An Uneven Contest:How Power Asymmetries Shape Sino-India Competition For Power And Influence In South Asia

Sino-India rivalry and competition for power and influence in their shared neighbourhood is as old as the founding of the two new republics.However,power asymmetries that have emerged therein are relatively modern.These power asymmetries now reshape the contours of competition between the two rising(one already risen by most estimates)powers.This study analyzes this new dynamic in the Sino-India competition in South Asia.The central research question is:How the evolving power asymmetries between India and China have impacted on India-China competition for power and influence in South Asia?This study examines the elevated Sino-India competitive dynamic in South Asia through the combination of two traditional approaches of power analysis:The first approach,the elements of national power approach views power as a material procession as measured by GDP,armed forces,population,land size etc.The second,power relational approach depicts power as an actual or potential causal relationship.The general emphasis in much of South Asian related analysis is on the national power approach,however that obscures the host country specific conditions that in the South Asian context have played an important role in magnifying and mitigating the efficacy of power resources of both China and India.Relative power set the broad parameters of a state's external behavior.China which has more of it,can accomplish more,India which suffers a deficit of it,is constrained by its limits.The distribution of economic power resources of China and India in South Asia broadly correlates to those asymmetries in the relative power of the two states.Yet,the distribution of power resources alone tells only one side of the story.Fungibility of power resources vary in domain and scope specification and are subjected to rigours other extraneous details in domain and scope factors.Certain domain conditions may favour one country over the other;they can also be more accommodating towards one particular type of power,while push back against a different dimension of power.Similarly one particular power useful in one specific context,could well be a liability in a different context.This study argues that not only China's expanding economic activism is aided by its relative power,but also the efficacy of its economic power resources are magnified by certain domain specific characteristics of South Asia:South Asian states suffer from crippling infrastructure bottlenecks,which Chinese loans are expected to fix;South Asia's leaders have reached out to China for both national and personal political interest and at last there is an emerging national consensus in the region that values economic growth.Conversely,this study argues,India which has a significant portion of discursive power,which emanates from historical,cultural and ethnic links has found it hard to convert its discursive power to advance its foreign policy interests.The problem lies both in India's neighbourhood policy and South Asia's disparate domain context,where regional states loath India's overbearing influence.Finally,this study analyzes India's strategy to fix its South Asian problem and to respond China's economic presence in the region.Two areas of analysis are Narendra Modi's effort to reset India's South Asia relations and the emerging subtle soft balancing strategy of China,involving India,Japan and the United States.