The global implications of China's rise as a global actorIn 2005, a senior official in the George W. Bush administration expressed the hope that China would emerge as a "responsible stakeholder" on the world stage. A dozen years later, the Trump administration dramatically shifted course, instead calling China a "strategic competitor" whose actions routinely threaten U.S. interests. Both assessments reflected an underlying truth: China is no longer just a "rising" power. It has emerged as a truly global actor, both economically and militarily. Every day its actions affect nearly every region and every major issue, from climate change to trade, from conflict in troubled lands to competition over rules that will govern the uses of emerging technologies. To better address the implications of China's new status, both for American policy and for the broader international order, Brookings scholars conducted research over the past two years, culminating in a project: Global China: Assessing China's Growing Role in the World. The project is intended to furnish policy makers and the public with hard facts and deep insights for understanding China's regional and global ambitions. The initiative draws not only on Brookings's deep bench of China and East Asia experts, but also on the tremendous breadth of the institution's security, strategy, regional studies, technological, and economic development experts. Areas of focus include the evolution of China's domestic institutions; great power relations; the emergence of critical technologies; Asian security; China's influence in key regions beyond Asia; and China's impact on global governance and norms. Global China: Assessing China's Growing Role in the World provides the most current, broad-scope, and fact-based assessment of the implications of China's rise for the United States and the rest of the world.

The Todas are the oldest inhabitants of the Nilgiri Hills of South India. With their quaint barrel-vaulted architecture, embroidered cloaks, and long-horned buffaloes, they have fascinated the world ever since civilization stepped into the Nilgiris two centuries ago. Their culture revolves around these herds, with each of the six grades of dairy-temple having its corresponding herd of sacred buffaloes. A Toda prayer consists of chant words addressed to sacred natural landmarks such as nearby peaks, slopes, thickets, trees, rocks, meadows, pools, and streams. The Todas represent a rare example of an indigenous culture that has remained generally vegetarian. The Prologue highlights the journey that led to Tarun Chhabra's being accepted as an "insider." The thirteen chapters provide detailed ethnographic descriptions of sacred dairy-temple institutions; the Toda relationship with honey; the intricacies of their attire and embroidery motifs; details related to seasonal migrations; settlement patterns; sacred geography and traditional architecture; a spirit's journey to the afterworld; and ethnobotany. The four appendices focus on the Toda relationship with their flora and fauna, lists of landscape terms, and the all-important prayers for major hamlets. The book includes significant new data and represents a major breakthrough in Toda studies.