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Locating China in the Indo-Pacific Debates: Perspectives from India

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Annual Report on the Development of the Indian Ocean Region (2018)

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Abstract

While the paradigm-shift from continental Asia-pacific to new maritime geopolitical framework of ‘Indo-pacific’ may be a dynamic discursive to ensure strategic equilibrium amongst multiple new and old stakeholders, continued exclusion of China remains its most formidable limitation. However, apart from this exclusion in Western discourse, there remain internal triggers to China’s reluctance that reinforce such external responses treating China as trigger but not integral to their construction of the new Indo-Pacific paradigm. Also, driven by bean-counting of the realists, the contemporary discourses seem far too influenced by prophecies of inevitable Sino-US confrontation. These often miss nuanced responses in Chinese discourses that may not flow from its military might but imperceptible cultural and economic entwines. The central contention of this paper is that it remains a prerequisite for the peaceful development of both China and the Indo-Pacific framework that they mutually synergise their engagement towards maximising mutual benefits. Staying apart has only been counterproductive. This is where India—that has substantial security and economic engagements respectively with both US and China—can perhaps smoothen this interface in order to make Indo-Pacific an inclusive, effective as also a sustainable geopolitical proposition.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Diplomacy & Disarmament, Center for International Politics, Organization and Disarmament (CIPOD), School of International Studies, Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi, India

    Swaran Singh

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  1. Swaran Singh
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  1. Research Institute for Indian Ocean Economies, Yunnan University of Finance and Economics, Kunming, Yunnan, China

    Cuiping Zhu

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Singh, S. (2019). Locating China in the Indo-Pacific Debates: Perspectives from India. In: Zhu, C. (eds) Annual Report on the Development of the Indian Ocean Region (2018). Research Series on the Chinese Dream and China’s Development Path. Springer, Singapore. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-13-7693-1_4

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