L.H.M. Ling - India China: Rethinking Borders and Security (Configurations: Critical Studies Of World Politics)

L. H. M. Ling, Adriana Erthal Abdenur, Payal Banerjee, Nimmi Kurian, Mahendra P. Lama, and Li Bo

University of Michigan Press

Ann Arbor

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 except 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

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)

Patrick Thaddeus Jackson

L. H. M. Ling

Adriana Erthal Abdenur

Mahendra P. Lama

Nimmi Kurian

Payal Banerjee and Li Bo

L. H. M. Ling

Borderlands Studies Group

Patrick 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 situation 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 anothers 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, butas Timothy Mitchell might well have saidborders as internal to a network of relations, borders as always surrounded and interpenetrated by a series of interactions and exchanges 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 explanatory 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 balances, they seek to envision ways to resolve (or, better, to dis-solve) it. If the more typical IR explanatory social-scientific 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 project, and help to underpin the validity of the results. This is truly critical social 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.

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 residencies 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 (200810):

• 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 ICIs 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 Relations and Principal Investigator; and Yang Hui, Coordinator.
• In New York, we thank Grace Hou, ICI Office Manager; Anita Patel Deshmukh, ICIs representative in Mumbai; and Jianying Zha, ICIs representative in Beijing. In addition, we gratefully acknowledge all the help and support provided by the incredible ICI team at The New School: Jonathan Cogliano, Christopher Eberhardt, Brenna Foster, Shoshana Goldstein, Sid Gurung, Flora He, Irene Leung, Kefu Li, Michelle Raffanti, Shaun Randol, Kashish Shrestha, Scott Rosefield, Jonathan Stiles, Margi Sullivan, Josephine Vu, Marisa Westheimer, Andrea Wise, and Yiwen Wu.

A big note of thanks, also, to Melody Herr at the University of Michigan Press. Melody provided expert advice on how to proceed with our manuscript while maintaining a calm forbearance of our sometimes chaotic process. Christopher Dreyer helped with great efficiency and pleasantness in the production process.

Adriana Abdenur would like to acknowledge, in particular, Brazils CNPq (National Council of Technological and Scientific Development) and its Bolsa de Produtividade program for supporting this research.

L. H. M. Ling would like to thank her Research Assistant, Ebby Abramson, for his meticulousness, innovativeness, and ever-present good cheer! In particular, we owe a debt of thanks to Deborah Parseghian for helping us find and design the maps in this book.

Nimmi Kurian would like to thank Jayashree Vivekanandan for her careful reading of earlier drafts and critical insights. She also wishes to thank Manka Bajaj and Swetha Murali for their excellent research assistance.

L. H. M. Ling

Who will win? India and China each flag a promise and a threat. Their current attempts to feed, house, clothe, educate, and employ one-third of humanity impresses but many also worry about the strain they place on the globes already limited resources and environment (Bawa et al. 2010; Chellaney 2011; Wong 2013), with possibly destabilizing effects on world markets and other national economies (Rowley 2013). More pointedly, many in international relations (IR) fear India-Chinas disruption of the international communityas articulated and led by the U.S.-West (Ikenberry and Slaughter 2006; Buzan 2010; Asia Policy 2012).