The Big Three: The Emerging Relationship between the United States, India and China in the Changing World Order

The evolving relationship between India, the US and China is generally regarded by scholars of international relations as among the key features, perhaps even the most crucial one, that will shape the geopolitical contours of the emerging international political landscape in the twenty-first century. Written by a scholar and an academician who for long years served as a career diplomat and hence a practitioner of international relations, the book meticulously analyses each strand of the mutual bilateral relations of the three countries, including their troubled past and uncertain present, to unravel clues for the possible future course of their relationship. Ultimately, this book is aimed at informing its readers - scholars and laypersons alike - about the forces at work in the evolving saga of the triangular relationship between the world's most powerful nation, the world's largest nation and the world's largest democracy.

Table of Contents:
Introduction  1. The US-India Relationship  2. The India-China Relationship  3. The US-China Relationship  4. Outlook for the Future  5. Indo-US-China Relations under the Obama Administration: the Likely Scenario

About the Author :
Harsh Bhasin, a veteran diplomat with a career spanning over three and a half decades in the Indian Foreign Service, served as Ambassador to Denmark, High Commissioner to South Africa and Botswana, and as Consul General in New York and Johannesburg. A major portion of his work as a career diplomat was in China - during the Cultural Revolution and later - and in the course of three different assignments in the US in the 1970s through the 1990s. This book owes its origins to the long years he has spent living and working intimately in both China and the US. After retirement from India's diplomatic service, he has served on the faculty of the State University of New York at Stony Brook, first as a Visiting Professor in the Department of Political Science and later in the Department of Asian and Asian-American Studies. He currently holds the position of Chair in the Department.

Review :
One would think that, with the world drowning in books on India and China, and what their rise signifies for the West, there is nothing left to learn. But Harsh Bhasin, one of India's most distinguished diplomats, proves otherwise. He has written a marvellous analysis of the problems and possibilities in key world issues arising from the present and prospective interplay of India, China and the United States. It is a tour de force. - Jagdish Bhagwati, Professor of Economics and Law, Columbia University, New York, USA There is no doubt any more that the US-China-India triangle will be among the most keenly watched relationships of the emerging international order. Ambassador Harsh Bhasin, now a professor, marshals his enormous diplomatic experience and turns his thoughtful intellectual gaze to this triangle. The results are enlightneing. A riveting read!" - Ashutosh Varshney, Professor of Political Science, Brown University; Former Director, Center for South Asian Studies, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, USA.