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Book Description

Just like seven decades ago when the dramatic re-emergence of India and China from their traumatic encounter with colonialism followed by a war between them in 1962 transformed this region’s geopolitical landscape, the equation of the two countries is once again poised to influence the future course of Asia. Wider interests demand that both countries craft a tenuous co-existence and stabilize a fragmenting world order. There are also circumstances that are bringing new frictions and differences to the fore as India and China pursue their regional interests and attempt to settle old scores. Although both leaderships have chosen to delicately manage this see-saw, recurring border crises over the past decade have repeatedly questioned whether Delhi and Beijing can maintain such a balancing act for much longer. The emerging multipolar world has brought the relationship at a crossroad where today’s choices will set in course events that will profoundly impact India’s economy, security and the regional order. It is, therefore, critical that India’s leaders get our China policy right.

Powershift helps us make sense of a complex relationship and how India and China are learning to cope with each other’s rise on the world stage. Whether it is intricacies of the border dispute and the complicated history of their Himalayan frontier, the flux in US–China relations, the geopolitics of Greater Eurasia and the Indo-Pacific, China’s belt and road initiative and growing connectivity footprint in the region, BRICS and a changing world order, or the conundrum of formulating a far-sighted China policy, the book casts a wide net in unpacking India–China relations. Powershift provides much-needed context for Indians to start thinking more strategically and realistically about their largest neighbour.

About the Speaker

Zorawar Daulet Singh is a historian and strategist based in New Delhi. He is a founder of the Northcap University, a State Private University located in Gurgaon, and is an adjunct fellow with the Institute of Chinese Studies, New Delhi. He was previously a fellow at the Centre for Policy Research. For the past decade, he has been a regular commentator and columnist on India’s foreign policy. His previous books include Power and Diplomacy: India’s foreign policies during the Cold War, India-China Relations: The Border Issue and Beyond and Chasing the Dragon: Will India Catch up with China? Daulet Singh holds a PhD in international relations from King’s College London and an MA in international relations from the School of Advanced International Studies, Johns Hopkins University.

About the Discussant

Ananth Krishnan is the China correspondent for The Hindu. In 2019, he was a Visiting Fellow at Brookings India. He was previously the Beijing-based Associate Editor at the India Today Group until August 2018. He has lived in Beijing since 2009, earlier reporting for The Hindu. His reporting in China has taken him to all but three of China’s 33 provinces and regions. His interests include India-China relations as well as Tibet, Xinjiang and ethnic minorities in China. Before moving to China, Ananth was based at The Hindu's headquarters in Chennai.