This book looks at the changing dynamics and regional power play between China and South Asia. It presents 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.

China's Soft Power Diplomacy: Myth or Reality? examines the Chinese version of soft power both in conceptual and operational terms, and explores its myriad implications for India, in particular, and South Asia in general. The book investigates how the institutionalization of cultural soft power would help China project its image as a benign and responsible stakeholder in order to reshape the current international system with its notion of “harmonious world order,” based on Chinese characteristics. This book traces the origin of China’s engagement with South Asian states from historical, political, economic, and security perspectives in order to better understand the dynamics of its South Asia policy. It illuminates the core reasons to explain why China’s soft power initiatives in South Asia are least appealing and convincing to India while they are welcomed by smaller nations of the region. More pertinently, the book addresses complexities and nuances of China’s soft power instruments given the psycho-cultural and geopsychological peculiarities of the South Asian region. For this, it focuses on how the Sino-Pakistan axis constitutes a potential challenge to India’s leadership role and influence in South Asia.

A comprehensive analysis of China's efforts to build and utilize soft power as a distinctive part of its foreign policy This volume examines the evolution and application of China's soft power with particular focus on various strategic initiatives such as cultural and public diplomacy, Confucius institutes, development assistance and infrastructure building, media collaborations and healthcare diplomacy. This is to emphasize cooperation and partnerships while advancing the theory of harmonious development through these initiatives across the world. Employing an alternative perspective, it analyses the strategic benefits and limitations of China's soft power policies, and compares them with similar policies by India for identifying the differences and applications.

"The Beijing-Islamabad axis plays a central role in Asia's geopolitics, from India's rise to the prospects for a post-American Afghanistan, from the threat of nuclear terrorism to the continent's new map of mines, ports and pipelines. China is Pakistan's great economic hope and its most trusted military partner; Pakistan is the battleground for China's encounters with Islamic militancy and the heart of its efforts to counter-balance the emerging US-India partnership. For decades, each country has been the other's only 'all-weather' friend. Yet the relationship is still little understood. The wildest claims about it are widely believed, while many of its most dramatic developments are hidden from the public eye. This book sets out the recent history of Sino-Pakistani ties and their ramifications for the West, for India, for Afghanistan, and for Asia as a whole. It tells the stories behind some of its most sensitive aspects, including Beijing's support for Pakistan's nuclear program, China's dealings with the Taliban, and the Chinese military's planning for crises in Pakistan. It describes a relationship increasingly shaped by Pakistan's internal strife, and the dilemmas China faces between the need for regional stability and the imperative for strategic competition with India and the USA."--Amazon.com.

The rise of China has reconstituted the regional identity in Asia as well as the lens through which understanding of China and self-understanding are no longer separate processes intellectually. China scholarship in South and Southeast Asia necessarily highlights meanings of encountering China that Western social sciences fail to reflect because academics in many places, being migrants, navigate and combine more than one civilization forces. With China in itself undergoing transformation, it is unlikely that one can simply speak of China without multiple qualifications of what one actually refers to. The book gathers authors who come from different scholarly traditions to reflect upon how the presentation of China in academic writings as well as think tank analyses can engender different identity possibilities. The book therefore complicates the category 'China' to enable mutual empathy between everything that in one way or another relies on Chineseness as object or subject in accordance with the identity strategies of the China experts.

Hindsight, Insight, Foresight is a tour d’horizon of security issues in the Indo-Pacific. Written by 20 current and former members of the faculty at the Daniel K. Inouye Asia-Pacific Center for Security Studies, its 21 chapters provide hindsight, insight, and foresight on numerous aspects of security in the region. This book will help readers to understand the big picture, grasp the changing faces, and comprehend the local dynamics of regional security.

This book examines PRC “involved” seaports overseas, where involvement can take the form of PRC foreign direct investment (FDI), contracting, and/or terminal operations, in countries such as Cambodia, Pakistan, and the Philippines. Including country-oriented chapters the book sheds light on inter alia the realization (or not) of Chinese seaports, the effects of Chinese participation on port performance, trade, FDI, employment, and the environment, and the wider economic, political, and other ramifications of China’s role. Importantly, the case studies in the book clearly demonstrate that amongst these ports there are successes and failures, positive or negative effects are not preordained, and domestic and international political factors notably influence what occurs in these overseas ports. The book also illuminates the critical role of 3rd parties (including India) in shaping the dynamics of China’s participation in Southeast and South Asian ports and evaluate the potential for Chinese-involved ports to become naval bases. Presenting contributions from experts on Southeast and South Asia and utilising rich empirical data to reveal the factors that are driving China's participation overseas this book will appeal to students and scholars of Asian and Southeast Asian studies, international relations, particularly through the lens of economic relations.

This book brings together new perspectives on China’s engagement with South Asian countries. It examines emerging trends in the ties between China and South Asia in the geo-political, geo-strategic and geo-economics context and looks at opportunities for collaboration and connectivity between them. Drawing on extensive case studies, this volume discusses issues such as China’s overarching Belt Road Initiative (BRI), regional responses and alternatives to BRI, the new politico-economic drivers in the region, India’s China puzzle, the Wuhan informal summit, Nepal and its security dilemma in the region and China’s role in peace and stability in Afghanistan. It presents analysis, debates and the way forward for a comprehensive South Asian regional understanding in the wake of the advancing Chinese presence in South Asia. An important contribution in the study of the developing pan China–South Asia vision, this book will be of interest to scholars and researchers of international relations, Chinese studies, Asian studies, defence and strategic studies, regional cooperation, foreign policy, geopolitics, comparative politics and political studies.

The global implications of China's rise as a global actor In 2005, a senior official in the George W. Bush administration expressed the hope that China would emerge as a “responsible stakeholder” on the world stage. A dozen years later, the Trump administration dramatically shifted course, instead calling China a “strategic competitor” whose actions routinely threaten U.S. interests. Both assessments reflected an underlying truth: China is no longer just a “rising” power. It has emerged as a truly global actor, both economically and militarily. Every day its actions affect nearly every region and every major issue, from climate change to trade, from conflict in troubled lands to competition over rules that will govern the uses of emerging technologies. To better address the implications of China's new status, both for American policy and for the broader international order, Brookings scholars conducted research over the past two years, culminating in a project: Global China: Assessing China's Growing Role in the World. The project is intended to furnish policy makers and the public with hard facts and deep insights for understanding China's regional and global ambitions. The initiative draws not only on Brookings's deep bench of China and East Asia experts, but also on the tremendous breadth of the institution's security, strategy, regional studies, technological, and economic development experts. Areas of focus include the evolution of China's domestic institutions; great power relations; the emergence of critical technologies; Asian security; China's influence in key regions beyond Asia; and China's impact on global governance and norms. Global China: Assessing China's Growing Role in the World provides the most current, broad-scope, and fact-based assessment of the implications of China's rise for the United States and the rest of the world.