Understanding China and India: Security Implications for the United States and the World(Praeger Security International)

Table of Contents:
Foreword by Karl D. Jackson Acknowledgments Introduction by Walter Andersen 1 National Interests in China and India 2 Similarities between China's and India's Pursuits of National Objectives 3 National Identity and National Interest 4 Globalization, Geopolitics, and Sovereignty 5 Political Institutions and the Hierarchy of Interests 6 China-India Relations 7 Implications Conclusion Appendix A China Interview Questions Appendix B India Interview Questions Bibliography Index

About the Author :
Rollie Lal, Ph.D., is an Associate Professor in the College of Security Studies at the Asia Pacific Center for Security Studies (APCSS) in Honolulu, Hawaii. She is an expert on strategy, international politics, and organized crime, and has written on a wide variety of issues related to India, China, Iran, Central Asia, North Africa, and political Islam. She is a co-author of The Muslim World after 9/11 (2004) and America's Role in Nation-Building: From Germany to Iraq (2003). She is also the author of Central Asia and Its Asian Neighbors: Security and Commerce at the Crossroads (2006) and articles in Orbis, the Atlantic Monthly, Financial Times, International Herald Tribune, Chicago Sun-Times, San Diego Sun Tribune, and Daily Yomiuri.

Review :
This volume will be a good addition to all university and college libraries with significant holdings in international affairs or Asian studies. Its conclusions will not be outdated soon, and it is accessible to all levels of students. Lal posits that China and India have radically divergent views of their own national interests. Extensive interviewing of government officials and academics in both countries led the author to conclude that China sees its national interest as preservation of the state and its territorial unity, while India defines its future more in terms of the impact of globalization and its geopolitical status. Moreover, the author argues that despite these different views, China and India have pursued quite similar policies: economic reform and defense modernization. As a policy analyst, Lal succinctly and persuasively lays out the implications for the larger world, including the US, of the emergence of these two Asian superpowers in the coming century. The book is well researched, cogently argued, and well documented, and includes the interview questions used in its research. Highly recommended. Lower-division undergraduates through practitioners. Will China and India promote their national interests by competition, by cooperation, or by going to war? In order to see how people define their national interest, Lal, a political scientist with expertise on Asian security, terrorism, and organized crime, goes beyond the received government word to ask citizens and leaders in China and India their perceptions of the basic needs, accomplishments, and aims of each country. The structure of her book is formal and the tone impersonal. Sections, almost like entries in a reference work, compare and evaluate Chinese and Indian responses. But the effect is bracing, leading the reader to browse and speculate. Recommended for specialist collections. Understanding China and India: Security Implications for the United States and the World is a 'must' for college-level students of either nation: it covers all the insights needed to understand a national security strategy for Asia and the interactions between two emerging powers which are very different in their approaches….[a]n essential guide. Lal's timely subject is the increasing power of China and India, and he specifically addresses the perceptions of each country's foreign policy elite toward the outside world, especially the U.S…..Lal's original research will assist those engaged in the study of Asia's international politics.