Dear Friend,

The month of November continued to see a stream of ICS events, activities and publications on China and East Asia. Preparations also continued for two major events being organized by ICS in Goa in December 2017 – our annual flagship national conference, the 10^th All India Conference of China Studies from 12 to 14 December, and a new international initiative, the 1^st India Forum on China on 14 and 15 December..

EVENTS and Activities

Our Wednesday Seminars covered the ‘Outcomes of the 19^th Congress of the Communist Party of China and Implications for India’ (YouTube and Soundcloud), ‘China’s Growth Transition’ (YouTube and Soundcloud), ‘The Politics of Cultural Representation in China through the Revival of Modern Tibetan Artistic Movement’, ‘Lessons from Chinese Reforms for Indian Agriculture’ (YouTube and Soundcloud) and  ‘Growing Convergences of India and Japan’ (YouTube and Soundcloud).

ICS in collaboration with the Vivekananda International Foundation also organized a joint seminar on India-China relations on 6 November involving visiting scholars from China and where both the Chinese ambassador and I presented our respective views on the state of the relationship.

Publications

The latest issue of the ICS journal, China Report has been published and is now available online.  

Former ICS Director and Honorary Fellow, Prof. Alka Acharya had a short piece for the Lee Kuan Yew School of Public policy, Singapore, Looking at the Big Picture in India-China Relations. ICS Honorary Fellow Dr. Jabin T. Jacob had a chapter titled, ‘China-Pakistan Economic Corridor and the China-India-Pakistan Triangle’ in the edited volume, China’s Maritime Silk Road Initiative and South Asia: A Political Economic Analysis of its Purposes, Perils, and Promise. He also published an article, ‘Explaining the India-China Standoff at Doklam: Causes and Implications’, in the journal Aakrosh.

Mr. Samar Tyagi, contributed an ICS Occasional Paper on Chinese Aid to Africa tracking the aid flows to each country of Africa during the period 2000-2012 and probing its role in increasing bilateral trade between them. This was based on his presentation at the 9^th All India Conference of China Studies in University of Mumbai last year for which he won the Mira Sinha Bhattacharjee Award of best paper.

ICS Blogs in November mostly focused on issues related to the 19^th Congress of CPC – Tibet, the 19th Congress and China's United Front Work  by Associate Fellow, Dr. Tshering Chonzom, Health and Wellbeing in the Context of the 19th Congress of CPC by Associate Fellow, Dr. Madhurima Nundy and Labour Issues at the 19th Party Congress by Research Associate, Dr. P.K.Anand. Our Research Interns also ranged wide with a review of a documentary on the 1965 anti-communist purge in Indonesia by Mr. Cidarth Sajith, and China's Strategic Concerns and Challenges in the Indian Ocean  by Mr. Chetananand Patil.

In the Media

I had an analysis on the rise of Xi Jinping in the 19^th Congress of CPC in The Hindu . ICS Assistant Director Dr. Aravind Yelery was quoted in CNBC on the steady increase of Chinese investments in India and in Asia Times on an Indian company’s bid to seek Chinese funds for a project in Australia. ICS Fellow Dr. Jabin T. Jacob wrote on the India-China economic relationship for the South China Morning Post. He was also quoted in CatchNews on China’s continuing refusal to blacklist Pakistan-based terrorist Masood Azhar and on the Brahmaputra issue in India-China relations in the Spanish-language El Confidencial .

Faculty Updates

At the beginning of November, Assistant Director, Dr. Yelery and Honorary Fellows Prof. Sreemati Chakrabarti and Prof. Sabaree Mitra along with Emeritus Fellows Prof. Tan Chung and Prof. Huang I-shu represented the ICS at the 80^th anniversary celebrations of the famed Cheena Bhavana at the Rabindranath Tagore-founded Visva Bharathi University in Santiniketan, West Bengal.

The Chinese ambassador and I were again co-panelists at another event on India-China relations organised at the Jawaharlal Nehru University by Associate Professor and ICS Honorary Fellow Dr. Hemant Adlakha.

The ICS website and following us on Facebook and on Twitter are great ways of catching up with our latest activities and publications. Do sign up also to receive the latest information of our events and publications as well as browse the ICS’ YouTube and Soundcloud channels. Let me take this opportunity to thank you once again for your continuing support for the ICS. Do watch out for our live tweets and reports from the 10^th All India Conference of China Studies and the 1^st India Forum on China in December.