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Overall, Panda concentrates on the "scope and
extent" of China’s transition in a manner that would help
answer the oft-asked million-dollar question as to whether the Middle
Kingdom is heading towards "any sort of democratisation".
More to the point, whether its much-touted "rule by law" is
likely to translate into "rule of law". The book is an
ambitious attempt that, the author claims, tries to explain the
dynamics of the emerging relationship between the Chinese Communist
Party (CCP), the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) and the modern
Chinese State. In this context, the objective of Comprehensive
National Power (CNP) — the combined weight of its economic,
diplomatic and military power — is to guarantee China its target of
reaching an appropriate place at the global level. Though it is
debatable whether China’s original authoritarianism has changed at
all, the changes emanating from its institutional structure, the
author would have us believe, point to a country "in
transition". An interesting if also a significant pointer to
India-China interaction is an appendix, Recent Important Chinese
Writings and Views on India, which purports to be "a
survey" of media, official and scholarly writings/views on the
subject. Inter alia it reproduces a report of June 11, 2009, in the Global
Times about an online poll that showed that "90 per cent of
participants" believed that "India poses a big threat"
to China, that "despite cooperative India-China relations",
the Indian Prime Minister had asserted that India would make "no
concessions" to China on the territorial dispute. More, that New
Delhi would send additional troops and build infrastructure, including
airports, on its border with China. The author claims that his study
provides "a complex mosaic" of emerging relationship and
dynamics between the Party, the Army and the modern Chinese State.
That he is out to assess — to "measure"— China’s
systemic strength and power. Even a casual student of China and its
affairs would have no hesitation in admitting that Indian studies on
China are scanty at best and disjointed at worst. These are patchy and
weak. "Modern", contemporary China and its affairs centric,
they can barely see beyond their nose. There are few if any studies of
China’s rich past, of its history and culture, of the way it has
impacted the world around. While Panda’s book is eloquent on the
varied facets of today’s China and insists that the country is
"in transition" and in the process of building "a new
political order", there is little about how the land and its
people have evolved over the aeons gone by. His mentors insist on
policy structure and research carrying forward the "government’s
requirements" as an "integral part of most of the
writing" of his work! More importantly, all the chapters had been
planned "following the research agendas provided"by the
Ministry of Defence (MoD) and the Ministry of External Affairs (MEA)
to the Institute for Defense Studies and Analyses (IDSA). Interestingly,
the book that bears the IDSA imprint carries a foreword by Professor
V. P. Dutt, a "distinguished" fellow of IDSA, while the
"leadership" of the Director-General of IDSA continually
"helped push" it forward. At the end of it, all one half
wonders how the book differs from an official handout. Or, an in-house
production of IDSA, by IDSA and for IDSA. There
is little space for an outsider/interloper, even less for this hapless
reviewer. At the end of it, all what credibility if any would it
command among all those, including this reviewer, outside the
parameters that IDSA commands or caters to? There are more than a
dozen tables and charts some of which make for interesting reading,
viz., "China and sprouts of democracy" and "regime
transition under the demand-and-supply mechanism". Some of the
appendixes are quite useful. One is "a backgrounder" to
China’s current top leaders, another, a "note" on the
structure of the Chinese state, still another, on "influential
(select) think tanks". There is also a collection of "recent
important" Chinese writings and views on India. And a
"select" bibliography which includes news and media sources,
important blogs and a list of "select" journals and
newspapers.
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THE importance of China as a global superpower needs no
emphasis. Nearer home, it is an important neighbour with whom we have
to fashion a relationship that is at once friendly as well as mutually
beneficial. In other words, any study that promises to delineate the
varied strands that have brought this about deserves close scrutiny.
And as our scholarship on China is meager at best, this work is doubly
welcome. 