India China: Rethinking Borders and Security
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Ling, L.H.M. India China: Rethinking Borders and Security. E-book, Ann Arbor, MI: University of Michigan Press, 2016, https://doi.org/10.3998/mpub.6577564. Downloaded on behalf of Unknown Institution Revised Pages India China Ling, L.H.M. India China: Rethinking Borders and Security. E-book, Ann Arbor, MI: University of Michigan Press, 2016, https://doi.org/10.3998/mpub.6577564. Downloaded on behalf of Unknown Institution Revised Pages Configurations: Critical Studies of World Politics Patrick Thaddeus Jackson, series editor Titles in the series: Atrocity, Deviance, and Submarine Warfare: Norms and Practices during the World Wars Nachman Ben-Yehuda Securing the Sacred: Religion, National Security, and the Western State Robert M. Bosco Capital, the State, and War: Class Conflict and Geopolitics in the Thirty Years’ Crisis, 1914–1945 Alexander Anievas Britain and World Power since 1945: Constructing a Nation’s Role in International Politics David M. McCourt The Politics of Subjectivity in American Foreign Policy Discourses Ty Solomon Making Human: World Order and the Global Governance of Human Dignity Matthew S. Weinert The Politics of Expertise: Competing for Authority in Global Governance Ole Jacob Sending India China: Rethinking Borders and Security L. H. M. Ling, Adriana Erthal Abdenur, Payal Banerjee, Nimmi Kurian, Mahendra P. Lama, and Li Bo Ling, L.H.M. India China: Rethinking Borders and Security. E-book, Ann Arbor, MI: University of Michigan Press, 2016, https://doi.org/10.3998/mpub.6577564. Downloaded on behalf of Unknown Institution Revised Pages India China Rethinking BoRdeRs and secuRity L. H. M. Ling, Adriana Erthal Abdenur, Payal Banerjee, Nimmi Kurian, Mahendra P. Lama, and Li Bo University of Michigan Press Ann Arbor Ling, L.H.M. India China: Rethinking Borders and Security. E-book, Ann Arbor, MI: University of Michigan Press, 2016, https://doi.org/10.3998/mpub.6577564. Downloaded on behalf of Unknown Institution Revised Pages Copyright © by the University of Michigan Press 2016 All rights reserved This book may not be reproduced, in whole or in part, including illustrations, in any form (beyond that copying permitted by Sections 107 and 108 of the U.S. Copyright Law and ex- cept by reviewers for the public press), without written permission from the publisher. Published in the United States of America by the University of Michigan Press Manufactured in the United States of America c Printed on acid- free paper 2019 2018 2017 2016 4 3 2 1 A CIP catalog record for this book is available from the British Library. ISBN: 978- 0- 472- 13006- 1 (hardcover) ISBN: 978- 0- 472- 12220- 2 (e- book) Ling, L.H.M. India China: Rethinking Borders and Security. E-book, Ann Arbor, MI: University of Michigan Press, 2016, https://doi.org/10.3998/mpub.6577564. Downloaded on behalf of Unknown Institution Revised Pages Contents Foreword vii Patrick Thaddeus Jackson Acknowledgments ix Introduction: What’s Not There: India-China 1 L. H. M. Ling chapteR 1. Trans- Himalayas: From the Silk Road to World War II 20 Adriana Erthal Abdenur chapteR 2. Borders as Opportunities: Changing Matrices in Northeast India and Southwest China 39 Mahendra P. Lama chapteR 3. Subregionalizing IR: Bringing the Borderlands Back In 60 Nimmi Kurian chapteR 4. Dialogue across Borders: Dam Projects in Yunnan and Sikkim 80 Payal Banerjee and Li Bo chapteR 5. Border Pathology: Ayurveda and Zhongyi as Therapeutic Strategies 102 L. H. M. Ling Ling, L.H.M. India China: Rethinking Borders and Security. E-book, Ann Arbor, MI: University of Michigan Press, 2016, https://doi.org/10.3998/mpub.6577564. Downloaded on behalf of Unknown Institution vi contents Conclusion: What’s Ahead: India-China in the World 127 Borderlands Studies Group Maps 139 Bibliography 145 Author Biographies 171 Index 175 Ling, L.H.M. India China: Rethinking Borders and Security. E-book, Ann Arbor, MI: University of Michigan Press, 2016, https://doi.org/10.3998/mpub.6577564. Downloaded on behalf of Unknown Institution Revised Pages Foreword pta Rick thaddeus Jackson I am pleased that we are able to present this remarkable project spearheaded by one of the foremost postcolonial IR scholars presently working. Professor Ling has assembled an impressive team for a first- of- its- kind book project in the field of International Relations: a coauthored book that is not an edited volume, but a multiperspectival monograph that tackles a complex situa- tion in a way that can do it justice better than a traditional single- authored book or a multiauthored edited volume could. Here we have a series of voices arranged in a complementary way, operating with the same basic sensibility but exploring different threads, crossing over one another’s contributions in ways that produce a greater whole, and woven together by an innovative scholar whose distinctive voice underpins her seminal contributions to the field. The book is thus procedurally innovative at the same time as it breaks new methodological and empirical ground. Configurations as a series is about using innovative contemporary social theory to produce novel insights about specific empirical cases. Of course, some of the innovations in contemporary social theory might not be new formulations as much as they are the recovery of older formulations, and that is certainly the case here. The authors of this book look to the past for their principal inspiration, tapping the traditions of ancient geography and medicine for their primary analytical tools. These are in turn encompassed in the central model of the project: borders- as- capillaries, which is to say, borders not as discrete divisions between two preexisting things that impede commerce and intercourse between them, but—as Timothy Mitchell might well have said—bor ders as internal to a network of relations, borders as al- ways surrounded and interpenetrated by a series of interactions and ex- Ling, L.H.M. India China: Rethinking Borders and Security. E-book, Ann Arbor, MI: University of Michigan Press, 2016, https://doi.org/10.3998/mpub.6577564. Downloaded on behalf of Unknown Institution viii foRewoRd changes far more fundamental and far more quotidian than whatever macro- level aggregates get imposed on them later. Central to the theme of this book are the macro- level aggregates “China” and “India,” and central to the approach the authors take is the disentangling of what might otherwise seem like intractable conflicts by recalling the flows and interactions that precede, both analytically and historically, the present zone of conflict. Here are novel insights in droves, generated by a theoretical perspective quite at odds with what exists in most of the field. Ling and her collaborators have ambitions that are not merely explana- tory but also transformative: they seek not merely to make sense of an existing conflict, but by diagnosing it in terms of blocked flows and interrupted bal- ances, they seek to envision ways to resolve (or, better, to dis-sol ve) it. If the more typical IR explanatory social-scient ific question would be “why is this India- China conflict as virulent as it is?,” their question is instead “what does the present state of the conflict reveal about how to change things?” The transformative question encompasses the explanatory question and presses it onto novel terrain; call the results “explanation- plus.” The book thus sits squarely in the tradition of reflexive social science, in which the study of the world is inseparable from efforts to alter it; as such, the authors’ own self- locations become a vital part of the methodological grounding of the proj- ect, and help to underpin the validity of the results. This is truly critical so- cial science at its best. In sum, this book is a remarkable addition to the Configurations series, and I am delighted to be able to share it with you. Ling, L.H.M. India China: Rethinking Borders and Security. E-book, Ann Arbor, MI: University of Michigan Press, 2016, https://doi.org/10.3998/mpub.6577564. Downloaded on behalf of Unknown Institution Revised Pages Acknowledgments We would like to thank, first of all, Ashok Gurung, Director of the India China Institute (ICI). Not only did Ashok arrange all our trips to and residen- cies in three countries (India, China, United States), making sure we met with leading lights at each location, but he also did so with great charm and graciousness. To us, Ashok embodies the spirit of India- China. Our thanks, also, to the staff and institutions that supported us during our fellowship at ICI (2008– 10): • In India, we thank the Centre for Policy Research (CPR) and its President, Pratap Bhanu Mehta; Shubhagato Dasgupta served as Coordinator. We also thank Calcutta University and its Registrar, Basab Chandhuri; Rajapopal Dhar Chakraborti, Professor of Economics and Demography, served as ICI’s Principal Investigator; and Sayoni Pandey, as Coordinator. • In China, we thank the Horizon Research Consultancy Group, where Feng Xi facilitated matters for us as Chief Information Officer, and Emma Zeng, Coordinator. At Yunnan University, we are indebted to the good offices of Xiao Xian, Vice- President; Zhao Bole, Professor of International Rela- tions and Principal Investigator; and Yang Hui, Coordinator. • In New York, we thank Grace Hou, ICI Office Manager; Anita Patel Deshmukh, ICI’s representative in Mumbai; and Jianying Zha, ICI’s repre- sentative in Beijing. In addition, we gratefully acknowledge all the help and support provided by the incredible ICI team at The New School: Jona- than Cogliano, Christopher Eberhardt, Brenna Foster, Shoshana Goldstein, Sid Gurung, Flora He, Irene Leung, Kefu Li, Michelle Raffanti, Shaun Ran- dol, Kashish Shrestha, Scott Rosefield, Jonathan Stiles, Margi Sullivan, Jose- phine Vu, Marisa Westheimer, Andrea Wise, and Yiwen Wu. Ling, L.H.M. India China: Rethinking Borders and Security.