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 five monthly newsletters: East Asia Military Monitor, Japan Digest, China Science and Technology, Korea Newsletter, and China Military Digest.
No posts of Books and Monograph.
Contemporary Japanese nationalism is the principal force behind Japan's gradual shift towards 'normal' statehood and what has been called as 'reluctant realism'. The nature and content of this nationalism is, however, very much dissimilar to that which characterized its militarist past. This nationalist streak is largely elitist and assumes softer undertones as it percolates down to the masses.
Ensuring access to crude oil and natural gas forms a crucial component of India's security calculus. It also critically underlines the significance of sea transportation through which much of these vital resources are traded. With India virtually insular in terms of its land communications, its trade interests are increasingly focused on the maritime domain.
Chinese nationalism primarily represents Han nationalism and ignores ethnic minority sub-nationalisms and identities in the larger cause of the state's unity and integrity. The Chinese state calls for submerging of all minority identities within the predominant Han identity, for promoting national cohesion and nationalism, effectively precluding the possibility of the assertion of Tibetan nationalism and autonomy. Because of the suppression of Tibetans in China, a large number of them have fled and settled in India and elsewhere.
China's dependence on ship-borne energy resources forms the bedrock of its energy security. Critical to this is the issue of sea lane of communications (SLOCs) safety. SLOC safety is at once a non-conventional security challenge and a military one, which may trigger maritime conflicts. The difficulty in dealing with this challenge is that it is integral to geopolitics and hence subject to complicated major power relations. Geo-strategic politics will increasingly determine Beijing's SLOC policy of political cooperation and military hedging.
The 'rise of China' discourse articulates the transformation of China's internal structure and growth of its comprehensive national strength. From a Chinese perspective, the 'rise of China' and 'peaceful development' are concurrent themes that express and blend with the twin trends of globalisation and multipolarisation. This article argues that by adhering to the processes of 'multilateralism' and promoting 'commercial diplomacy', China has consciously made efforts to improve its international image.
The Self-Defense Forces (SDF) are one of the variables of the distinctly pacifist security policy Japan has followed ever since the end of the war. Japan's ongoing 'normalisation' involves an enhancement of the role and functions of these forces. Although the SDF's role has considerably increased in the past decade, it cannot be characterised as Japan's remilitarisation because of strong domestic and external checks.
The traditional Sino-Pakistan friendship of 55 years now has a new objective—to improve the economic content of their relationship, which comprises trade, investment and energy co-operation within a bilateral framework. The result of this determination to implement the new economic agenda is visible in the quantum of Chinese investment in Pakistan.
The end of the Cold War, the September 11 terrorists’ attacks, preponderance of US power and globalisation have shaped the present world order and posed new opportunities and challenges for China. China’s need to fulfill its grand strategy of acquiring comprehensive national power within this external environment and overcome the existing challenges has given rise to its post-Cold War foreign policy strategy. Given the challenges it faces, its primary need is to ensure continuance of a peaceful environment to sustain its reform and modernisation programme.
Electoral politics in Taiwan reflects the popular ambivalence in articulation of its political and national identity. This ambivalence is testing the strength of nascent domestic democratic institutions. Taiwanese democratisation has also introduced a new variable in crossstrait relations that China and the US both have to contend with. Greater democratisation of Taiwanese politics and the struggle over the country’s national and cultural identity is making the management of crossstrait relations more complex for all three parties, i.e., Taipei, Beijing and Washington.
FIPIC-2 has added substantially to the package of projects and activities. This has now to be matched by delivery and implementation, which are challenging tasks for the Indian government.
While it is Japan’s responsibility to pave the road to reconciliation, but for any meaningful progress China and South Korea must reciprocate since reconciliation is a two-way process.
How did the Chinese media portray Prime Minister Modi’s May 2015 visit? And what does that indicate about official China’s perceptions of India given that the coverage of India in the Chinese media is overwhelmingly State-controlled?
For the 70th commemoration anniversary of the end of World War II to be meaningful, Japan, China and South Korea need to jointly address the issues involved through a combination of moral responsibility and political maturity.
Even if China has not stated that it cannot settle the border question with India in the immediate future, its actions certainly hint at its preference for border peace and control over an early resolution.
By extending the notion of national security to the domains of space and the earth’s poles, the Chinese government has expressed its determination to undertake every measure to safeguard interests even in areas beyond the national border.
Indian Navy must focus fresh attention on the challenge posed by the Pakistan-China maritime nexus in the Western Indian Ocean.
In China’s foreign policy setting, the logic of ‘sovereignty’ and ‘history’ are employed or applied selectively as is evident from its reservation on India’s oil exploration in the South China Sea and its own plans to implement the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor through Pakistan-Occupied Kashmir despite India’s reservations.
The revised defence guidelines have added value to the US-Japan partnership and the fundamental shift in Japanese security policy complements the US call upon Japan to shoulder greater security responsibility as a partner.
As the dust settles after the visit of Prime Minister Modi to China, it is time to take a calm and dispassionate look at where we stand in the context of Sino-Indian relations.
