and examines confidence building, preventive diplomacy, and dispute resolution measures. The book concludes by highlighting the points of greatest risk and by discussing how the situation is likely to develop going forward.

China has emerged as a major regional power and has clear aspirations to be a global power in the not too distant future. Comprehensive military modernisation programs, sustained economic, scientific and technological developments have substantially elevated China’s international profile. For the past three decades, China has been modernising its strategic weaponry and enhancing the capabilities of its nuclear warheads. It has also been developing new and complex military platforms that would be of great value to joint operations warfare. The decade from 2011 through 2020 will prove critical to the PLA as it attempts to integrate many new and complex platforms, and to adopt modern operational concepts, including network-centric warfare. China’s air force is in the midst of a transformation. A decade ago, it was an antiquated service equipped almost exclusively with weapons based on 1950s-era Soviet designs and operated by personnel with questionable training according to outdated employment concepts. Today, the PLAAF appears to be on its way to becoming a modern, highly capable air force for the 21st century. The PLA Air Force has continued expanding its inventory of long-range, advanced SAM systems and now possesses one of the largest such forces in the world. The January 2011 flight test of China’s next generation fighter prototype, the J-20, highlights China’s ambition to produce a fighter aircraft that incorporates stealth attributes, advanced avionics, and super-cruise capable engines over the next several years. China is upgrading its B-6 bomber fleet with a new, longer-range variant that will be armed with a new long-range cruise missile. China’s aviation industry is developing several types of airborne early warning and control system (AWACS) aircraft. These include the KJ-200, based on the Y-8 airframe, for AWACS as well as intelligence collection and maritime surveillance, and the KJ-2000, based on a modified Russian IL-76 airframe. China can decisively defeat India in any nuclear confrontation, but is currently unable to match the IAF in any conventional conflict, specifically along the border region of the Himalayas. Also, the IAF has greater experience than PLAAF in actual combat operations with its many conflicts; India is gradually building powerful military capabilities in tune with its expanding geopolitical interests, even as the eastern and western fronts are being strengthened to deter the twin Pakistan-China threat. IAF is on the path to transform into a true aerospace power with the capability to rapidly deploy and operate at great distances. As for the two-front challenge, apart from progressively basing Sukhoi-30MKI fighters and missile squadrons in the two theatres, the plan also includes upgrading the airfields and advanced landing grounds in the sectors in order to give both defensive and offensive options. It is important for India to realise the relevance of Chinese achievements in space technologies and to critically view and analyse Chinese achievements in the area of manned space missions In order to achieve further success in the space arena, developments in cryogenic technology are important for India. These should be pursued in order to develop the capability of launching 4-5 ton satellites, which will help in achieving a greater commercial edge. Programmes like moon and mars missions, using robotic technologies, are also important in order to know more about the nature of resources, especially minerals, available on these bodies and undertaking their mining. It is also important to work towards launching satellites for India’s armed forces, which will help gain an advantage over adversaries. The book is an attempt to analyse the strategic importance of rising economic, political and military stature of China with a view to understand its regional and global implications in a new world order. As a rational actor in a chaotic world, China will defend its security interests at all costs. Besides undertaking a comprehensive modernisation of its armed forces, China is developing a series of offensive space capabilities while advocating the peaceful use of outer space. The book will be of immense value not only to the readers of the countries in the immediate neighbourhood of China, but to the strategic community across the globe since rise of China and other major Asian players including India will shape the strategic international environment in the decades to come during this century. It is hoped that the book will contribute to the understanding of the growing importance of integration of air and space and the fact that aerospace has truly become the new theatre of war and thereby establishing a new milestone in mankind’s history of warfare. The unifying space dimension will remain the single most important source for information and communication which can be used in multiple forms. Hence, China’s aerospace strategy and its implications for India assume greater military importance.

This book, written by leading scholars and policy analysts from both the US and China, explores the transformation and multifaceted nature of US-China relations.

Asian framework -- Global environment -- Nuclear power -- Regional imperatives.

This volume provides an up to date and accessible examination of China's global search for resources, focusing primarily on oil. This focus provides a powerful rationale to explain China's actions overseas, as it impacts on economic, energy and foreign policies. A strong feature of the book is a comprehensive examination of geopolitical issues. Three country case studies (Angola, Brazil and Cambodia) are complemented by two chapters on opportunities and risks to China, and an examination as to how strategies are developed into tangible actions. This book also examines a number of overlapping debates regarding the varieties of capitalisms (autocratic vs. democratic), the urgent need for rebalancing as the world undergoes global crises, and the issues surrounding natural resources in the context of governance, liberal-oriented notions and poverty traps. The book is aimed at general as well as specialized readers and examines the subject in relation to international affairs, especially how the geopolitics of scarcity is driving states to be tenser, more observant of each other, and more acute to foreign initiatives.

One of the most significant factors for contemporary international relations is the growth of China’s economic, military, and political power. Indeed, few analysts would dispute the observation that China’s power has strongly influenced the structure of the international system, major-power strategic relations, international security, the patterns of trans-border economic activities, and most importantly, the political and security dynamics in Asia in the twenty-first century. This book maps the growth of China’s political, economic, and military capabilities and its impact on the security order in Asia over the coming decades. While updating the emerging power dimensions and prevailing discourse, it provides a nuanced analysis of whether the growth of Chinese power is resulting in Beijing becoming more assertive, or even aggressive, in its behavior and pursuit of national interests. It also examines how the key Asian countries perceive and react to the growth of China’s power and how US rebalancing would play out in the context of Beijing’s political, economic, and military power. China’s Power and Asian Security will be of huge interest to student and scholars of Asian politics, Chinese politics, security studies and international security and international relations more generally.