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Employing insights provided by the theory of monopolistic markets in economics and Great Power behaviour in the discipline of international relations, this paper aims to provide an alternative understanding of India's refusal to join the BRI beyond the immediate bilateral security, domestic politics, and economic considerations in Sino-Indian relations. We argue that BRI is an effort by China to position itself as the leading firm in the market for international development – a space for long dominated by Western development providers. The paper argues that India's efforts to contest the BRI can be seen as a natural outcome of other rising powers resisting China's efforts to monopolize the development market. In doing so, it provides a template of why rising powers compete with each other in providing developmental aid even when cooperation may create mutual benefits. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper assesses the role of the BASIC countries — Brazil, South Africa, India, and China — in UN climate change negotiations. The paper explores the formation and evolution of the group, and focuses on how the four major developing countries of China, India, Brazil, and South Africa have coordinated their positions and acted jointly to achieve an agreed outcome with other players in the recent UN Climate Change Conferences in Copenhagen and Cancun, based on an analysis of their country profiles and negotiation positions on a wide range of climate issues. The paper argues that the emergence of the BASIC Group is a reflection of the ongoing power shift from EU–US agreement to BASIC–US compromise in UN climate negotiations since the early 1990s. The rise of BASIC also has its roots in recent global market dynamics and further reflects the power transformation in the economic dimension of the international system. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Stem cell science is a volatile political arena. Propelled by the scientific and economic promise of important new health technologies, stem cell science has produced politicisation across the international, regional and national policy domains. Concerned lest they should lose an important opportunity, the emerging economies of China and India are introducing policies designed to improve their global competitive position in this field. Given that their science, tax regimes, regulation, supporting industries and financial markets are at a different stage of evolution to that of the developed economies, China and India bring their own unique characteristics to the fluid politics of stem cell globalisation. This paper analyses their approaches to innovation in stem cell science and their distinctive contribution to the dynamics of the global political competition. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

India's foreign policy in South Asia has recently suffered revisions following increased Chinese presence in the region. Since 2007 the Maldives has also witnessed a tremendous change in its foreign policy from the 'India First' to the 'India Out' campaign. Islamic fundamentalism is on the rise in the Maldives and is impacting its foreign policy choices. China has shown great interest in the Maldives. While the Maldives has signed a Free Trade Agreement (FTA) with China and recorded enormous Chinese investments in various projects, the Indian ground in the island state has shrunk in the last decade. This article discusses how the Maldives has realised its geostrategic significance in the Indian Ocean Region (IOR) and how India has succeeded in restoring its traditional clout in Malé after the return of President Ibrahim Solih in 2018. It also discusses the Indian role in the Maldives during the pandemic and the signing of several Memoranda of Understanding (MOUs), maritime security understandings and partnerships with the United States in the Indo-Pacific in view of groupings such as the Quadrilateral Security Dialogue (QUAD) and Indo-Pacific Economic Framework for Prosperity (IPEF). Also examined is how the sharing of the Free and Open Indo-Pacific vision (FOIP) has brightened the scope of India's relations with the Maldives. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article argues that geopolitics is a major obstacle to an effective Indian policy on substantive maritime governance. It holds that India's involvement in maritime governance is predominantly shaped by geopolitics and driven by two geopolitical concerns, Delhi's drive to counter China's expanding influence in the Indian Ocean Region (IOR) and India's pursuit of leadership in that region. This emphasis on geopolitics is perfectly reasonable from India's perspective but comes at the cost of constraining Delhi's maritime governance policy and reducing India's ability to address substantive maritime governance issues. Hence, India's focus on geopolitics undermines substantive maritime governance. The focus on geopolitics negatively impacts substantive maritime governance because it: 1) leads India to oppose China's involvement in IOR's maritime governance; 2) creates bureaucratic obstacles to India's substantive maritime governance; 3) constrains Delhi's ability to concentrate its substantive maritime governance efforts. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

What factors do autocracies evaluate when responding to perceived threats and why might they fail to balance appropriately? I posit that autocratic leaders may choose greater exposure to an external threat if, by doing so, it preserves regime legitimacy. Specifically, the desire to promote a positive image to one's domestic public creates incentives to publicly downplay a rival's military progress, which then affects the state's ability to mobilize resources to respond to the growing threat. I test this theory in the case of China's response to India's military rise. This research contributes to balancing theory and empirical work on East Asian security. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

As the USA and Russia seek to reduce their nuclear arsenals en route to universal disarmament, they are hamstrung by the lack of a doctrinal basis for minimum deterrence. The cold war debate between Albert Wohlstetter and Patrick Blackett remains valid today. Though Wohlstetter's ideas, which produced large arsenals, remain influential, an examination of the history of nuclear rivalries shows that Blackett's thinking—offering security with more compact arsenals—is closer to reality. The minimalist doctrines and practices of China, India and, to a lesser extent, Pakistan offer useful lessons for the USA and Russia. But the Asian powers themselves need to iron out the inconsistencies in their thinking, which harbours elements of Wohlstetter's thought, if they are to be truly useful models that the bigger powers can emulate. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In recent years, China and India have come to be considered rising great powers by many analysts and scholars around the globe. Although the future course of relations between these two rising states could evolve along a number of paths, their shared history of troubled relations and current tensions suggest that their bilateral relations will be increasingly adversarial. In particular, both states are home to powerful nationalist movements with expansive worldviews. As India and China continue their rise to global imminence, these nationalist forces have the power to put the two states on a collision course. In this article, the author evaluates the history and contemporary power of nationalism in each nation today, analyzing in particular Indian nationalist attitudes toward China and Chinese nationalist perceptions of India. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Regional powers such as China, India, Russia, and to a lesser degree Brazil and South Africa, now occupy a significant role on the world stage. The United States, while still enjoying superpower status, has taken note. At the same time, the transnational nature of the challenges facing the world will require multilateral and bilateral co-operation perhaps unprecedented in modern history. How will the United States respond to these new requisites within the context of this changed world? While it is too early to assess the Obama administration's foreign policy substantively, it looks to be adopting an approach emphasising the building of consensus and multilateralism in its international engagement. Moreover, there is reason to expect that it will actively seek a more constructive set of relationships with regional powers. United States domestic political constraints may yet hamper Obama in this new approach, as might the type of response the new administration receives from old and new powers to its overtures. Whether the changes are more in tone than substance remains to be seen. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]