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Is It Asia’s Moment, Yet?
Asia witnessed two major summits in the last week of April – between Kim Jong-un of North Korea and Moon Jae-in of South Korea in Panmunjom in the demilitarised zone between the two countries, and between Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Chinese President Xi Jinping in Wuhan, China. Arguably, it was the meeting between…
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Modi-Xi ‘Informal Summit’: Domestic Priorities Uppermost
US President Richard Nixon’s path-breaking visit to China in February 1972 could arguably be called the mother of all ‘resets’ of a major bilateral relationship. In his own words, it was ‘the week that… changed the world’ and there can be little disagreement on this score. The ‘informal summit’ scheduled later this week between Indian…
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Modi-Xi ‘Informal Summit’: Misplaced Hopes
China has many ways of affecting Indian politics. Indeed, an India-China ‘reset’, as envisaged by the Narendra Modi government and represented by the “informal summit” between Modi and Chinese President Xi Jinping in the central Chinese city of Wuhan, has the very strong domestic context of several major state-level elections later this year and the…
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Xi for Life: Implications for India and South Asia
What does the removal of term limits for the Xi Jinping presidency in China mean for the developing world and, in particular, for South Asia? Inspiration One possible effect could be a demonstration effect. China’s decades-long rapid economic growth has long been a source of envy and inspiration for many countries in the developing world.…
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Term Limits Off for Xi: Some Reflections for India
When China’s National People’s Congress – the rough equivalent of India’s Lok Sabha, but toothless – meets in the coming week it has to deal with a proposal by the ruling Communist Party of China to amend the state constitution to remove term limits for the President of the state. Coming from where it does,…
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The ‘Emperor’ Has Feet of Clay
The Central Committee of the Communist Party of China has suggested removing term limits for the President and Vice-President of the People’s Republic of China. The immediate implication is that President Xi Jinping could conceivably continue for a third term or more in office. However, the more important one is that this sets a precedent…
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Book Review: India-Southeast Asia-China Triangular Dynamics
Originally published as Jabin T. Jacob, ‘Insights on a Triangular Relationship’, The Book Review, Vol. XLI, No. 12, December 2017, 12-13. Amitav Acharya. East of India, South of China: Indian Encounters in Southeast Asia (New Delhi: Oxford University Press, 2017). Karen Stoll Farrell and Sumit Ganguly (eds) Heading East: Security, Trade, and Environment between India…
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Book Review: Xi Jinping’s China
of Jayadev Ranade’s Xi Jinping’s China (New Delhi: Knowledge World Publishers). pp. xi+394. Rs. 1,400. ISBN: 978-93-86288-90-5 This work is a collection of pieces written by the author in various online platforms and as part of other edited volumes. The reader does not have the benefit of an introduction that ties in all the chapters together…
Thinking about China in India 