gokhale

A short and neat book on the dynamics of negotiations between the two countries. If anything, it shows how hugely China looms over India's world vision, almost to the exclusion of other relations. Since it is based on the author's personal experience in the Indian Foreign Service, it offers many ground-level nuggets of advice for those who have to face the formidable foreign affairs machine of the Chinese. The author has however picked a very few cases, mostly where he feels India won the diplomatic war of nerves, such as the nuclear embargo after India's test explosions, and the naming of Pakistani terrorists on the proscribed list which China stone-walled for a decade or more. Thus there is very little material on the Sino-India fracas of 1962, which is a pity since this is what defines the Indian reaction to its northern neighbor. The author also provides a long list of Chinese think-tanks and front organisations that he says India should be wary of, thereby more or less putting a dampener on cultural and academic contacts. A more productive approach would possibly call for a similar exercise from the other end, so that Indian foreign policy makers will have a wider palette to choose from.… (mais)