East Asia

The Korean Peninsula and Indo-Pacific Power Politics: Status Security at Stake

Publisher: Routledge

This book assesses the strategic linkages that the Korean Peninsula shares with the Indo-Pacific and provides a succinct picture of issues which will shape the trajectory of the Korean Peninsula in the future.

This book analyses how critical actors such as the United States, China, Russia and Japan are caught in a tightly balanced power struggle affecting the Korean Peninsula. It shows how these countries are exerting control over the Korean Peninsula while also holding on to their status as critical actors in the broader Indo-Pacific. The prospects of peace, stability and unity in the Korean Peninsula and the impact of this on Indo-Pacific power politics are explored as well as the contending and competing interests in the region. Chapters present country-specific positions and approaches as case studies and review the impact of power politics on stakeholders’ relationships in the Indo-Pacific. The book also argues that the Korean Peninsula and the issue of denuclearization is of primary importance to any direction an Indo-Pacific Partnership may take.

Bringing together scholars, journalists and ex-diplomats, this book will be of interest to academics working in the field of international relations, foreign policy, security studies and Asian studies as well as audiences interested

ISBN: ISBN: 978-0-367-36423-6 (hbk)
ISBN: 978-0-429-34585-2 (ebk),
Price: £120.00

Publisher: KW Publishers

This book aims to examine the scope and potential of India-Japan cooperation factoring infrastructure connectivity and corridors in Indo-Pacific. The volume examines the bilateral, trilateral and multilateral contours of the growing partnership in the backdrop of a rising China that is rapidly changing the geo-political order of the region. The volume examines the scope of India-Japan relations beyond 2025 and evaluates how their common pledge to have a “partnership for prosperity” is not free from challenges. China’s Belt and Road Initiative, the United States bilateral-oriented approach towards Asia, and the struggle to successfully conclude the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP) is testing the character of India-Japan relations which the volume covers at length.

ISBN: 978-93-89137-29-3 ,
Price: ₹.1280/-
E-copy available

Publisher: Pentagon Press

The East Asia Strategic Review is the publication form the East Asia Centre, Institute for Defence Studies and Analyses (IDSA), New Delhi. The volume entitled, China's Rising Strategic Ambitions in Asia is intended to bring out Indian perspectives on the growing influence of China in Asia. These perspectives are particularly seen in the light of expanding Chinese political and economic engagement in Asia. As a major country in Asia, the Indian perspectives contribute the necessary input towards the ongoing debate on the Chinese role.

ISBN: 978-93-86618-65-8,
Price: ₹.1245/-
E-copy available

Publisher: Pentagon Press

This book analyses the competing power politics that exists between the three major Asian powers - China, India, and Japan - on infrastructural development across the Indo-Pacific. It examines the competing policies and perspectives of these Asian powers on infrastructure development initiatives and explores the commonalities and contradictions between them that shape their ideas and interests. In brief, the volume looks into the strategic contention that exists between China's "Belt and Road Initiative" (BRI; earlier officially known as "One Belt, One Road" - OBOR) and Japan's "Expanded Partnership for Quality Infrastructure" (PQI) and initiatives like the Asia-Africa Growth Corridor (AAGC) and position India's geostrategic and geo-economic interests in between these two competing powers and their mammoth infrastructural initiatives.

ISBN: 978-93-86618-42-9,
Price: ₹.1495/- $38.95/-
E-copy available

Events leading to the Sino-Indian Conflict of 1962

This monograph presents an objective account of a very crucial six-year period (1956-1962) in the histories of India and China (and Tibet) -- the countries directly involved in the conflict.

Publisher: Routledge

The rise of India and China as two major economic and political actors in both regional and global politics necessitates an analysis of not only their bilateral ties but also the significance of their regional and global pursuits. This book looks at the nuances and politics that the two countries attach to multilateral institutions and examines how they receive, react to and approach each other’s presence and upsurge.

ISBN 978-11-3883-359-3
Price: £90.00
E-copy available

Publisher: Pentagon Press

This volume is an outcome of the annual exercise of the Institute for Defence Studies and Analyses, New Delhi (IDSA) to understand and track China and its developmental course. As a flagship publication of the East Asia Centre in IDSA, the China Year Book (CYB) 2015 is an undertaking to comperehensively analyse China's state transformation internally and externally. To what extent China will smoothly transit to its power quest is still an open query. This volume is an exercise to bring this debate to the fore.

ISBN 978-81-8274-907-8,
Price: ₹. 1995
E-copy available

Changing Contexts of Chinese Military Strategy and Doctrine

This monograph identifies the contexts which have shaped China's military strategy and doctrine. It argues that these have evolved through Party-Military relations as well as through the Chinese leadership's assessment of the international balance of power. In this framework, the monograph has traced the PLA's strategic and doctrinal transformation from a defensive one to one of limited offence, having global aspirations, affecting further changes in China's military strategy and doctrine.

Publisher: Pentagon Press

This volume is an outcome of the conference that the Institute for Defence Studies and Analyses (IDSA) in collaboration with the Taipei Economic and Cultural Center (TECC) held in New Delhi on 8 December 2015 at IDSA. The conference was organised in New Delhi to commemorate the 20th anniversary of the establishment of their respective Representative Offices in Taipei and New Delhi by India and Taiwan.

ISBN 978-81-8274-904-7,
Price: ₹. 995
E-copy available

Publisher: Pentagon Press

This book offers wide ranging divergent perspectives on India's role in managing and shaping Asian Security. The book offers important ideas on how Asian security will shape up in the future by utilizing the method of scenarios. It is an important contribution to the field of Asian and regional security and India's role in it.

ISBN 978-81-8274-870-5
E-copy available

Indonesia: A Reluctant Participant in the South China Sea Disputes

The role of Indonesia in the South China Sea (SCS) disputes has been limited to being part of the ASEAN team since the country is not one of the active claimants. Jakarta has tried to sidestep its maritime row with Beijing by emphasizing the lack of a “territorial dispute’ between the two countries. The article analyzes the role and position of Indonesia in the SCS disputes and argues that despite Indonesia’s reluctance to be an active or direct claimant state, developments in recent years have dragged her into the disputes and she will remain involved until a mutually acceptable solution is achieved in the overarching problem of the SCS.

Chinese Territorial Claims on Indian Territory in the Context of Its Surveying and Mapping, 1708-1960

The article aims to trace the surveying and mapping of China during the 252-year period, prior to 1960 in order to connect it with the evolution of the Sino-Indian boundary. What emerges is that the Manchu was dependent on foreigners for the first modern maps of China made to scale with longitude/latitude lines. Through these maps no territorial claim against India had been made.

China’s India Policy in the 1950s: From Friendship to Antagonism

What led to the Sino-Indian militarized confrontations in 1959? I argue that Hindi-Chini Bhai-Bhai became a victim of changed perceptions in China. As long as China’s external and internal environment was relatively secure, India was seen as a potential ally, and Sino-Indian relations thrived. As external and internal pressures on China mounted, India’s behaviour vis-à-vis the Dalai Lama’s flight from China and the territorial dispute was perceived by China as reactionary.

Expanding Role of PLAAF in China’s National Security Strategy

China’s great power ambition and actions have been fuelled by its spectacular economic growth and military modernization. The need to sustain the economy and energy flow makes the East and South China seas vital to it. Its vulnerabilities also lie on its seaboard. To dominate the maritime spaces, it needs to own the contiguous airspace as well. The prescient Chinese leadership has transformed its Air Force into a strategic instrument of power, to protect its economic lifelines, geo-political interests and regional dominance.

Actions Speak Louder than Words: China’s Consultative Peacekeeping in Africa

Existing concepts (e.g. ‘non-interference’ and ‘pragmatism’) remain too vague to provide explanations for China’s increasingly assertive security policy. To avoid this pitfall, this article adopts a narrower focus on Chinese security policy towards Africa.

Geopolitics of Western Indian Ocean: Unravelling China’s Multi-dimensional Presence

The Western Indian Ocean (WIO) is now attaining centrestage in the geopolitics of the Indian Ocean. Apart from France and the US, China holds significant interests in the WIO. China’s interests with the WIO states could be divided in four categories: dual-use infrastructure building, politico-diplomatic focus, connectivity-access and military activities. All four are interconnected and facilitate China’s desire to project power. For China, activities in the WIO serve the purpose of ensuring energy supplies, maintaining economic growth and securing military interests.

Korea’s Para-diplomacy with States in India: An Analysis of the ‘Caravan Events’

In the arena of international relations nation-states have been regarded as the primary actors. However, the constituent units of nation-states have also become active in forging relations with the political units which are located outside the national borders through ‘para-diplomacy’. Since the 1990s the states of Indian union have been playing a significant role in India’s foreign affairs. The Narendra Modi government in New Delhi has also established a ‘States Division’ in the Ministry of External Affairs.

Xi Jinping’s China

There are several significant events which preceded China’s constitutional amendment of March 2018 that removed the presidential term limit boosting Xi Jinping’s standing as China’s prospective leader-for-life. Born to a revolutionary leader, Xi Zhongxun, Xi Jinping spent most of his life serving the government, gradually working his way up the hierarchy. His precedence in the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) and authority over all political institutions of the People’s Republic of China (PRC) have arguably placed him at par with Mao Zedong and Deng Xiaoping.

India-China Relations: 1947–2000 – A Documentary Study (5 Volumes)

Generations of scholars and analysts working on India-China issues will be grateful to Mr. Avtar Singh Bhasin for the extraordinary service he has done to them by bringing into the public domain, in five volumes, important texts on the subject—over 2,500 of them—including many that are still not declassified by the Ministry of External Affairs and transferred for public access to the National Archives of India. He was able to do so because he got ready access to material classified as ‘secret’ or ‘top secret’ in the papers lying with the Nehru Memorial Museum and Library.

India’s Policy Response to China’s Investment and Aid to Nepal, Sri Lanka and Maldives: Challenges and Prospects

Regional strategic dynamics in South Asia is in a state of flux since the announcement of China’s Belt and Road Initiative (BRI). China emphasises on the economic aspect of investment in infrastructures and energy projects, but strategic underpinning are very much apparent. China loan has created indebtedness in these countries and has helped Beijing to gain strategic foothold in the region which India considers as core to its security. India’s aid programme though focuses on the neighbourhood, it remains small compared to China and suffers from delivery deficit.

Japan’s Currency Crisis and Its Implications

Japan’s path to recovery from the economic ‘lost decades’ is obstructed by a deepening currency crisis.

Emperor Naruhito’s Visits to Indonesia and the UK in Context

Sino-US Diplomatic Engagement and Crisis Prevention

Sino-US diplomatic engagement has been successful in fostering a modicum of stability between the two countries, despite significant contentions.

China’s Pivot to ASEAN for BRI Reboot

Geo-political, geo-economic as well as ecological factors will increasingly impact the implementation of new BRI projects in ASEAN region.

Japan’s Engagement with Pacific Island Nations

Japan’s diplomatic engagement with Pacific Island Countries, while substantive, has not addressed their core needs.

Arnab Dasgupta
March 20, 2024
Issue Brief

The Dynamics of the India–US–China Triad

The manner in which the India–China–United States trilateral dynamics play out will have a significant bearing on the stability and shape of the regional and international order.

Mayuri Banerjee
March 20, 2024
Issue Brief

Arnab Dasgupta
March 06, 2024
Issue Brief

India–Japan Strategic Partnership and the Indo-Pacific

India–Japan strategic partnership has gained momentum due to the alignment of their geo-economic and geo-strategic interests.

Girisanker S.B.
February 21, 2024
Issue Brief

Assessing Japan’s Diplomacy in 2023

Japan made great strides towards developing an independent foreign policy, even as it hewed closer to the Global North’s positions on the burning issues of 2023.

Arnab Dasgupta
December 21, 2023
IDSA Comments

Talking About a ‘Rising China’: An Analysis of Indian Official Discourse 1996- 2012

This Occasional Paper looks at the idea of China being a potential security threat as spoken about in India's official discourse that is, as written down in annual reports or governmental statements or mentioned in the speeches of Indian officials. It does not analyse India's foreign policy, the strategic environment, or offer a new perspective on the development of bilateral security relations.

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