I EDITORIAL NOTE
- Special Issue on China in South Asia: Histories, Borders, Mobilities, and Soft Power
Rityusha Mani Tiwary, Alka Acharya
Abstract
II ORIGINAL ARTICLES
- China’s Negotiated Power in South Asia: A Global South Political Economy Analysis
Rityusha Mani Tiwary, Alka Acharya
Abstract
- Moving Dentists, Moving Practices: Chinese Migrant Dentistry in Calcutta, 1920–1960
Rishav Chatterjee
Abstract
- The India–China Border Through the Lens of Demchok: Historical Insights, Territorial Claims and the Borderlanders
Tsering Dorjay, Isha Kaushik
Abstract
- Revisiting Sino–Indian Conflicts on the Sikkim–Tibet Border, 1965–1967
Chow Bing Ngeow
Abstract
- Impact of the Soft Power of International Higher Education on Nepali Students’ Attitudes Towards China
Jiwan Kafle, Chen Wei
Abstract
- The Resilient Women of Indian Chinese Community in Kolkata: A Historiographic Study
Arpita Bose, Barnali Chanda
Abstract
- Delivering Attraction? How BRI Implementation Shapes China’s Soft Power in Bangladesh and Pakistan
Md. Obaidullah
Abstract
An Introductory Note for the Articles
- This article by Rityusha Mani Tiwary and Alka Acharya examines China’s evolving engagement with South Asia through a Global South political economy lens, conceptualised as a form of negotiated power. Moving beyond security-centric and infrastructure-focused analyses, it argues that Chinese influence in the region is structurally significant yet locally contingent, shaped by domestic political economies, social contestation and geopolitical constraints. Using Sri Lanka as a primary empirical case study and a thematic analysis of China’s digital and social engagements in South Asia as a complementary analytical case, the article demonstrates how Chinese power is negotiated across infrastructure, crisis governance and everyday economic practices. The Sri Lankan experience demonstrates that China’s geo-economic power is mediated by recipient state agency, fiscal capacity and public legitimacy rather than exercised unilaterally. The article contributes to debates on China–South Asia relations by foregrounding Global South autonomy, non-traditional security and the ways in which regional geopolitical rivalry can expand the strategic manoeuvrability of smaller states.
- This article by Rishav Chatterjee examines how Chinese migrants from Hubei practised and developed dentistry in Calcutta from the 1920s to the 1960s. In this article, I look at the trajectory of this profession and how it evolved from being an unregulated, heterogeneous branch of medicine operating with its own logic to a vernacularised tradition that blended biomedical knowledge and practices with indigenous ones. In this evolution, I pay attention to the multiple transformations that occurred within this branch of medical practice that allowed the services offered by the Hubei Chinese to be popular, affordable and accessible. Relying on multiple interrogation transcripts, surveillance reports and interviews with two practising Chinese dentists in Calcutta, as well as one of their clients, this essay argues that Chinese dentists were highly mobile, aspirational and entrepreneurial in their efforts to maintain a balance between embracing change and maintaining a degree of autonomy in their practices.
- This article by Tsering Dorjay and Isha Kaushik explores the intricate geopolitical dynamics of the India–China border, with a particular emphasis on Demchok village in Ladakh’s Leh district—a strategically significant settlement situated along the Line of Actual Control (LAC). Historically inhabited by nomadic communities, Demchok has functioned as an informal intelligence asset for India, owing to the residents’ intimate knowledge of the local terrain. The area’s contested status is exacerbated by conflicting cartographic depictions and divergent interpretations of geographical features such as the Lahri Stream and Peak, reflecting the enduring tensions between India and China. Drawing upon historical records, travelogues and official reports, this study traces the evolution of the India–China frontier and highlights Demchok’s historical relevance. Using a Geographic Information System (GIS) mapping, the research visualises overlapping territorial claims and the current positioning of the Chinese People’s Liberation Army (PLA).
- China and India experienced two intense but contained armed encounters on the Sikkim–Tibet border in 1965 and 1967. In 1965, China amassed its troops on the Sikkim border to support Pakistan’s war efforts during the Indo–Pakistan War. In 1967, Chinese and Indian soldiers had several rounds of violent clashes on the Sikkim–Tibet border, which became the deadliest incidents since the 1962 Sino–Indian War. Based on rare and restricted Chinese materials that have not been used in the existing scholarly literature, this article by Chow Bing Ngeow revisits these two incidents and sheds light on how these incidents unfolded from the Chinese perspective. It also reveals new information about China’s operations and battle preparations in both conflicts.
- This study by Jiwan Kafle and Chen Wei explored the impact of the soft power of international higher education on public diplomacy. This study applied organisational public relations and a social exchange theoretical framework to examine university–student relationships as an exchange element for building soft power and their role in influencing public perception. An online survey was conducted for Nepali students studying at Chinese universities. A path analysis based on structural equation modelling was applied to evaluate the relationships between universities and Nepali students, attitude towards China, willingness to purchase Chinese products and support for Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) projects. The results revealed that Nepali students’ positive attitude led to interest in purchasing Chinese products and support for the Chinese government’s BRI foreign project.
- The historiography of Kolkata’s migrant Chinese community has been overwhelmingly shaped by narratives of male migration, labour and ethnicity, obscuring the complex experiences and contributions of the migrant Indian Chinese women. This article by Arpita Bose and Barnali Chanda directly addresses this critical omission by centring the lived realities of Chinese women in Kolkata, arguing that such a perspective is essential to a comprehensive understanding of the community’s evolution. Although Chinese women, visible in everyday city life and integral to familial and communal structures, have had a sustained presence in Kolkata for over a century, their voices and trajectories remain marginalised within both ethnic and gender-focused scholarship. Drawing upon archival records, published research and oral histories, this study interrogates the intersectional marginalisation of Chinese women, rendered doubly invisible by prevailing academic and social frameworks collapsing migration and gender into generic, male-centred categories. Prior studies by scholars such as Oxfeld, Liang and Zhang have illuminated migration patterns and socio-economic dynamics, yet have seldom foregrounded intersectional experiences shaped simultaneously by gender, ethnicity and minority status. This lacuna is especially pronounced in the aftermath of the 1962 Sino-Indian conflict, which intensified the community’s vulnerability and imposed silences that especially affected women. By analysing migration histories, gender roles and everyday practices, this article not only recovers the agency and resilience of Chinese women but also challenges broader narratives that treat migration and minority experiences as monolithic or male-dominated. Ultimately, the study offers a more nuanced and inclusive account of the Chinese-Indian community’s past and present, highlighting women’s pivotal but underrecognised contributions to Kolkata’s cultural and social fabric.
- China’s Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) can generate soft power, but its reputational payoffs are conditional, not automatic. Md. Obaidullah argue that BRI projects produce ‘developmental soft power’ primarily when three conditions hold: credible delivery, fiscally prudent financing and local narrative co-ownership by domestic elites and media. A qualitative comparative analysis of Bangladesh and Pakistan shows divergent pathways. In Pakistan, where strategic ties and elite consensus long predate the BRI, China–Pakistan Economic Corridor amplifies an already durable pro-China orientation and buffers backlash. In Bangladesh, visible infrastructure gains improve China’s image, but debt concerns and India-linked counter-narratives constrain reputational returns. These findings extend Nye’s attraction framework by specifying development performance as a distinct mechanism of soft power and by identifying the political and narrative conditions under which infrastructure translates into legitimacy abroad.
III BOOK REVIEWS
- Adhira Mangalagiri, States of Disconnect: The China–India Literary Relation in the Twentieth Century, New York: Columbia University Press, 2023
Nishit Kumar
Abstract
- Yihong Pan, Not Just a Man’s War: Chinese Women’s Memories of the War of Resistance Against Japan, 1931–45, Vancouver: The University of British Columbia Press, 2024
Aveivey D.
Abstract
