Beyond rhetoric: Sino-Indian relations in an era of interdependence.

AuthorMalik, Aditi
PositionBook review: China and India: Prospects for Peace - Book review

China and India: Prospects for Peace

Jonathan Holslag

(New York, NY: Columbia University Press, 2010), 248 pages.

With the simultaneous rise of two titans in Asia, India and China, what are the features that mark their relations with one another? Furthermore, what can current relations tell us about future prospects for peace between the two nations? These are the fundamental questions with which Jonathan Holslag is concerned. He notes that these are not new questions but ones that have been the subject of continuous debate. He argues that this debate has broadly produced two camps: the first camp is focused on the "security relationship," while the second analyzes the above questions from the perspective of the increased interdependence between the two nations. Holslag aims to situate his work by taking into account information from both camps.

Security scholars often point to how the two nations are engaged in a struggle for dominance and hegemony--particularly in Asia--and that given these ambitions, "shifting power balances and geopolitical rivalry are not likely to abate." (1) By considering and analyzing the effects of a number of independent variables--including expansion of now unequal trade relations, public opinion on rapprochement between the two nations, the military security dilemma and regional ambitions--Holslag contends, "improving relations and many common interests have not neutralized conflict ... the trading states of China and India are still stuck in a persistent security dilemma ... in the end, commerce tends to exacerbate rather than militate conflict." (2) Thus, he is far more cautious in his assessment of Sino-Indian relations than those scholars who emphasize the multiple zones of interdependence between the two nations.

Nevertheless, an overarching theme of complex interdependence runs through this entire work. A concept first proffered by Robert Keohane and Joseph Nye in their seminal 1977 work, Power and Interdependence: World Politics in Transition, it posits that in situations marked by complex interdependence, (a) multiple channels connect societies--including interstate, transgovernmental, and transnational organizations; (b) "military security does not consistently dominate the agenda" of interstate relationships given increasing interaction between the economic and environmental sectors; and (c) "military force is not used by governments toward other governments within the region, on the issues, when...

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