Debasish Chaudhuri

A Survey of the Economic Situation in Xinjiang and its Role in the Twenty-first Century

This paper discusses the macro economic profile of the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region of China during the reform period, the Western Development Strategy and the importance of the region in the changing geo-strategic and geo-economic environment in Central Asia. Xinjiang is the largest administrative unit in China and is rich in mineral resources, especially oil and natural gas, that will make it a major player in generating rapid economic growth in the western part of China in the coming decades. Xinjiang is not only far ahead of other western provinces, it also has the advantage of a flourishing international trade with eight neighbouring countries as well as with other CIS countries and West Asia. The region has also achieved more in basic education. This paper draws attention to the intra-regional economic disparities and the inherent weakness of this arid and water scarce region.

Minority Economy in Xinjiang—A Source of Uyghur Resentment

The characteristic feature of the geo-economic space of the People’s Republic of China is that 70 per cent of the minority population of the country is concentrated in its western region. The uneven development of the early reform period mostly affected the minority-populated areas. China’s westernmost administrative division Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region (XUAR) is one such region which has been restive since 1990 due to an ongoing separatist movement led by Uyghurs, the majority ethnic group of the region. Alongside the regional imbalances in economic development during the reform period, due to geographical as well as historical factors, and long-term policy, a phenomenon of localized economic development has emerged that marginalized the minorities of Xinjiang to a great extent. The paper focuses on the intraregional economic disparities of the region and the economic deprivation of the Uyghurs.

Book Review: The Logic of Chinese Politics—Cores, Peripheries and Peaceful Rising by Sabrina Ching Yuen Luk and Peter W. PrestonLukSabrina Ching YuenPrestonPeter W., The Logic of Chinese Politics—Cores, Peripheries and Peaceful Rising (Cheltenham and Massachusetts: Edward Elgar, 2016), pp. 218 + xi, US

Will China establish rules of the road, first in Asia and then across the globe? Its ‘Belt and Road Initiative’ (BRI) is a template and master plan, though this book does not dwell much on this. The book concludes that China pushes for change within the world order, without attempting anything radical. One might add that despite this caution, actions to begin to alter the status quo cannot be ruled out—the establishment of the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB) is an example. Another conclusion advanced is that while shifting from a developing country to a great power narrative, China is a ‘fragile great power due to serious external and internal challenges’ (p. 261); ‘it has focused on pursuing its immediate interests and will hesitate to use its rising power status to bolster the global common welfare’ (p. 266) ‘...are we prepared for the coming back of China as one of the few real central powers, and this time at the global level, with profound systemic ramifications?’ (p. 287). The reader is presented with an elegant story on the nature of power, and China’s evolution in different dimensions. For over two centuries, power has resided with the West, with the partial exception of Japan, which for over seven decades has been co-opted into the West. China’s rise alters the game, and challenges assumptions long treated as self-evident truths—such as the notion of ‘global common welfare’ cited above. Much of Africa and Latin America rejoices in this. Even Asia, bracing to deal with an assertive China, seeks benefit in the power shift to this continent. In this fluid, complex situation, India needs its own version of Deng’s taoguang yanghui, that is, keep its head down and focus on nation building. That is my real takeaway.

67.50, ISBN: 9781784711252.

Bhutan, being drawn between Chinese blandishments and India’s firm restraining arm, is the site for shadow-boxing between the two Asian rivals. Post-Doklam, this drama is yet to play out fully. The Sino-Indian border story is succinctly related in the eighth chapter, with a convincing listing of the various causative factors behind the 1962 war. With no pressing incentives to alter the status quo, China is unlikely to move towards a resolution of the boundary, the author feels, unless the gap in power parity between India and China reduces significantly, and/or denser economic relations create a strong enough rationale. This last point provides an opening: ironically, it is through full-throated engagement with China that India could reduce the considerable power and economic gap with that country. For that, India must ‘walk on two legs’: comprehensive economic engagement with China on the one hand, while managing geopolitical differences on the other hand, on parallel tracks. Sana Hashmi’s book usefully places the Sino-Indian dispute in the larger perspective of China’s general policy on border relations. This reviewer would encourage her to follow up some of her remarks, mentioned here only in passing. From those explorations, perhaps, some truly creative approaches might emerge to resolve China’s remaining boundary disputes.

Book Review: Revitalising the Silk Road—China’s Belt and Road Initiative by Richard T. GriffithsGriffithsRichard T., Revitalising the Silk Road—China’s Belt and Road Initiative, (Leiden: HIPE Publication, 2017), pp. 232 + xxvi, ₹2713, ISBN: 9789492439024.

In recent years, the impressive success of economic development has been a familiar theme of comparative studies of China and India. The book under review by A.S. Bhalla and Dan Luo has, in contrast, thrown light on some of the gloomiest aspects of the two societies—the poverty and exclusion of minorities in the two countries—subjects generally considered as drab and uninteresting by economists who prefer focusing on just the spectacular growth story of China and India. The focus of this work is nevertheless, very relevant in the present context because themes like ‘Splendid China’ and ‘Shining India’ often make us oblivious about the actual problems of the two societies. Purely economic development devoid of proper distributive mechanism generally contributes to social exclusions and both China and India have been suffering from some of the same maladies. Many studies have revealed that the major victims of social exclusion due to economic development are the most impoverished and vulnerable sections of the society—namely, the groups identified with ethnicity, religion, caste and gender. Bhalla’s and Dan’s book has made a good attempt at illustrating and analysing discrimination and exclusion of social and religious minorities in China and India. The book is exceptional for several reasons. There have been very few comparative studies done on poverty and inequality in China and India and comparative studies on Chinese and Indian minorities are even fewer. A.S. Bhalla’s earlier book with another Chinese scholar Qiu Shufang titled Poverty and Inequality among Chinese Minorities (2006) made some observations regarding minority literacy rates for China’s provinces (Gansu, Qinghai and Tibet) and about those of the Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes in poor Indian states. Poverty and Exclusion of Minorities in China and India is the first complete study on minority issues in the two countries from a comparative perspective. The authors have done a commendable job by undertaking research in the two less explored areas—minority economy in China and India and the comparative study of Chinese and Indian minorities with special reference to the poverty situation in Xinjiang and Tibetan areas of China and the Indian state of Jammu and Kashmir.

Book Review: Poverty and Exclusion of Minorities in China and India by A.S. Bhalla and Dan LuoBhallaA.S.LuoDan., Poverty and Exclusion of Minorities in China and India (London: Palgrave Macmillan, 2013), pp. 308. ISBN: 978-0-230-36101-0. Price: £66.50

The trend of Bushs policy and its impact in international affairs is worth noting during the second presidential term of George Bush. The US, besides persisting in pushing forward its ‘democratisation plan in the greater Middle East’, has been intensifying its attempt to penetrate into Central Asia. For some time now, the main focus of US foreign policy has been Iraq, the Gulf and the Middle East, but it has given equal importance to containing the so-called ‘North Korean nuclear weapon’ and to the ‘Iranian nuclear issue’. There were new developments in China-Russia-India tripartite relations. China and India agreed to establish a strategic partnership, greatly promoting bilateral relations between them. The developmental process in these countries, Russia-China and India, has provided ample scope for strengthening trilateral cooperation among them.

Contemporary International Situation and China-Russia-India Relations

the unforeseen factors posing threats to world peace and development are increasing, and the traditional and non-traditional threats are intermingling. This has led to the rise of terrorism, growth of unilateralism, widening of the north-south gap, and humanity in general is facing deep-seated contradictions and outstanding problems. All these issues engender a world devoid of peace. In March 2003, the US unleashed

China-India-Russia Cooperation in Contemporary International Situation

The task of opening paths between civilisations, not for the advancement of triumphant colonialists or foreign intruders, but for people’s livelihood, trade, friendship, or for the sheer obligation of a common humanity, had been initiated at the dawn of history. In the history of human movements, innumerable roads were built over the footsteps of caravan traders, pilgrims, immigrants, pastoral nomads and explorers, and many of them were lost into oblivion in due course of time for various reasons. The Southern

IV Book Reviews : HARAPRASAD RAY, Northeast India's Place in India-China Relations and Its Future Role in India's Economy, Kolkata, Institute of Historical Studies, 2003, 179 pp. Rs 300 (

Early in the twentieth century, Owen Lattimore, while exploring the dynamics of relations between China and Inner Asia, coined the term ’stubborn separatism’, to explain a geographical phenomenon that did not allow Chinese landscape of intensive agriculture to merge with the arid and semi-arid Eurasian nomadic world in the ancient period. From the time of Zhang Qian’s first visit to the Western Regions in 138 BC down to the beginning of the twenty-first century, the centrifugal forces in Xinjiang have always been active in different forms with varied intensity at different times in history. The goal of.the present volume, as explained by the editor S. Frederick Starr, is to ’assay what is actually happening’ and to provide a ’three-dimensional picture of the current situation in Xinjiang’, that is often subjected to wide range of speculations by the experts as well as non-experts since the disintegration of the Soviet Union in the early 1990s (p. 22). This book is the first product of the Xinjiang Project under the Central Asia-Caucasus Institute of the Johns Hopkins University’s Paul H. Nitze School of