China and South Asia: Changing Regional Dynamics, Development and Power Play

Abstract

C hina and South Asia is a collection of essays on Chinese foreign policy in South Asia and the Indian Ocean Region. It covers China’s diplomatic, political, economic, social, and cultural interactions with the South Asian states, the regional balance of power and power asymmetries, and cooperation, competition and conflicts in the region. China’s rise as an economic power has led to increasing interactions in infrastructure development and connectivity as well as trade and investments with the regional countries. While the volume brings together accounts of ongoing debates and ground realities, it fails to offer a nuanced and balanced perspective on complex issues emerging out of the Chinese policy in the region. Although the edited book ignores India’s perspectives on Chinese engagements, strangely, the South Asia edition features India on the front page to target media, academia, think tanks, and policy makers in India in particular, and South Asia and IOR in general. In the Foreword, Prof Sukh Deo Muni initiates a critical debate on Chinese foreign policy in South Asia and IOR. On the contrary, most chapters disappoint with uncritical perspectives on China’s Belt and Road Initiative (BRI). In addition, the volume fails to critically assess China’s Belt and Road Initiative, its foreign policy, and implications for small South Asian states. China’s historical engagements with the small states of South Asia have not been adequately discussed, including the Republic of China’s engagements with South Asia and IOR between 1911 and 1949. Hence, the volume has not addressed the question as to how the historical experiences help the expansion of Chinese geo-strategic and geo-economic footprints in contemporary times. There has been no shortage of comparative literature on both India and China. China is no longer an emerging economy. while India is still a developing economy trying to match Chinese geo-economic footprints in South Asia and IOR. In the Introduction, the editors’ attempt to put China and India into the same category within the international system can be problematic (p.9). Furthermore, it gives an impression of an uncritical endorsement of China’s official narrative on South Asia, while ignoring its opaque political system, controlled media and social media environment, and above all, the lack of electoral democracy (p.11). Strategic Analysis, 2022 Vol. 46, No. 3, 350–353, https://doi.org/10.1080/09700161.2022.2081435