Bringing together a range of South Asian perspectives on rising China in a comparative framework, an attempt has been made, for the first time, to identify and examine the political, economic and socio-cultural stakeholders and constituencies that influence the respective policy of individual South Asian countries towards China. The essays also project how their mutual relations are likely to be shaped by these. The book is especially relevant today owing to China's growing weight in Asian and global affairs.

Bringing together a range of South Asian perspectives on rising China in a comparative framework, an attempt has been made, for the first time, to identify and examine the political, economic and socio-cultural stakeholders and constituencies that influence the respective policy of individual South Asian countries towards China. The essays also project how their mutual relations are likely to be shaped by these. The book is especially relevant today owing to China's growing weight in Asian and global affairs.

The emerging trends of terrorism in Asia have in the recent past challenged the conventional wisdom that dictated and defined violence by non-state actors. This, as the chapters in this volume suggest, is illustrated by its distinct characteristics, forcing the world at large to grapple with these threats, including volunteers from countries that had remained isolated from the contagion until now. Various facets of the challenge from the Islamic State (IS) and the unfolding contours of terrorism in Asia, have been analysed and written about in the past. Most of the perspectives have, however, been Western, with a sprinkling of Asian views. The present volume is a modest attempt to join the discourse on Asian terrorism from an Indian perspective. It is hoped that these essays will enliven and enrich the debate on the challenge of terrorism in Asia that is increasingly threatening peace and stability as well as values and ideals. The volume has been organised in four sections. The first deals with the ideological and technological aspects as well as the funding, communication and weapons of the IS and other terror groupings. The remaining three sections focus on West and Central Asia, South Asia, as well as China and Southeast Asia.

Dealing directly with strategic developments pertaining to Asia, this analysis considers the diverse push-and-pull factors impinging on a country's strategic posture. Beginning with international security issues, this survey discusses India's responses to global-energy security challenges, emerging military technologies and their security implications for India, and the nuclear nonproliferation regime. With in-depth investigations of major events in numerous regions of India's immediate and extended strategic neighborhood, this discussion also covers the evolving partnership between India and the United States and an evaluation of the India-Pakistan peace process. Comprehensive and thorough, this examination also features a statistical appendix containing defense- and conflict-related data.

IDSA Asian Strategic Review 2008, the second volume in the series of ""Annual Surveys"" revived by the Institute in the previous year, is divided into six sections. The first section, on international security, discusses some significant developments in the Asian security landscape, while taking stock of the persisting, unresolved concerns. The issues covered include space security in the aftermath of China's anti-satellite test of 11 January 2007, energy security in the face of galloping oil prices, the growing concern regarding climate change, an evaluation of the current state of the global war on terror, and the evolving situation in Iraq, the safety of Pakistan's strategic assets, and an assessment of the Sixth Biological and Toxic Weapons Convention. The next section focuses on the theme related directly to India's security concerns. Accordingly, India's strengthened partnerships with the United States and Russia, its ocean security in the backdrop of capacity additions to its Navy, India's Look East policy with imperatives for Northeast security and India's acknowledged most pressing internal security challenge, the Maoist insurgency, are analysed in depth. During the period under review, a number of countries in South Asia - like Pakistan, Bhutan, Nepal, Bangladesh - have experienced a process of political transition. Clouds of anxiety and uncertainty still hang over some of these processes. Afghanistan remains politically unstable and mired in violence. The ethnic conflict in Sri Lanka is degenerating by day without much hope for a viable political solution. Section III deals with these intricate issues of regional turbulence and underlines implications of them for India's own security and stability. Section IV contains two articles dealing with strategic trends in Central Asia and the growing strength of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO). The next section on East Asia and the Asia-Pacific region contains chapters assessing the implications of China's Seventeenth Party Congress, an analysis of the relationship between Hu Jintao and the PLA, an examination of Myanmar's internal politics, Myanmar in the China-India equation, political developments in Japan after the end of Shinzo Abe's prime-ministerial term, and the challenges confronting the Association of South East Asian Nations (ASEAN). At the end of this volume, Statistical Appendices provide useful data, charts and tables relating to Asia's defense and energy sectors.