As analysis of India-China ties seem to have reacquired dynamism in these last years, Jagannath Panda’s latest book stands as a refreshing brick in an already dense structure. It adds valuable material to the emerging sub-field framed by authors such as William J Antholis and Carl J Dahlman, which examines the multiple impacts of the two rising Asian powers in the context of an increasingly multi-polar world order they contribute to shape. In India-China Relations: Politics of Resources, Identity and Authority in a Multipolar World Order, the author assesses the complexity of a nexus which can nowadays only be acknowledged in terms of its plurality.
The author finds concrete pillars to conduct his analysis: “multi-layered” and “polygonal” are aptly outlined as the two main aspects of contemporary India-China relations. The methodology paves the way for an extended analysis of both countries’ multiple intricacies, generating an interest for scholars, students and experts interested in the emergence of an Asian polarity in the contemporary world dynamics.
Setting the two countries’ interactions in a multi-polar world order, the main attempt of the book is to broaden the approach to its object of analysis. Since the early 1990s, and more prominently during the 2000s, India and China have encompassed their strict bilateral scope to progressively enter, and push for, a multilateral arena. As their power projections and interests keep extending, both countries are confronted by multiple, diverse stakes. Among these, the author retains resources, identity and authority as the three pivotal strategic elements. This innovative canvas allows him to analyse the structure of India-China relations in a dynamic way and in a contemporary context.
Perhaps one of the author’s major achievements is to bring the two countries’ relations beyond the usual “cooperation versus conflict” frame in which they have been entangled, which in the long run had become a convenient but rather sterile dual set of analyses handled by a wide panel of actors. The author tries to explore what lies between the two ends of the spectrum: competition, collaboration, coexistence and convergence are among the many nuances that are used in his analysis.
The book is organised into five parts, starting from an up-to-date analysis of today’s major challenges to the bilateral structure: the territorial dispute, post-Dalai Lama scenarios and the tensions related to water resources.
Here, the strategic expert sidelines the historical landmarks of the bilateral course in order to better question their relevance in today’s emerging world order. To what extent is Panchsheel still influencing today’s pragmatism both countries exert? What does the Strategic and Cooperative Partnership for Peace and Prosperity signed by the two countries in 2013 imply? These are among the many questions raised. Each of the four other parts of the book focuses on a particular geographic scale.
From the sub-regional to the global, going through the regional and intercontinental, the author examines the various geographies in which both countries invest power and ambitions.
It underlines the importance of third-party actors’ involvement that brings both India and China to cope with complex situations at all levels. While their ultimate aim is to maximise their own national interests through foreign strategies, the analysis highlights the creative ways both countries are using to adjust to changing scenarios. In doing so, the book provides the strong and convincing belief that the new Asian and world geopolitics is far from being reduced to a zero-sum game. What the author draws out from these new ways India and China rely on to engage and perceive each other is a balanced assessment. The progressive enlargement of the world order has provided additional space for the two countries to coexist.
Their expanding political and economic power has been translated into efforts to temper and counter the international mechanisms dominated by the western powers and assert themselves as key actors of such a transition.
However, in the author’s view, this collaboration seems to rely on a fragile equilibrium, whose viability is bound to be limited to this middle-term transitional phase. Indeed, the politics of resources, identity and authority can restrain the strategic space in which both emerging powers act, letting their respective national interests arise once again in their purest form.
Can this lead to a situation of multi-layered “security dilemma”? Can bilateral elements of rivalry evolve upstream and jeopardise the multilateral trend? On these aspects, the study would have gained an ulterior reach by articulating its strategic analysis with an overview of the contemporary domestic political dynamics at stake in India and China. Indeed, one wonders, and this is perhaps the only aspect the book does not tackle frontally, what is the degree of autonomy of this multi-layered investment? What are the concrete contributions of this multilateral commitment to the bilateral relationship?
The author leaves the reader free to strike the right balance, by carefully outlining five distinct scenarios for the future. While mobilising a considerable amount of information coming from Indian, western and most notably Chinese authors, the book sheds a new light on the creative ways both countries have been framing to engage with each other, making it a passionate topic as it leaves most of the future options open.