East Asia

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About Centre

The East Asia Centre is dedicated to study and research the domestic and foreign policies of individual countries of the region as well as India’s multifaceted relationships with these countries. With respect to China, the Centre’s research foci are its foreign policy (particularly towards the US, Russia, Central Asia and Asia Pacific), domestic politics, economy, the People’s Liberation Army (PLA), Tibet Autonomous Region (TAR) and India’s relationship with China in all its dimensions. The Centre’s research also focuses on Taiwan, its domestic politics, Sino-Taiwanese relationship and Indo-Taiwanese relationship, Hong Kong and India-Hong Kong relations. Japan and Korea are the other major focus of the Centre, with its research focused on their domestic politics, foreign policy and comprehensive bilateral relationships with India. The geopolitics of the Asia Pacific and the Korean peninsula are also studied in the Centre. The Centre brings out the bimonthly newsletter – East Asia Monitor – on China, Japan and the Korean Peninsula.

The Centre brings out bimonthly newsletter – East Asia Monitor – on China, Japan and the Korean Peninsula.

Land to Seas: The Deployment of China’s Nuclear Forces

China's deployment of nuclear forces are diversifying in an effort to achieve effective deterrence against its adversaries. Whereas the robustness of its nuclear posture might mean that it is moving away from its limited arsenal, however, its strategies and patterns of deployment indicate the PLA Rocket Forces are focused on improving its response and coordination for a seamless and rapid counter-strike, updating its strategy of deployment of missile systems to reduce its vulnerabilities in the post-missile defence nuclear environment and integrate its nuclear responses to portray an effective deterrence.

Missile Defence and China

China has considerably improved its missile defence capabilities which is generally thought as a way to counter the US nuclear superiority after the abolition of the ABM Treaty. However, the Chinese responses show a broader understanding that the US nuclear superiority is more than a competition to reduce the efficiency of the Chinese deterrence.

Xi Jinping’s ‘Chinese Dream’: China’s Renewed Foreign and Security Policy

  • Publisher: Routledge Taylor & Francis
    2022
The author analyses the influence of Xi’s 'Chinese Dream' on China’s foreign relations and security postures.

Xi Jinping’s rise has led to a paradigm shift in many aspects of China’s domestic and international politics. A key element of this has been the ideological vision shorthanded as the 'Chinese Dream', combining elements of nationalism, Confucian ideology, and economic expansionism. Singh evaluates the various changes in China’s nominally communist ideology in the post-Mao era, with an emphasis on the implications for China’s economic and security relations with other countries. He particularly focusses on China’s approach to South Asia and the Indian Ocean Region, key elements of China’s strategy.

An insightful guide to understanding the direction of China’s foreign and security policy, and especially its impact on India–China relations.

  • ISBN: 9781032375328 ,
  • Price: £84.00

Chinese Power: Trends in Engagement and Containment

  • Publisher: KW Publishers
    2021
The East Asia Strategic Review is an annual publication of the East Asia Centre, Manohar Parrikar Institute for Defence Studies and Analyses (MP-IDSA), New Delhi. The current volume titled "Chinese Power: Trends in Engagement and Containment" intends to present an Indian perspective on China's strategic outreach in the East Asian region under President Xi Jinping. It analyses how Beijing employs the instruments of diplomacy, economy, military and political outreach to engage with the regional countries and how US presence influences the regional dynamics.
  • ISBN: 978-3-030-72721-5 ,
  • Price: EUR 74.89 [ebook] | EUR 89.99 [Hardcover]
  • E-copy available

India–China Rivalry: Asymmetric No Longer: An Assessment of China’s Evolving Perceptions of India

  • Publisher: KW Publishers
    2021
In recent years, there has been growing interest in deciphering the nature and contours of bilateral dynamics between India and China, since the contours bilateral dynamics between the two rising powers have potential implications for the evolving geopolitical order in the region and even beyond. This book is not about understanding the nature of rivalry dynamics between India and China but prominently focuses on China’s mental and emotional image of India, which has remained an underexplored dimension in contemporary scholarship.

The aim of the book is two-fold. First, this book is an effort to analyse China’s contemporary perceptual image about India primarily through the analysis of Chinese publications on the subject. Second, this book questions the prevalent notion of characterising India-China rivalry as ‘one-sided’ or ‘asymmetric.’

Unarguably, power asymmetry, with substantial Chinese advantage, has been a persistent characteristic of India-China relations and is likely to remain or even grow further. India, being weaker in this dyad, naturally has a greater threat perception vis-à-vis China. However, this apparent power asymmetry does not provide China with an overwhelming advantage over India.

The book argues that India has been and continues to be a ‘strategic rival’ in Chinese perception even though it is not categorised by China as its ‘principal rival.’ In the contemporary period, as India expands its defence capabilities, extends its regional outreach and deepens its engagement with major powers, Beijing has begun to factor New Delhi into its strategic calculus even more seriously.

  • ISBN: 978-93-91490-01-0 ,
  • Price: ₹. 980/-
  • E-copy available

Asia between Multipolarism and Multipolarity

  • Publisher: KW Publishers
    2020
This book aims to map the Asian power trajectory and the continent’s contemporary journey towards greater multipolarity. This volume examines the impact of plurilateral and multilateral dialogues and cooperative mechanisms on Asia’s security and economic architecture. It is based on the proceedings of the thought-provoking 20th edition of the Asian Security Conference which was held from March 26-28, 2019 at the Manohar Parrikar Institute for Defence Studies and Analyses, New Delhi.
  • ISBN: 9789389137439 ,
  • Price: ₹.1280/-
  • E-copy available

The Heavenly Land and the Land of the Rising Sun: Historical Linkages, Security Cooperation and Strategic Partnership

  • Publisher: KW Publishers
    2020
Security relations between India and Japan hold great potential to shape the future security architecture of the Indo-Pacific region. This book delves into this aspect holistically tracing the linkages between the two countries with advent of Buddhism into Japan from India, through China and Korea. Geography and strategic factors shaping the security of Japan have been evaluated and issues of defence cooperation, maritime security, cooperation in UN Peace Keeping Operations and strategic partnership between Indian and Japan have been deliberated. Set in both, a bilateral as well as a regional context, the security dynamics between the two countries has been analysed to arrive at pragmatic recommendations that must be implemented for an enhanced relationship in the security realm. Quantitatively assessing the India Japan security cooperation, the book carries out a Strength, Weakness, Opportunity and Threat (SWOT) analysis to arrive at the strategies for enhancement of such cooperation.
  • ISBN: 978-93-89137-45-3 ,
  • Price: ₹.1280/-
  • E-copy available

Major Powers and the Korean Peninsula: Politics, Policies and Perspectives

  • Publisher: KW Publishers
    2019
The Korean Peninsula, which constitutes one of the strategic pivots of Northeast Asian security, has remained a contested theatre for major powers. Denuclearisation of the Peninsula is unfolding as one of the most defining challenges in shaping regional security. The end state in the Peninsula and how it is to be realised is debated amongst the stakeholders. This book aims to situate some of the critical issues in the Korean theatre within the competing geopolitical interests, strategic choices and policy debates among the major powers. This volume is an endeavour to bring together leading Indian experts including former Indian ambassadors to the Republic of Korea, senior members from the defence and strategic community to analyse the developing situation in the Korean Peninsula.
  • ISBN: 978-93-89137-15-6,
  • Price: ₹.1280/-
  • E-copy available

India and China in Asia: Between Equilibrium and Equations, 1st Edition

  • Publisher: Routledge
    2019
This book analyses the structure of the India–China relationship and the two prominent powers’ positions with and against each other, bilaterally and globally, in a complex Asian environment and beyond. India and China’s perceptions of one another are evaluated to reveal how the order of Asia is influenced by engaging in different power equations that affect equilibrium and disequilibrium.

Contributors address three critical perspectives of India and China in Asia which are increasingly shaping the future of Asia and impacting the Indo-Pacific power balance. First, they examine the mutual perceptions of India and China as an integral part of Asia’s evolving politics and the impact of this on the emerging Asian order and disorder. Second, they assess how classical and contemporary characteristics of the India–China boundary and beyond-border disputes or conflicts are shaping Asia’s political trajectory and leaving an impact on the Indo-Pacific region. Additionally, contributors observe the prevailing power equations in which India and China are currently engaged to reveal that they are not only geographically limited to the Asian region. Instead, having a strong global or intercontinental character attached to it, the India–China relationship involves extra-territorial powers and extra-territorial regions.

This book will be of interest to academics, students and policymakers working on Asian studies, international relations, area studies, emerging powers studies, strategic studies, security studies and conflict studies.

  • ISBN: 978-11-38388-59-8,
  • Price: £92.00/-

The Korean Peninsula and Indo-Pacific Power Politics: Status Security at Stake

  • Publisher: Routledge
    2019
This book assesses the strategic linkages that the Korean Peninsula shares with the Indo-Pacific and provides a succinct picture of issues which will shape the trajectory of the Korean Peninsula in the future.

This book analyses how critical actors such as the United States, China, Russia and Japan are caught in a tightly balanced power struggle affecting the Korean Peninsula. It shows how these countries are exerting control over the Korean Peninsula while also holding on to their status as critical actors in the broader Indo-Pacific. The prospects of peace, stability and unity in the Korean Peninsula and the impact of this on Indo-Pacific power politics are explored as well as the contending and competing interests in the region. Chapters present country-specific positions and approaches as case studies and review the impact of power politics on stakeholders’ relationships in the Indo-Pacific. The book also argues that the Korean Peninsula and the issue of denuclearization is of primary importance to any direction an Indo-Pacific Partnership may take.

Bringing together scholars, journalists and ex-diplomats, this book will be of interest to academics working in the field of international relations, foreign policy, security studies and Asian studies as well as audiences interested

  • ISBN: ISBN: 978-0-367-36423-6 (hbk)
    ISBN: 978-0-429-34585-2 (ebk),
  • Price: £120.00

Scaling India-Japan Cooperation in Indo-Pacific and Beyond 2025: Corridors, Connectivity and Contours

  • Publisher: KW Publishers
    2019
This book aims to examine the scope and potential of India-Japan cooperation factoring infrastructure connectivity and corridors in Indo-Pacific. The volume examines the bilateral, trilateral and multilateral contours of the growing partnership in the backdrop of a rising China that is rapidly changing the geo-political order of the region. The volume examines the scope of India-Japan relations beyond 2025 and evaluates how their common pledge to have a “partnership for prosperity” is not free from challenges. China’s Belt and Road Initiative, the United States bilateral-oriented approach towards Asia, and the struggle to successfully conclude the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP) is testing the character of India-Japan relations which the volume covers at length.
  • ISBN: 978-93-89137-29-3 ,
  • Price: ₹.1280/-
  • E-copy available

East Asia Strategic Review: China’s Rising Strategic Ambitions in Asia

  • Publisher: Pentagon Press
    2019
The East Asia Strategic Review is the publication form the East Asia Centre, Institute for Defence Studies and Analyses (IDSA), New Delhi. The volume entitled, China's Rising Strategic Ambitions in Asia is intended to bring out Indian perspectives on the growing influence of China in Asia. These perspectives are particularly seen in the light of expanding Chinese political and economic engagement in Asia. As a major country in Asia, the Indian perspectives contribute the necessary input towards the ongoing debate on the Chinese role.
  • ISBN: 978-93-86618-65-8,
  • Price: ₹.1245/-
  • E-copy available

China-India-Japan in the Indo-Pacific: Ideas, Interests and Infrastructure

  • Publisher: Pentagon Press
    2018
This book analyses the competing power politics that exists between the three major Asian powers - China, India, and Japan - on infrastructural development across the Indo-Pacific. It examines the competing policies and perspectives of these Asian powers on infrastructure development initiatives and explores the commonalities and contradictions between them that shape their ideas and interests. In brief, the volume looks into the strategic contention that exists between China's "Belt and Road Initiative" (BRI; earlier officially known as "One Belt, One Road" - OBOR) and Japan's "Expanded Partnership for Quality Infrastructure" (PQI) and initiatives like the Asia-Africa Growth Corridor (AAGC) and position India's geostrategic and geo-economic interests in between these two competing powers and their mammoth infrastructural initiatives.
  • ISBN: 978-93-86618-42-9,
  • Price: ₹.1495/- $38.95/-
  • E-copy available

India-China Relations: Politics of Resources, Identity and Authority in a Multipolar World Order

  • Publisher: Routledge
    2017

The rise of India and China as two major economic and political actors in both regional and global politics necessitates an analysis of not only their bilateral ties but also the significance of their regional and global pursuits. This book looks at the nuances and politics that the two countries attach to multilateral institutions and examines how they receive, react to and approach each other’s presence and upsurge.

  • ISBN 978-11-3883-359-3
  • Price: £90.00
  • E-copy available

India-Taiwan Relations in Asia and Beyond: The Future

  • Publisher: Pentagon Press

This volume is an outcome of the conference that the Institute for Defence Studies and Analyses (IDSA) in collaboration with the Taipei Economic and Cultural Center (TECC) held in New Delhi on 8 December 2015 at IDSA. The conference was organised in New Delhi to commemorate the 20th anniversary of the establishment of their respective Representative Offices in Taipei and New Delhi by India and Taiwan.

  • ISBN 978-81-8274-904-7,
  • Price: ₹. 995
  • E-copy available

India’s Approach to Asia: Strategy, Geopolitics and Responsibility

  • Publisher: Pentagon Press
    2016

This book offers wide ranging divergent perspectives on India's role in managing and shaping Asian Security. The book offers important ideas on how Asian security will shape up in the future by utilizing the method of scenarios. It is an important contribution to the field of Asian and regional security and India's role in it.

  • ISBN 978-81-8274-870-5
  • E-copy available

Changing Contexts of Chinese Military Strategy and Doctrine

This monograph identifies the contexts which have shaped China's military strategy and doctrine. It argues that these have evolved through Party-Military relations as well as through the Chinese leadership's assessment of the international balance of power. In this framework, the monograph has traced the PLA's strategic and doctrinal transformation from a defensive one to one of limited offence, having global aspirations, affecting further changes in China's military strategy and doctrine.

China Year Book 2015 – China’s Transition under Xi Jinping

  • Publisher: Pentagon Press
    2016

This volume is an outcome of the annual exercise of the Institute for Defence Studies and Analyses, New Delhi (IDSA) to understand and track China and its developmental course. As a flagship publication of the East Asia Centre in IDSA, the China Year Book (CYB) 2015 is an undertaking to comperehensively analyse China's state transformation internally and externally. To what extent China will smoothly transit to its power quest is still an open query. This volume is an exercise to bring this debate to the fore.

  • ISBN 978-81-8274-907-8,
  • Price: ₹. 1995
  • E-copy available

A Game Theoretic Analysis for Ladakh Standoff, 2020

A game theoretic analysis for Ladakh standoff is presented in this article. Starting with Prisoner’s Dilemma (PD) game, a more flexible game, known as De-escalation game is derived by incorporating the concepts of retaliation and non-escalation probabilities in the PD game. It is shown that by including these concepts, many new possibilities open up for India, which permit it to impose penalty on the aggressor.

India’s Stance on the ‘Asian NATO’: Between ‘Status’ and ‘Security’ Dilemmas

‘Security’ and ‘status’ complexities are critical impediments for any state’s foreign policy; and India is no different. This article argues that as the China threat looms large, New Delhi will not be in complete repudiation of an ‘Asian NATO’ (or “Indo-Pacific NATO”), despite strategically refraining from being party to a definitive military alliance and an age-old non-alignment principle. However, India’s support will be contingent on the future trajectory of its ties with Beijing.

The Elusive Quest for an ‘Asian NATO’

The turn of the twenty-first century brought with it the miraculous economic rise of China in Asia and beyond; American strategy towards the region, denoted by the ‘pivot to Asia’ and acceptance of a ‘Pacific Century’ for the US,1 became increasingly China-centric. Building partnerships, forging security and commercial pacts with Asian countries and enhancing maritime presence across the Indian Ocean Region (IOR) eventually became the fulcrum of America’s Asia strategy, with mainstream strategic perception in the United States on China becoming increasingly negative.

The KMT’s Predicament: Cross-Strait Relations and Taiwan’s Domestic Politics

On October 6, 2020, Taiwan’s Legislative Yuan (parliament) passed two important Resolutions, moved by the main opposition party, the Kuomintang (KMT). These sought to ensure ‘US military aid in combating aggression by the Chinese Communist Party (CCP)’ and ‘a resumption of diplomatic relations between the US and Taiwan.’1 The ruling Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) supported the Resolutions. Such a bipartisan consensus is rare in Taiwan’s deeply divided politics.

The Reception and Implementation of the Belt and Road Initiative in Vietnam

The article looks back on China’s proposal and promotion of the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) to Vietnam, as well as Vietnam’s official position and response to this initiative. The implementation of agreements between the two countries is analysed by evaluating two key areas of the BRI in Vietnam, namely facilities connectivity, and trade and investment. China was active in promoting the BRI, whereas Vietnam welcomed the initiative with caution. Cooperation in the two key areas has been promoted.

Indonesia: A Reluctant Participant in the South China Sea Disputes

The role of Indonesia in the South China Sea (SCS) disputes has been limited to being part of the ASEAN team since the country is not one of the active claimants. Jakarta has tried to sidestep its maritime row with Beijing by emphasizing the lack of a “territorial dispute’ between the two countries. The article analyzes the role and position of Indonesia in the SCS disputes and argues that despite Indonesia’s reluctance to be an active or direct claimant state, developments in recent years have dragged her into the disputes and she will remain involved until a mutually acceptable solution is achieved in the overarching problem of the SCS.

Chinese Territorial Claims on Indian Territory in the Context of Its Surveying and Mapping, 1708-1960

The article aims to trace the surveying and mapping of China during the 252-year period, prior to 1960 in order to connect it with the evolution of the Sino-Indian boundary. What emerges is that the Manchu was dependent on foreigners for the first modern maps of China made to scale with longitude/latitude lines. Through these maps no territorial claim against India had been made.

China’s India Policy in the 1950s: From Friendship to Antagonism

What led to the Sino-Indian militarized confrontations in 1959? I argue that Hindi-Chini Bhai-Bhai became a victim of changed perceptions in China. As long as China’s external and internal environment was relatively secure, India was seen as a potential ally, and Sino-Indian relations thrived. As external and internal pressures on China mounted, India’s behaviour vis-à-vis the Dalai Lama’s flight from China and the territorial dispute was perceived by China as reactionary.

Expanding Role of PLAAF in China’s National Security Strategy

China’s great power ambition and actions have been fuelled by its spectacular economic growth and military modernization. The need to sustain the economy and energy flow makes the East and South China seas vital to it. Its vulnerabilities also lie on its seaboard. To dominate the maritime spaces, it needs to own the contiguous airspace as well. The prescient Chinese leadership has transformed its Air Force into a strategic instrument of power, to protect its economic lifelines, geo-political interests and regional dominance.

Geopolitics of Western Indian Ocean: Unravelling China’s Multi-dimensional Presence

The Western Indian Ocean (WIO) is now attaining centrestage in the geopolitics of the Indian Ocean. Apart from France and the US, China holds significant interests in the WIO. China’s interests with the WIO states could be divided in four categories: dual-use infrastructure building, politico-diplomatic focus, connectivity-access and military activities. All four are interconnected and facilitate China’s desire to project power. For China, activities in the WIO serve the purpose of ensuring energy supplies, maintaining economic growth and securing military interests.

Korea’s Para-diplomacy with States in India: An Analysis of the ‘Caravan Events’

In the arena of international relations nation-states have been regarded as the primary actors. However, the constituent units of nation-states have also become active in forging relations with the political units which are located outside the national borders through ‘para-diplomacy’. Since the 1990s the states of Indian union have been playing a significant role in India’s foreign affairs. The Narendra Modi government in New Delhi has also established a ‘States Division’ in the Ministry of External Affairs.

Xi Jinping’s China

There are several significant events which preceded China’s constitutional amendment of March 2018 that removed the presidential term limit boosting Xi Jinping’s standing as China’s prospective leader-for-life. Born to a revolutionary leader, Xi Zhongxun, Xi Jinping spent most of his life serving the government, gradually working his way up the hierarchy. His precedence in the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) and authority over all political institutions of the People’s Republic of China (PRC) have arguably placed him at par with Mao Zedong and Deng Xiaoping.

India-China Relations: 1947–2000 – A Documentary Study (5 Volumes)

Generations of scholars and analysts working on India-China issues will be grateful to Mr. Avtar Singh Bhasin for the extraordinary service he has done to them by bringing into the public domain, in five volumes, important texts on the subject—over 2,500 of them—including many that are still not declassified by the Ministry of External Affairs and transferred for public access to the National Archives of India. He was able to do so because he got ready access to material classified as ‘secret’ or ‘top secret’ in the papers lying with the Nehru Memorial Museum and Library.

India’s Policy Response to China’s Investment and Aid to Nepal, Sri Lanka and Maldives: Challenges and Prospects

Regional strategic dynamics in South Asia is in a state of flux since the announcement of China’s Belt and Road Initiative (BRI). China emphasises on the economic aspect of investment in infrastructures and energy projects, but strategic underpinning are very much apparent. China loan has created indebtedness in these countries and has helped Beijing to gain strategic foothold in the region which India considers as core to its security. India’s aid programme though focuses on the neighbourhood, it remains small compared to China and suffers from delivery deficit.

The BRI and Sino-Indian Geo-Economic Competition in Bangladesh: Coping Strategy of a Small State

This article explains the Sino-Indian geo-economic competition in Bangladesh in the wake of the former’s launching of the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) in 2013. Beijing intends to fund various large-scale infrastructure projects in Bangladesh under the BRI which has prompted India to make its own offer of economic assistance to counter the Chinese initiative. The Sino-Indian competition has created challenges and opportunities for Bangladesh. Dhaka is pursuing a balanced policy to manage the competition and advance its own interests.

Talking About a ‘Rising China’: An Analysis of Indian Official Discourse 1996- 2012

This Occasional Paper looks at the idea of China being a potential security threat as spoken about in India's official discourse that is, as written down in annual reports or governmental statements or mentioned in the speeches of Indian officials. It does not analyse India's foreign policy, the strategic environment, or offer a new perspective on the development of bilateral security relations.