highlights the series of coproduced documentary films that detail and illustrate the cooperative aspects — people-to-people relations, cultural ties, economic transactions, etc. — of relations between China and the Mekong river countries (Cambodia, Myanmar, Lao, Vietnam and Thailand). According to him, the documentary series significantly improved the image of China in the Mekong river countries and greatly facilitated the cultural exchanges between China and these countries. Wang’s contribution is unique in that it presents a view of China’s periphery diplomacy from a “media” perspective, and draws attention to the lesser-explored subject of China’s soft power projection in Southeast Asia.
South Asia
China’s complex and expanding relations in South Asia are explored in the third thematic segment of the book. Gancheng Zhao provides a broad strategic analysis of developments in Sino-Indian relations in Chapter 10. Zhao suggests that the shifting complexities of China–India relations can be traced to the shifting mutual perceptions of both Asian powers even as these perceptions are continually shaped by changes in the global strategic milieu and their respective global “status”. For Beijing, India has grown in strategic importance and is now a central component of its periphery diplomacy. China sees relations with India as a “litmus test” for a successful periphery diplomacy (particularly in its western periphery), and in that respect, has continued with efforts to “make India a strategic partner”. There have been a number of convergent areas which bind both sides closer strategically, including growing bilateral trade ties, cooperation in international organizations or groups such as BRICS, and reform of the global economic and financial architecture, among others. At the same time, issues such as the long-standing border dispute, military dynamics, trading imbalance, contestation over water resources, and China’s expanding presence in South Asia and the Indian Ocean region, are some divergent aspects that continue to cast a shadow on the bilateral relationship.
One of the more contentious aspects — the border demarcation dispute — is examined in further depth by Nazia Hussain in Chapter 11. This enduring dispute, in particular, the differing interpretations over the Line of Actual Control (LAC), is arguably a key factor why both China and India have had limited progress in the political/security domain of their relationship. Here, Hussain adopts an evolutionary approach to explain why the border dispute is still unresolved after more than five decades, scrutinizing the origins of the dispute, the 1962 Sino-Indian war, as well as the developments and factors that have shaped the border negotiations since that war. Hussain observes that India’s “humiliating” loss in the 1962 war continues to shape Indian psyches toward China, and until the border dispute, which is a reminder of that painful defeat, is amicably resolved, a more strategically aligned relationship may be elusive.
In Chapter 12, Raghavendra Mishra, discusses another specific aspect of China’s engagement in South Asia, with a focus on “measuring” its maritime context in the Indian Ocean region (IOR). As someone with naval experience, Mishra provides a valuable “practitioner’s” perspective, though it must be emphasized that this view does not reflect the positions/policies of the Indian government or the Royal Indian Navy. Mishra’s assessment — where he locates the key Chinese interests in the IOR and explores the IOR dynamics between China and India — leads to the conclusion that (at least in the maritime domain), a “paradoxical and uneasy mix of cooperation and rivalry” or what some would term “congagement”, exists and persists. But this is not an unmanageable strategic situation, and it is opined that the mature and prudent leaderships in both capitals will go a long way in addressing the complexity of the relations between both powers.
Central Asia
The final part of the book is devoted to an examination of China’s relations with the other key geographic areas of its “non-traditional” periphery, Central Asia. Chapter 13 presents a unique Central Asian perspective on this issue. Aidar Amrebayev, a Kazakhstani scholar, discusses the broad overview of geostrategic developments in Central Asia, noting the region has always been a geographic area that is shaped by great power politics or what he notes as the “ratio of centres of power”. Today’s strategic context presents Central Asian states with three politico-economic models or “projects”: the Russian model of a more Soviet-style Eurasian integration, China’s Silk Road Economic Belt and the American democratic-sovereignty template. While each has its strengths/weaknesses, Central Asian states “cannot afford to choose” one or the other as this may mean not only a closer induction into a particular power’s orbit and hence a potential loss in strategic autonomy, but there may also be “contradictory interactive impacts” from the other competing powers. Thus, Central Asian countries have sought to maintain a balance between the big powers, “optimizing the benefits offered to them while keeping a distance”.
The discussion on regional geopolitical currents is complemented by Alessandro Arduino’s (Chapter 14) study of the broad economic developments in Central Asia, with a particular reference to China’s burgeoning economic interests there. Arduino notes that China has emerged as a major economic player in Central Asia, a development which has engendered both optimism and anxiety among regional states. Even as China’s economic approach toward the region has increasingly focused on transregional integration, a strong energy focus is palpable. Thus, even as regional infrastructural investment and development are being prioritized, a key objective of China’s economic agenda has been to develop an “alternative land energy route”. Beijing also hopes that the development of its Central Asian periphery will have a reciprocal economic impact on its autonomous region of Xinjiang, which borders Tajikstan, Kyrgyzstan and Kazakhstan, and whose modernization is seen as vital for addressing the separatist and terrorism problems there. Arduino points out that, under Xi Jinping, the key platform to advance China’s development interests in Central Asia has been the Silk Road Economic Belt (SREB).
A deeper examination of China’s SREB is the focus of Hongzhou Zhang’s Chapter 15. The SREB, the overland wing of China’s One Belt One Road initiative, is noted as a “key pillar” of Beijing’s larger global strategy, and to that end, the Chinese government has been making much effort to strategize and pursue this plan. But as Zhang observes, the Central Asian region is key to its success. This means that certain regional dynamics, particularly in Central Asia, will present complications for China’s SREB. Not only is Central Asia a meeting point for great power politics, Central Asia remains fractured by ongoing disputes or contestations involving boundary, water and energy interests as well as geopolitical differences and rivalry. Moreover, as the previous chapter also points out, a degree of ambivalence still colors Central Asian states’ perceptions toward the SREB.
The final chapter by Ambrish Dhaka focuses on another specific aspect of China’s Central Asia strategy, namely its policy toward the regionally and geopolitically critical state of Afghanistan. This is a country described as the “Heart of Asia”, with a strategic geography that intersects South Asia, Central Asia, Eurasia and the Middle East. Beijing recognizes the strategic potential of Afghanistan, and in the wake of the 2014 drawdown of U.S. forces, it has tried to play an increasingly larger role in that country. Afghanistan is critical for Chinese interests in Central Asia as well as its broader western periphery. Economically, Kabul is seen as a vital “trade and transit hub” for China’s transregional development plans as well as its energy/resource needs. On security, particularly relating to its own concerns over the problems of separatism, terrorism and extremism in Xinjiang, Beijing perceives “it needs more than its traditional regional partner” of Pakistan, and Kabul represents a “front-line” state on this front. Moreover, Afghanistan has an ineluctable security and geopolitical nexus to Pakistan (which itself is a key South Asian partner to China).
Taken
