Author: ICS

Does Tibet’s New Governor Signal Change?

ICSLeave a comment

Does Tibet’s New Governor Signal Change?

On 16 January, the Chinese government announced the appointment of Che Dalha (known as Qi Zhala in Chinese) as the new chair (equivalent to governor) of the Tibetan Autonomous Region (TAR). Che Dalha, the former party secretary of Lhasa municipality, was given his new post during the fifth session of the 10th regional congress, which was held from 10-16 January. Rumors about such a promotion had been rife for a long time, particularly among the people of Lhasa; the announcement made it official. Che Dalha is the new governor of the TAR, replacing Lobsang Gyaltsen, who occupied the post from January 2013 and will now serve as chairman of the Standing Committee of the TAR People’s Congress.

Che Dalha’s tenure as the Lhasa Party secretary has mixed reviews from the Lhasans, some of whom have welcomed his firm measures to clean up the city and give it a modern look. Continue reading “Does Tibet’s New Governor Signal Change?” →

White Papers: The Importance of Public Communication

ICSLeave a comment

Amb. Kishan S. Rana, Honorary Fellow & Tshering Chonzom Bhutia, PhD, Associate Fellow, Institute of Chinese Studies

Jabin T Jacob, Fellow, Institute of Chinese Studies, recently shared the ‘India Network on China and East Asia’ Google Group (also known as the ICS-Delhi Group) a White paper published on 11 January 2017 by Beijing, entitled ‘China’s Policies on Asia-Pacific Security Cooperation’. As some newspaper comments in India have noted, India is ranked in importance at number three, after the US and Russia, but ahead of Japan; the references to India are positive, with no mention of points on which the two countries differ greatly.

China issues white papers from time-to-time on subjects such as family planning, human rights, environment, trade, development, space activities, labor, ecology, non-proliferation, mineral resources, social security, minority policy, gender, intellectual property, democracy, peaceful development, corruption, and so on; it also issues such papers on its declared ‘core issues’ such as Tibet, Taiwan, Xinjiang, and ‘Diaoyu Dao’. All these reflect the views of the country’s authoritarian regime, without any semblance of two-way communication with home publics. Continue reading “White Papers: The Importance of Public Communication” →

India and China: A Red Hot Affair!

ICS1 Comment

Kajari Kamal, Ph D. Scholar, University of Hyderabad

I was recently gifted a Redmi Note 3, a smartphone developed by Xiaomi Inc., the third largest mobile phone manufacturer in the world. The gift was a huge surprise and I excitedly flipped the box to read the specifications. What caught my attention immediately was a ‘Made in India’ tag shining in bright red, possibly the only thing in red on a Redmi phone box! Being a keen student of Chinese history, the choice of the name “Xiaomi” (small grain of rice) intrigued me and I started to read about the company. Xiaomi is a Chinese word for “millet” and Xiaomi’s CEO links the “Xiao” part to the Buddhist concept that “a single grain of rice of a Buddhist is as great as a mountain”. Continue reading “India and China: A Red Hot Affair!” →

Tsai-Trump Telephone Call: Reading Trump and the Chinese Response

ICSLeave a comment

Jabin T. Jacob, PhD, Fellow, Institute of Chinese Studies

Taiwanese President Tsai Ing-wen called up US President-elect Donald Trump on 3 December to congratulate him on his victory. A statement from the Taiwan Presidential Office stated that the call lasted just over 10 minutes and that Tsai and Trump ‘shared views and ideals on governance, especially on promoting domestic economic development and strengthening national defense’ and ‘also exchanged views briefly on the situation in Asia’. Tsai ‘expressed the wish of strengthening [Taiwan-US] bilateral exchanges and contacts and establishing closer cooperation relations.[1]

Trump Testing the Waters? Continue reading “Tsai-Trump Telephone Call: Reading Trump and the Chinese Response” →

Chinese Indian or Indian Chinese?

ICSLeave a comment

Severin Kuok, PhD Scholar, Centre for Chinese and South East Asian Studies, School of Language, Literature and Culture Studies, Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi & Institute of Chinese Studies-Harvard-Yenching Institute Fellow

Few in India are aware of the 3,000 odd Chinese Indians – people of Chinese origin who reside in India – who were deported by the Indian authorities in the aftermath of the India-China border clash of 1962. This has resulted in the lack of understanding and/or information about what happened to this group of people after they were sent to China or about what are their conditions now.

Several that were impacted by this deportation had been incarcerated in Deoli in Rajasthan[1] from late 1962 to early 1963 and had been released subsequently on the condition that they would leave India at once. Continue reading “Chinese Indian or Indian Chinese?” →

The 8th BRICS Summit: India Hosts, China Gains

ICSLeave a comment

Jabin T. Jacob, PhD, Fellow, Institute of Chinese Studies

The 8th BRICS Summit in Goa in October this year, India came close on the heels of the G-20 Summit at Hangzhou in China and appears more or less to have had the same agenda except that it was smaller in size and therefore brought into sharper focus the contradictions within. The BRICS grouping remains an unbalanced one. China is in a league of its own in the BRICS – both in economic terms as well as increasingly in the political sphere. India is the only other member that has a strong economy – the other three economies are in various stages of stress. However, the grouping is also about taking political positions and here once again, China’s dominant weight has seen statements taking on anti-Western tilt. Continue reading “The 8th BRICS Summit: India Hosts, China Gains” →

BRICS: Cooperation or Cynicism?

ICS1 Comment

Aravind Yelery, PhD, Assistant Director & Associate Fellow, Institute of Chinese Studies

नुकत्याच संपलेल्या 8 व्या ब्रिक्स बैठकीत सहभागी विकसनशील देशांनी ‘गोवा जाहीरनामा’ स्वीकारला. या बैठकी दरम्यान आणि नजीकच्या काळात प्रादेशिक आणि जागतिक राजकारणात नवीन राग-रंग उजळून समोर आले. दहशतवादाचा मुद्दा, दुटप्पी धोरण आणि गुंतागुंतीच्या आर्थिक बाबींवर ब्रिक्स सारख्या महत्वाच्या संघटनेची नक्की भूमिका काय हे मात्र ठळकपणे अधोरेखित झाले नाही. सर्वात महत्वाचे म्हणजे चीन सारख्या देशाचे जागतिक स्तरावरील राजनय कसे ठिसूळ आणि दुटप्पी झाले आहे हे दिसून येते. Continue reading “BRICS: Cooperation or Cynicism?” →

Time to Rethink India’s Approach on OBOR

ICSLeave a comment

Jabin T. Jacob, PhD, Fellow, Institute of Chinese Studies

When Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Chinese President Xi Jinping met for their bilateral on the sidelines of the 8th BRICS Summit in Goa two issues dominated. One was the Chinese resistance to India’s membership of the Nuclear Suppliers Group (NSG). The other was China’s refusal to support UN action against terrorists living under state protection in its ally Pakistan, who were involved in the attack on the Indian Parliament in New Delhi in 2001 and the 26/11 attacks in Mumbai.

It is unlikely that New Delhi will get anywhere with the Chinese on either issue. The reasons are rather simple. Continue reading “Time to Rethink India’s Approach on OBOR” →

Tibet’s Place in China’s ‘Belt and Road’ Initiative

ICSLeave a comment

Tshering Chonzom Bhutia, PhD, Associate Fellow, Institute of Chinese Studies

By now, China’s “Belt and Road Initiative” (BRI) is familiar to scholars and officials around the world. It has become the catchphrase for all of China’s international outreach, including conferences, seminars, and delegation visits to and from China. However, China has not completely reassured its neighbors. The various terms and phrases that have been used to refer to this idea embody the contention surrounding it – from the Silk Road Economic Belt (SREB) and Maritime Silk Route (MSR), to One Belt One Road (OBOR), to the current BRI. More broadly, some describe it as “strategy,” others call it a “project” with the Chinese now settling on “initiative.”

Having played an important role in the whole Silk Route trade route historically, India finds China’s attempt to revive it in the modern context without any consultation with Delhi troubling. Continue reading “Tibet’s Place in China’s ‘Belt and Road’ Initiative” →

Demography in Japan

ICSLeave a comment

Ambassador (retd.) Kishan S Rana, Honorary Fellow, Institute of Chinese Studies.

The word ‘Japanification’ has come to mean a sharp decline in the population and workforce, as a result from a huge secular decline in the birthrate, to a point where it leads to a contraction of the economy, and a huge threat of a burgeoning number of old age dependents, which alters the very structure of life. In 2005, its ‘total fertility rate’ (TFR), i.e. the number of children per woman) fell to 1.26; it has risen slightly since then, but experts estimate this as a change in the timing of birth, and not a long-term change.

Continue reading “Demography in Japan” →