Shifting Balance of Power

Emerging China: Prospects for Partnership in Asia,
Eds. Sudhir T. Devare, Swaran Singh and Reena Marwah,
New Delhi, Routledge, 2012, xxii+412, Rs.995.

Tracking Security Paradigms, The Book Review, Vol XXXVI, No. 4, April 2012, pp. 14,15.

The (re)emergence of China over the last couple of decades as an economic powerhouse with significant military and technological prowess has a direct bearing on India in particular and the global order in general. The re-emergence of China and India in particular has resulted in a shift in locus of global economic power with Asia taking a central role in the current scenario. The Sino-Indian tango during the 2008-9 global economic downturn and their efforts to arrest the global economic slowdown has further cemented their place on the international stage.

This edited volume is the outcome of a three day international conference jointly organized by the Indian Council of World Affairs (ICWA) and the AAS between November 21 and 23, 2009 in New Delhi. The conference has been slated to be the first in the series of Asian Relations Conference to mark the foundation day of the ICWA. The excellent design of the themes, chapters and selection of authors is a result of the planning and foresight of the conference organizers which has definitely added value and provided focus to the volume which is in general missing from conference proceedings.



The book is a collection of twenty-two essays divided into three sections which broadly analyse firstly, the various aspects of Asian multilateralism, secondly, China’s regional vision, strategies and how its neighbouring countries like Japan, South Korea, Myanmar, Nepal, among others have responded to Beijing’s vision and thirdly, Sino-India equations in the context of an emerging China with India too staking claim to its place under the sun. It grapples with the important question of the likely implications of a rising China for other countries in the Asian region and India in particular. One of the questions that the book seeks to answer is whether the continued rise of China inevitably makes such a relationship adversarial or are there any prospects for partnership?

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