This book looks at the changing dynamics and regional power play between China and South Asia. It explores crucial issues such as China–Pakistan Economic Corridor and the changing nature of China–India relations; China’s trident approach in South Asia and its rising influence in the region; the responses of small states to rising China; China’s twenty-first-century Belt and Road Initiative; China and India; China’s rise and the USA’s security policy vis-à-vis India; the Shanghai Cooperation Organization and regional security; and Russia’s ‘Pivot to the East’ and its impact on the Asia-Pacific region. The volume brings together the views of scholars from China, South Asia and beyond on different aspects of China and South Asia engagement, including regional politics, connectivity, infrastructure and development projects, power politics, economy, ideology and culture. The chapters offer insights into trends and challenges within China’s economic and security environment as impacted by globalization, regional interests and the demands of cooperation. They present critical, comprehensive and expert analyses of China’s engagement with South Asia by covering historical, sociological, political, cultural, economic and strategic factors while including perspectives from individual countries. This volume will be useful to scholars and researchers of Chinese studies, politics and international relations, South Asian studies, foreign policy, diplomacy, security and strategic studies and political studies, as well as to those in media, policymakers, bureaucrats, diplomats and think tanks.

Since the early 1990s and the end of the Cold War, the implications of China's rising power have come to dominate the security agenda of the Asia-Pacific region. This book is the first to comprehensively chart the development of Southeast Asia’s relations with the People’s Republic of China (PRC) from 1949 to 2010, detailing each of the eleven countries’ ties to the PRC and showing how strategic concerns associated with China's regional posture have been a significant factor in shaping their foreign and defence policies. In addition to assessing bilateral ties, the book also examines the institutionalization of relations between the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) and China. The first part of the book covers the period 1949-2010: it examines Southeast Asian responses to the PRC in the context of the ideological and geopolitical rivalry of the Cold War; Southeast Asian countries’ policies towards the PRC in first decade of the post-Cold War era; and deepening ties between the ASEAN states and the PRC in the first decade of the twenty-first century. Part Two analyses the evolving relationships between the countries of mainland Southeast Asia - Vietnam, Thailand, Myanmar, Laos and Cambodia - and China. Part Three reviews ties between the states of maritime Southeast Asia - Indonesia, Malaysia, Singapore, the Philippines, Brunei and East Timor - and the PRC. Whilst the primary focus of the book is the security dimension of Southeast Asia-China relations, it also takes full account of political relations and the burgeoning economic ties between the two sides. This book is a timely contribution to the literature on the fast changing geopolitics of the Asia-Pacific region.

Spanning over a millennium of history, this book seeks to describe and define the evolution of the China–Southeast Asia nexus and the interactions which have shaped their shared pasts. Examining the relationships which have proven integral to connecting Northeast and Southeast Asia with other parts of the world, the contributors of the volume provide a wide-ranging historical context to changing relations in the region today – perhaps one of the most intense re-orderings occurring anywhere in the world. From maritime trading relations and political interactions to overland Chinese expansion and commerce in Southeast Asia, this book reveals rarely explored connections across the China–Southeast Asia interface. In so doing, it transcends existing area studies boundaries to present an invaluable new perspective to the field. A major contribution to the study of Asian economic and cultural interactions, this book will appeal to students and scholars of Chinese history, as well as those engaged with Southeast Asia.

As part of “China’s south,” Southeast Asia has historically assumed a peripheral position when juxtaposed against the power of the Chinese state. In the existing scholarly literature, the power asymmetry is reflected in the ostensible bias where most studies are about China’s presence in or engagement with Southeast Asia rather than the reverse; studies on the presence or influence of Southeast Asia in China have been a marginal enterprise. The present volume aims to fill this void by exploring the historical entanglements and contemporary engagements of Southeast Asia(ns) in China through a Southeast Asian perspective. As China seeks to understand Southeast Asia’s presence in the country on its own terms, it is also engaged in a process of self-discovery and defining where and how it should stand in relation to the region. Departing from the discourse of China as the a priori center dominating the scholarship on China–Southeast Asia relations, the present volume hopes to subvert such power relations in order to bring fresh perspectives on the historical and contemporary contributions of Southeast Asia(ns) in China.

Based on research financed by the Ford Foundation this book brings together the work of scholars and experts from China and its Southern neighbors providing a detailed insight into China's relations with South Asia Nations. This ebook is also available within China: Making New Partnerships - A Rising China and its Neighbors.

The relations between ASEAN and China occupy a unique and important position in the foreign relations of the Asia-Pacific region. This volume investigates the impacts of global changes and regional challenges confronting the contemporary developments of China-ASEAN relations.

The labyrinthine BRI projects, aimed at realizing win-win benefits, have created new challenges for the host countries. Economic aspirations must be shielded and protected by security umbrellas, thus making these countries partners of the China-dominated security architecture. Nowhere is this more evident than in the countries of Sri Lanka and Pakistan. Despite Southeast Asian nations being viewed as within the ambit of China's historical sphere of influence, Myanmar and Thailand provide experiences different from their neighbours. This book analyzes China as an economic juggernaut, undergirded by global ambitions, expanding its economic footprint across South and Southeast Asia through trade, technological supremacy and territorial acquisitions. The authors also navigate China's policies at home and abroad, providing a futuristic perspective on China's path to victory. The book provides answers to compelling questions as:

This empirical work illuminates how China uses the higher education mechanism in South Asia to advance its national interests and investigates the outcomes for China, including both challenges and opportunities. Using a soft power theoretical framework, this book employs the case study of Nepal, a South Asian country of profound geostrategic value for the two competing powers of China and India. Illustrating how higher education is the mechanism for achieving soft power goals, it draws on data analysis based on archival sources and interviews with China and South Asia experts, including academics and politico-bureaucratic elites, as well as interviews with Nepalese students and alumni. Importantly though, this book advances an innovative conceptual model of geointellect to trace the evolving dimensions of China’s global dominance in higher education, research, and innovation paradigm, especially in the context of the Belt and Road Initiative and ultimately reveals how foreign policy and higher education policy reinforce each other in the context of China. China’s Soft Power and Higher Education in South Asia provides an empirically rich resource for students and scholars of education, international relations, Asian studies, and China’s soft power.

This book attempts to capture the tremendous growth in Chinese investment in the South Asian region in the recent past. It makes country-wise analysis of the factors that led to the growth of Chinese investment in the region and explores the nature and role of such investment in expanding trade in the region. It also discusses in detail the Chinese infrastructure investment through Belt and Road Initiative (BRI). Interestingly, despite being the major investor in several countries, Chinese investment has been seen with some level of doubt. Apprehension about Chinese investment has forced countries to suspend China-funded projects or amend their investment policies. This book tries to address these crucial issues while exploring and analyzing the causes and effects of the same.

The Chinese in Southeast Asia, with their growing economic clout, have been attracting attention from politicians, scholars and observers in recent decades. The rise of China as a global economic power and its profound influence over Southeast Asia has cast a spotlight on the role of Southeast Asian Chinese in the region's economic relations with China.The Southeast Asian Chinese as an economic force and their growing importance with China are, to a certain extent, determined by the nature and development of their communities. This book uses a multifaceted approach to unravel the forces that helped to transform the communities in the past. Containing 17 papers written within a span of six and a half years, from 2000 to 2006, the book focuses on the social, economic and political aspects of these communities, with special emphasis on the Chinese in Malaysia and Singapore.