India’s Unfinished Status Quest: The Sino-Indian Dimension

The Sino-Indian contestation is often discussed in terms of territorial conflict, ideology, power and influence. In this presentation, based on his forthcoming book, The Unfinished Quest: India’s Search for Major Power Status (Oxford University Press, 2023), T.V. Paul argues that the China-India rivalry has evolved into a larger contest for international and regional status. Status has been a source of conflict and cooperation since their advent as independent states in the 1940s, but it has worsened over the past decade since the arrival of Xi and Narendra Modi. China simply does not consider India as a status equivalent while the Indian elite think that they are. Much of the Chinese propaganda has been to show that India is a weak, post-colonial state, too tied to the US today and that it should assume a secondary role in Asia-Pacific accepting China’s primacy. In the decades ahead, this contest is likely to worsen as the status ambitions of the two giant Asian states are unlikely to be reconciled. However, India’s status quest remains an unfinished issue in world politics. Why have Indian leaders believed that the country has a destiny to rise as a global power? Despite their stated and unstated ambitions, why haven’t the larger bureaucratic and political elite worked hard enough to achieve this goal? What are the external and internal constraints in this pursuit and the opportunities that India may have both obtained and missed? Finally, what does the future hold for India’s status elevation? -- Speaker: Prof. T.V. Paul, James McGill Professor of International Relations, McGill University Chairperson: Dr. Selina Ho, Co-Director of Centre on Asia and Globalisation and Assistant Professor -- #GovernancefortheFuture #publicpolicy #policymatters ================================================ Visit us Website: http://lkyspp.nus.edu.sg Follow us on Facebook: http://facebook.com/nuslkyspp Twitter: http://twitter.com/lkysch Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/lkyspp/ LinkedIn University Page: https://www.linkedin.com/edu/school?id=42060 Subscribe and click on the bell icon to be the first to watch our videos! 🔔

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