Category: International Relations

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” →

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” →

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” →

China’s Forum Diplomacy in South Asia

ICSLeave a comment

Naina Singh is a Research Intern at ICS and is pursuing MPhil at Centre for International Politics, Organization and Disarmament (CIPOD), School of International Studies, Jawaharlal Nehru University.

Although a lot has been said about China’s unique economic engagement with ASEAN countries, this article attempts to focus on China’s ‘forum tactics’ towards South Asia as part of its so-called ‘win-win cooperation’. China has constantly utilized the institutional platforms of ASEAN to channelize its growing economic interest in the region. The China-ASEAN Free Trade Area has established its own benchmark and now China seems ready to focus on South Asia – stretching from Afghanistan to Myanmar.

Continue reading “China’s Forum Diplomacy in South Asia” →

China’s Forum Diplomacy in South Asia

ICSLeave a comment

Naina Singh was a Research Intern at ICS and is pursuing MPhil at Centre for International Politics, Organization and Disarmament (CIPOD), School of International Studies, Jawaharlal Nehru University.

Although a lot has been said about China’s unique economic engagement with ASEAN countries, this article attempts to focus on China’s ‘forum tactics’ towards South Asia as part of its so-called ‘win-win cooperation’. China has constantly utilized the institutional platforms of ASEAN to channelize its growing economic interest in the region. The China-ASEAN Free Trade Area has established its own benchmark and now China seems ready to focus on South Asia – stretching from Afghanistan to Myanmar.

Continue reading “China’s Forum Diplomacy in South Asia” →

India and China: Perceptions of Strategic Culture and its role in the NSG membership issue

ICSLeave a comment

Kajari Kamal, PhD student, University of Hyderabad.

The debate on whether to include India as a member in the elite Nuclear Suppliers Group (NSG) or not, has brought the India-China-Pakistan dynamics in the limelight again. China’s resistance to India’s membership is seen by the Indians as clearly strategic, targeted at constraining the rise of India as a global power. While some observers of India-China relations believe that factors such as border disputes, power asymmetry, mutual distrust, and most recently, nuclear proliferation issues, are obstacles in the normalization of bilateral relations, some others strongly believe that there lies a fundamental clash of interests, rooted at a strategic culture level, which manifests in China’s determination to play a key role in world affairs, as it has done as a great power and a great civilization, in the past. In a dyadic relationship, the importance of the perception of each other’s strategic culture cannot be overemphasized. Andrew Scobell argues that China’s foreign policy and its tendency to use military force are influenced not only by elite understanding of China’s own strategic tradition but also by their understanding of the strategic cultures of other states.

Continue reading “India and China: Perceptions of Strategic Culture and its role in the NSG membership issue” →

Sichuan-Tibet Railway: Growing Connectivity in PLA’s Western Theater Command

ICSLeave a comment

Atul Kumar, Visiting Associate Fellow, Institute of Chinese Studies.

On 27 January 2016, Losang Gyaltsen, Chairman of the Tibet Autonomous Region (TAR) government, announced in the TAR’s Tenth People’s Congress that his government would accelerate the construction of the Sichuan-Tibet Railway in the 13th Five Year Plan (2016-20) period. His government promised to start a preliminary survey and research to build the Nyingchi-Kangding railway section, in the current year. Yin Li, the acting Governor of Sichuan, sent out similar messages a week earlier at the Sichuan People’s Congress. These statements from the top leadership of both provinces reflect the importance of this rail project.

Continue reading “Sichuan-Tibet Railway: Growing Connectivity in PLA’s Western Theater Command” →