Abstract
China is now applying powerful railway and highway technology to its project of conquering the tyranny of distance and tough terrain that had historically trapped its great dynastic states in East Asia. In consequence, the extent of a rejuvenated China’s influence is likely to stretch into regions of Eurasia, especially the South Asia–Indian Ocean region, far beyond imperial China’s traditional sphere. The impact of this on China’s neighbors will be significant, both drawing them into China’s economic and political orbit and causing them to seek means of countering or balancing China’s growing influence. India, once protected by the aforementioned tyranny of distance, will feel China’s growing influence in two contradictory ways: apprehension over China’s “creeping encirclement” and an effort to harness China’s economic growth in order to accelerate its own development.
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Notes
- 1.
Jean-Marc F. Blanchard, “China’s Twenty-First Century Maritime Silk Road Initiative and South Asia: Political and Economic Contours, Challenges, and Conundrums.” Geopolitics, 22, no. 2 (2017), 246–268.
- 2.
This thesis, of geography conspiring to confine Chinese power to East Asia , was developed most famously by C.P. Fitzgerald, The Chinese View of Their Place in the World (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1964).
- 3.
This is discussed in John Garver, China’s Quest: Foreign Relations of the People’s Republic of China (New York: Oxford University Press, 2016).
- 4.
Soviet efforts to defend the Chinese Eastern Railway against Japanese and Chinese encroachment is investigated in George Alexander Lensen, The Damned Inheritance: The Soviet Union and the Manchurian Crises 1924–1935 (Tallahassee: The Diplomatic Press, 1974). Stalin’s recovery and defense of the same rights against China after Japan’s 1945 defeat is described in O. Edmund Clubb, China and Russia: The “Great Game” (New York: Columbia University Press, 1971).
- 5.
This is described in John Garver, “Development of China’s Overland Transportation Links with Central, Southwest, and South Asia, China Quarterly 185 (2006), 1–22.
- 6.
Tansen Sen, Buddhism, Diplomacy, and Trade: The Realignment of Sino-Indian Relations, 600–1400 (Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press, 2003).
- 7.
Owen Lattimore, Inner Asian Frontiers of China (Boston: Beacon Press, 1940).
- 8.
Significantly, the west-to-east movement of Europeans (and an occasional Arab—Muhammad Ibn Battuta, 1309–1369) was not matched by an east-to-west flow of Chinese adventurers, merchants, and missionaries. One of the most astonishing facts of this era is that while probably hundreds of Europeans began arriving in China during this era, apparently not a single Chinese person was tempted to head west over the great Mongol Silk Road to find out where these Westerners were coming from. The exception to this was, of course, Zheng He, with his voyages of exploration in the Indian Ocean between 1403 and 1431. But even Zheng He never continued on to Europe .
- 9.
This logic is explained by Walter A. McDougall, Let the Sea Make a Noise: A History of the North Pacific from Magellan to MacArthur (New York: Basic Books, 1993), 25–31. McDougall’s description of Pacific Ocean currents is confirmed by Atlas of the World, 7th edition (Washington, DC: National Geographic Society, 1999), 127–128.
- 10.
An interesting but far-fetched argument to the contrary is, Gavin Menzies, 1421: The Year China Discovered America (New York: Harper Collins, 2003).
- 11.
These matters of ship design are discussed in Alan McGowan, Tiller and Whipstaff: The Development of the Sailing Ship, 1400–1700 (London: Her Majesty’s Stationery Office, 1981).
- 12.
An interesting literature on this early modern East Asian maritime economy has emerged over the last several years. For example, Tonio Andrade, Lost Colony: The Untold Story of China’s First Great Victory over the West (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2011).
- 13.
This author traveled over this road twice as far south as Dingri near the cut-off to the Everest base camp. The first trip was in 1998, the second in 2006. During the first trip only sections of the highway through towns were hard surfaced. By 2006, the entire road was paved.
- 14.
“Qinghai-Tibet Railway”, Wikipedia, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Qinghai%E2%80%93Tibet_Railway.
- 15.
John Garver, “The Diplomacy of a Rising China in South Asia,” Orbis 56, no. 3 (2012), 400.
- 16.
International Monetary Fund, Direction of Trade Statistics, http://elibrary-data.imf.ort/DataReport.aspx? It is impossible to determine from this data what percentage of Sino-Nepali trade comes overland, as opposed to sea and transit via Indian territory. To the extent that China’s trade transits India, this argument for the strengthening of China’s ability to support Nepal in the event of another economic embargo would not hold.
- 17.
Pan Qi, “Opening to the Southwest: An Expert Opinion,” Beijing Review (September 2, 1985), 22–23.
- 18.
A map depicting the Irrawaddy Corridor is available in John Garver, The Protracted Contest: Sino-Indian Rivalry in the Twentieth Century (Seattle: University of Washington Press, 2001), 268.
- 19.
Wang Jisi, “‘Xi Jin,’ Zhongguo diyuan zhanlue de zai pingheng” [“‘Marching westward’: China’s Geostrategic Rebalance],” Huanqiu shibao [Global Times], October 17, 2012, http://opinion.huanqiu.com/opinion-world/2012-10/3193760.html.
References
Andrade, Tonio, Lost Colony: The Untold Story of China’s First Great Victory over the West. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2011.
Blanchard, Jean-Marc F. “Probing China’s Twenty-First-Century Maritime Silk Road Initiative (MSRI): An Examination of MSRI Narratives.” Geopolitics 22, no. 2 (2017): 246–68.
Clubb, Edmund O., China and Russia: The “Great Game.” New York: Columbia University Press, 1971.
Fitzgerald, C.P. The Chinese View of Their Place in the World. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1964.
Garver, John, China’s Quest: Foreign Relations of the People’s Republic of China. New York: Oxford University Press, 2016.
Garver, John, “Development of China’s Overland Transportation Links with Central, Southwest, and South Asia, China Quarterly, No. 185 (2006): 1–22.
Garver, John, The Protracted Contest, Sino-Indian Rivalry in the Twentieth Century. Seattle: University of Washington Press, 2001.
Garver, John, “The Diplomacy of a Rising China in South Asia,” Orbis 56, no. 3 (2012): 391–411.
George, Alexander, The Damned Inheritance; the Soviet Union and the Manchurian Crises 1924–1935, Tallahassee: The Diplomatic Press, 1974.
International Monetary Fund, Direction of Trade Statistics. http://elibrary-data.imf.ort/DataReport.aspx?
Lensen, George Alexander, The Damned Inheritance: The Soviet Union and the Manchurian Crises 1924–1935. Tallahassee: The Diplomatic Press, 1974.
Lattimore, Owen, Inner Asian Frontiers of China. Boston: Beacon Press, 1940.
McDougall, Walter A. Let the Sea Make a Noise: A History of the North Pacific from Magellan to MacArthur. New York: Basic Books, 1993.
McGowan, Alan, Tiller and Whip staff: The Development of the Sailing Ship, 1400–1700. London: Her Majesty’s Stationary Office, 1981.
Menzies, Gavin, 1421: The Year China Discovered America. New York: Harper Collins, 2003.
Pan, Qi, “Opening to the Southwest: An Expert Opinion,” Beijing Review, September 2, 1985: 22-23.
“Qinghai-Tibet Railway”, Wikipedia. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Qinghai%E2%80%93Tibet_Railway.
Sen, Tansen, Buddhism, Diplomacy, and Trade, The Realignment of Sino-Indian Relations, 600–1400. Honolulu, University of Hawaii Press, 2003.
Wang, Jisi, “‘Xi Jin,’ Zhongguo diyuan zhanlie de zai pingheng” [“‘Marching westward’: China’s geostrategic Rebalance], Huanqiu shibao, October 17, 2012. http://opinion.huanqiu.com/opinion-world/2012-10/3193760.html.
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Garver, J.W. (2018). China’s Rise and the Eurasian Transportation Revolution. In: Blanchard, JM. (eds) China’s Maritime Silk Road Initiative and South Asia. Palgrave Studies in Asia-Pacific Political Economy. Palgrave, Singapore. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-10-5239-2_2
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