Name of the Book: Asian Juggernaut
Subtitle: The rise of China, India and Japan
Author: Brahma Chellaney
Publication: HapperCollins Publishers India
Year of publication: 2006
Library ID: 915 CHE NIM LIBRARY
The book Asian Juggernaut, The rise of China, India and Japan is a piece of work by Brahma Chellaney, who has been a Member of the Policy Advisory Group headed by the External Affairs Minister of India and is now a Professor of Strategic Studies at the New Delhi-based Centre for Policy Research. The author has very well tried to state and relate various perspectives that have helped China, India and Japan in emerging as the most powerful nations of Asia. The book since was published in 2006 miss some of the most significant economic incidents that have happened in the last four years but nevertheless it very well justifies the conditions and relationships that were prevailing in and before 2006 among nations in Asia as well as the rest of the world.
Author has discretely tried to classify and cover different concepts in five different chapters as The Asian Renaissance; Why Asia is Dissimilar to Europe, Asian Geopolitics of Energy, Equations in the Strategic Triangle and Averting Strategic Conflict in Asia.
The author starts the book describing the revival of the three nations and Asia altogether in the last quarter of the twentieth century. The centre of gravity of the world affairs is slowly moving towards Asia. Asia has the world’s fastest growing, fragmented and rapidly changing markets. Asia confronts contradicting trends. On one side, there are territorial disputes, competition for scarce resources and improved military capabilities and on the other side there is rising interdependence through trade, communication, technology and tourism.
Asia has impressive information technology resource and Information Technology is at the centre of power and force today. With rapidly changing technologies and high paced globalization, tolerance for rapid change has helped these Asian nations to survive as well as to rein the situation. And specifically India when it comes to knowledge industries like Biotech, medical science and Software development.
China and India are two diversified nations which have little in common. Book discusses these differences at length. It stresses on some of the specific differences that makes the two economies so much different from each other. China owns a vast supply of unskilled cheap labour while India has its edge from considerable pool of skilled workers in IT and other high tech sectors. China is able to attract Foreign Direct Investments (FDI) easily while India lags far behind than China but never the less is way ahead in drawing Foreign-Equity Investments. China has newly developed grant cities, express highways and top-notch tunnels and bridges while for India, Infrastructure still remains a bottle neck for the supply and distribution and many others as well. Democracy remains India’s greatest asset as its status is the world’s largest democracy. Rapid developments are difficult in a democracy as compared to others. It is commendable that still India was able to achieve high rate of growth. It is also mentioned that ‘One who earns money in China is a winner; one who earns money overseas is a Hero’. China practices extreme export driven approach. While due to rising consumer base, India’s dependence on export as growth engine is declining. Both India and china witnesses greater income gaps between rural and urban as well as between the provinces. However these inequalities are starker in China than in India due to faster economic growth. Japan follows egalitarian structure and is thus at a safer and stable position. The two countries follow contrasting approaches to stability building and public interest promotion. China enforces order from top down while India seeks to ensure that its stability is built from the bottom up. Social unrest is thus a bigger threat for china than for India. China also puts public interest ahead of individual rights and possesses the right to decide what is in public good. While in India protection of individual rights comes way before. Indian citizens have the power to derail the best – laid plans of the investors and the government with votes, protests and the court. And one of the very important factor remains that the wealth in India is with private entrepreneurs while it is largely with the state in china.
Author has strong views for corruption. He believes that political corruption poses a treat for both India as well as China. Of the three largest Asian economies, Japan by far is the least corrupt succeeded by China and then India. Corruption is both, a cause of poverty as well as a hindrance in the development of the nation. Corruption undermines economic growth and undercuts the trust and confidence of citizens. The only way corruption can be fought for is through integrity in public service, improved governance, transparent systems, and active public involvement. Rapid economic growth, not surprisingly, has yielded more money to Asian States to Import weapons. Largest importers of Weapons in Asia are India and China. China produces many weapons at home while India relies for it mainly on imports and thus has emerged as the world’s largest arms importer since 2004.
The book also tries to relate and unrelated Asia with Europe. There are fewer similarities and more dissimilarity between the two. Europe has several major middle powers at the centre; Asia, however has just one major power at its centre, China, while others bears the ill effects of its growth. European Union is the outcome of the equilibrium among these middle powers. Asia on the other hand is far away from evolving equilibrium among its states. The heated rivalry between China-Japan and dissonance between China-India act as destabilizing factors for Asia. Author cites numerous examples of disparities among Asian states. Japan and Singapore among the wealthiest states of the world and at the same time North Korea and Afghanistan among the poorest. Singapore being the densest while Mongolia being least dense in population. To be at par with the European Union (EU), Japan came up with the vision of forming East Asian Community (EAC). But the intensifying rivalry among the Asian power acted as an obstacle in its success. Asia not only suffers from disparities but political diversity too. The world’s largest autocracy and the world’s largest democracy are located right next to each other. Author has explained the autocratic nature of the Chinese government at length giving numerous examples like access to limited sites on internet and some extreme like temporary block of Wikipedia since it did not let the government to control information. European Union on the other hand is bonded with political symmetry. They though face their own set of challenges related to further integration. The author summarises this discussion by quoting that democracy is certainly not the cure of all political problems and says that there exists dysfunctional democracies that lack institutional capacity to inspiringly act or deliver results. Such examples also can be found in Asia. Thus it is called- A divided Asia.
Chellaney devoted a wide part of the book in discussing the geopolitics of energy. This discussion however does not limit itself to the Asian powers and does involve its integration with the rest of the word because of its dependency on them. Asian nations have a hunger for resources. China has been taking extreme steps in order to secure its future and to minimize its dependability on other Persian Gulf nations since it is incapable to produce them. It imports 40 percent of its oil. The dependency is comparatively more in case of India (70%) and most in case of Japan, South Korea and Taiwan (100%). China has emerged as a major player in the geopolitics of energy. Being a weapon producer, it exports arms to gain access to these raw materials. The demand is not limited for gas and oil but for other primary commodities too that are needed to feed the industry. Both China and India are trying to decrease their vulnerabilities by acquiring assets overseas. However India lags behind china in this largely. China opted for “Lock up” strategy for the energy supplies rather than opening them up. Ownership and reliability of these resources is all that China is looking for. Author is however discontented with this strategy. He attests that large oil and gas investment in states that are unreliable is not energy security but energy insecurity. Japan is playing safe by not joining the bidding war. Author does not limit his discussion to oil and gases but also states the status prevailing among different sovereign when it comes to other energy producing resources like Coal, Uranium and hydropower and also the need for the Asian nations to embrace renewable resources of energy. He also suggests an energy grid by cooperation and integration by Asian nations but at the same point comments that it cannot be achieved on the grounds of bad economics and bad politics. Energy competition is already beginning to aggravate interstate rivalry in Asia. A challenge for Asian nations if to manage their energy needs through efficient consumption and cooperative import duties.
The book also discusses the equations of the strategic triangle, at length with each other. It shows how history casts a shadow on the existing interstate political relationships in Asia. Applying pure game theory, Japan’s financial burst in 1990 helped China to rise dramatically. It discusses how Japan recuperates from ashes of World War II and nuclear bombings to a stable and competing economy to U.S. It enjoyed 100% literacy rate, stable political system and highest FOREX reserves. Despite possessing an economy more than 2.5 times larger than china, it did not enjoy the same international profile as China did. Japan’s perception about India changed to being an investment destination and strategic partner after China’s anti-Japanese mob protests. India gains that from China’s loss. Discussing relations between India and China, they worsened with time and could not even have a mutually defined line of control to separate them geographically. India – Sino war resulted because of this undefined territory limits and gradual changes in their relationship thereafter have been discussed by the author. He has commented on India’s reaction on China - Tibet relationship and Nehru’s role in India-China relationship. Role of U.S. has also been discusses in strengthening or weakening the trio relationship at different times during the lifecycle. Trade and economic bonds can help Asia in softening historical grievances that have not been put to rest in these nations.
The author also throws some light on how the strategic conflict between these nations should be averted. The situation prevailing however is a little different in Asia than before since all the three nations, China, India and Japan, have never been this strong at the same time in the history of Asia. The relationship amongst the three nations has thus not been very healthy. Japan and China however got involved in the heated rivalry way back in sixteenth century, The Indian and Chinese militaries met for the first time only in 1950. How the China-Japan, Japan-India and India-China equation evolves in the coming year will have a crucial bearing on Asian and global security. China is busy finding a safe and strategic position for itself in the world. It has tripled its trade surplus in an year itself (2005) and has tripled its FOREX reserves in the span of three years (2002-2005) averting itself from any balance of payment or other economic crisis. Japan on the other hand is opting for a focus strategy of strength. It is busy strengthening its military and leveraging its technology to strengthen its position. The book also highlights India’s growing weight and abundant market opportunities that helped India to nudge America to strive for a long term partnership. It also states about America’s concern about Asia becoming the centre of power of the world. America’s interest in Asia actually lies in hedging its future options and balancing the various powers. It is also mentioned that Asia is also the epicentre of international terrorism. Asia accounted for seventy five percent of the terrorism causalities worldwide by 2000. The author then summarizes by saying that the desire of nations to extend their geographical boundaries is a major cause of regional tension. Thus the three main players, Dragon China, Tiger India and Godzilla Japan can set a model for other states in Asia by establishing a stable political relationship that put the accent on mutually beneficial cooperation’s.