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China-Pakistan Relations after Osama bin Laden
Domestic instability in Pakistan, the continuing spread of religious radicalism from Pakistan into China, and threats to Chinese economic interests are conditions that would amplify the need for Beijing to take a sterner line with its “all-weather friend”. This could well be a serious dilemma confronting the Chinese leadership at some point in the near…
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Hillary Clinton’s India Visit: Chinese Elephant in the Room
If “much of the history of the 21st century will be written in Asia”, then New Delhi will need to find the energy and resources to focus not just on its troubled western frontiers but also on its sprawling and diverse eastern neighbourhood.
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Arunachal: One Step Back, Two Steps Forward?
The issuing of stapled visas by China to Arunachalis is possibly, a step forward, an acknowledgement that the area in question is disputed, and by implication, amenable to resolution by negotiations. This in turn indicates that China has taken a step back from its previous position of no visas being required.
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Learning Chinese, Understanding China
A presentation, I made at the Department of Chinese Language, Foreign Languages Wing, Army Education Corps Training College and Centre in Pachmarhi, Madhya Pradesh in early July 2011.
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Indian Democracy’s China Responsibility
The business of inspiring China and the Chinese is not one of the United States and Americans alone. India and Indians too, can step in. But let us not be caught being hypocritical or taking short-cuts, for the Chinese are watching.
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Sino-Indian Boundary Dispute: Provinces/States as Ice-Breakers
The solution to both the political and economic discontent of Chinese provinces and Indian states as well as the unresolved boundary dispute between the two countries could be to allow their provinces greater freedom to interact with each other in terms of people-to-people and economic contacts
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China and the end of Osama
The killing of Osama bin Laden shook the Chinese in more ways than one. From ordinary netizen to government-run media, there was disbelief, sarcasm and worries of a geopolitical sort.
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Of Strategic Dialogues and Talk-shops
Empty plaudits for multilateralism and championing a multi-polar world cannot hide the fact that New Delhi’s current method of engagement with China avoids the intense domestic public scrutiny that comes from a sustained high-level and exclusive dialogue with Beijing.
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Interpreting China’s Defense White Paper 2011
Understanding China’s military capabilities alone is not enough, India must also understand its intentions and for this a better grasp of the intersections of the political and military in China is essential.
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When disaster strikes, politics is not far away
In an inter-dependent world, one country’s tragedy is just as much a tragedy for the world at large and an opportunity to come together to cooperate and move beyond the past. Yet, in the Asian context at least, competitive politics both between countries and within polities appear never to be far from the surface.
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China’s ‘Forward Policy’ on Kashmir
Given Indian sensitivities over Kashmir, China’s Kashmir policy forms a useful leverage with India. But there is a fine balance that China needs to achieve which will be increasingly difficult as India grows more powerful on the world stage and if Pakistan continues to remain unstable.