Earlier today, I had the pleasure of attending the Global Synergy Conference organised by the Wilfried Martens Centre for European Studies in Brussels. It was a wonderful experience to listen European thinkers and strategists and panelists from the developing world contend with geopolitical, geo-economic and technological churn.

I was on a panel discussion focusing on the world order. As part of that, I was requested to think about the future of the world order and what kind of order should be built.

Although the eventual delivery was not exactly this, here’s what I tried to convey.

“This is a difficult question because it asks us to imagine the future. In doing so, I want to be both optimistic and idealistic, and not let the brutishness of the current environment, or even the inherent nature of international relations, undermine my imagination.

At the same time, ignoring the realities of the world—the enduring role of states, historical experiences of building order, and their limitations—would do a disservice to this inquiry.

So, after much thought, I am essentially adopting feasibility as the parameter to mediate between idealism and the reality of current times.

Before I get to what the contours of the order should/is likely to be, here is what I believe the next global order needs to contend with. I see three core tensions.

First, there is a tension among three forces:

• Westphalian norms, which include state sovereignty, territorial integrity, non-intervention, and the legal equality of states;

• the inherent desire of great powers to pursue absolute advantage, remain above rules that constrain them, shape spheres of influence or pursue empire, and

• overreach based on a particular ideological zeitgeist about how global civilisation should be organised: be it liberal internationalism or the rejuvenation of nativism and even fascism today

Any sustainable order will have to balance and contend with these impulses.

Second, there is a tension between the ideas underpinning the liberal international order—open markets, free trade, global capitalism; democracy; human rights; rule of law; and collective security—and the realities of cultural and civilisational pluralism. We see this tension reflected in contemporary American foreign policy, for example, in the speeches by Vice President Vance and Secretary Rubio in Munich over the past two years.

In the morning, we heard about the European way of life and the search for certain common or shared values. I think that is a noble endeavour, and I do think that we can arrive at some common values. The challenge, of course, is how those common values materialise in tangible policy decisions within different countries. For example, as a classical liberal, to me, individual liberty is to me a shared value that we must all aspire toward. But all societies have tensions between the collective and the individual at different levels. There are no uniform templates of how these should be managed; so that is what I mean by some level of pluralism that any future order must contend with and account for.

Third, there is a tension between rhetoric or promise and delivery. An order is sustainable only when it aligns not merely with the aspirations of those who accede to it, but also with the actual distribution of power. And today, that distribution is uneven and volatile. In many ways, the world is unipolar, bipolar, multipolar, and non-polar all at once.

Meanwhile, the drivers of future power—compute, algorithms, data, network infrastructure, skilled talent—are evolving rapidly, while traditional sources of power—territory, population, natural resources—remain highly significant. Accounting for this dynamic mix is an enormous challenge for anyone seeking to build order.

What does this mean for building a new order?

• First, it must be rules-based; otherwise, it isn’t truly an order. The concept of order requires a certain critical mass agreeing upon shared codes of behaviour. But these rules do not have to be those that once were. They will evolve.

• Second, I believe the next order is likely to be unevenly multipolar, more plurilateral than multilateral, more regional than global, and more pluralistic than universalistic.

• Third, my view is that this new order will likely be more state-centric and less individual-centric, meaning the flowering of civil society we saw after the Cold War will face profound challenges. Even private actors and transnational corporations will likely increasingly be subservient to the demands of the state and subject to the geopolitical priorities and whims of governments.

Will this order be stable and peaceful? Perhaps. Will it engender greater prosperity than the post-Cold War order? Unlikely.

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Hope everyone’s enjoying a fun break during the Spring Festival. I have a special announcement as we ring in the Year of the Horse. My new book is now available for pre-order on Amazon.

Here’s what you can expect:

After years of deep mistrust stemming from the 2020 boundary standoff, India–China relations have entered a phase of cautious yet fragile re-engagement. Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s meetings with President Xi Jinping in Kazan in 2024 and Tianjin in 2025 signalled a shared desire to stabilize ties. Yet, these gestures have not eased the deeper structural tensions. The post-pandemic geopolitical churn, the inward turn of the West and Donald Trump’s return to the White House have further complicated an already fraught dynamic.

Clearly, the relationship is at an inflection point. At such a moment, it becomes imperative for India’s political leadership and strategic community to examine what exactly we seek from our engagement with China. For years, analysts have spoken of the need for India to craft a new modus vivendi. But what should the contours of this desirable equilibrium be? And what must India do to arrive there? These are not abstract questions; they demand clarity, purpose and foresight.

Taming the Dragon is an effort to provide that clarity. Drawing on deep research, it offers an action-oriented guide to navigating the challenges and opportunities that China’s rise presents.

Its central argument is that India’s policy thinking must be anchored in the paradigm of atma-shakti or self-strengthening. This framework should shape choices on economic strategy, military preparedness, foreign partnerships, trade and technology policy, and even engagement with China. The objective is not only to build national strength, but also to emerge as a major power in the Chinese mind.

How do we get there? That is what this book sets out to explain.

The following is what the book covers:

Early Reviews:

‘Since the clashes in 2020, India-China relations have been poised in the limbo between hope and dread for five years. Stepping bravely into a policy and strategy void, Manoj Kewalramani and his fellow authors from the Takshashila Institution have given us a perceptive, rigorous and constructive prescription for India’s policies towards China. This manifesto is based on deep study of the structural dynamics driving India-China relations, and looks forward rather than back. A new and promising generation of Indian China scholars urge a dual policy of self-strengthening and engagement with China, based on strategic discipline, asymmetric responses to China’s military challenge, de-risking the trade and economic relationship, and using the changes in the international situation. This is a book that deserves to be widely read, not only by those in policy circles, who would do well to heed its advice, but by all those interested in India’s future. It is a major contribution to the strategic conversation in India.’ —Shivshankar Menon, former National Security Advisor of India

‘A lucid, unsentimental guide to India’s China dilemma. Manoj Kewalramani has marshalled with his co-writers a practical framework for stability in relations with our largest neighbour, grounded in Indian strength and disciplined engagement.’ —Nirupama Menon Rao, former Foreign Secretary, Government of India

‘Manoj Kewalramani and his colleagues point to a pragmatic Indian path to engaging China amid Delhi’s growing power asymmetry with Beijing and an increasingly volatile international environment. The clinical and unsentimental essays in Taming the Dragon offer incisive new approaches to India’s trade, security and political challenges in its China policy. As India’s relations with China enter the post-Galwan phase, this volume offers an insightful window into the shifting dynamic between the two Asian giants.’ — C. Raja Mohan, Strategic Affairs Expert and Columnist

‘Rare to see such a clear-eyed view, not long after the fog of conflict between India and China ended. While the volume edited by Manoj Kewalramani primarily attempts a roadmap for the future of India-China ties post-Kazan, it is also necessary stock-taking of the mistaken perceptions of the past few years pre- and post-Galwan. Kewalramani et al. remind us that a return to status quo ante is unrealistic, even as the two countries essay a new engagement between them’. —Suhasini Haidar, Diplomatic Affairs Editor, The Hindu

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I had the opportunity to attend the Munich Security Conference over the past few days. It was quite the whirlwind experience. Apart from the speeches and discussions on the main stage, there were several very interesting side-event conversations. These were, by far, much more candid. I am sharing below some reflections from the experience.

First, Ambassador Wolfgang Ischinger characterised US Secretary of State Marco Rubio’s speech as one of assurance for Europe. In one sense, this was a speech that did offer some succour for America’s European allies. Rhetoric about America and Europe’s intertwined destinies and America being “a child of Europe” drew applause in the main hall. But to me, this was largely because the bar seemed to have been set very low following JD Vance’s remarks last year. In the rooms that I was in, Rubio’s remarks offered little reassurance. Several of the attendees bristled at the historical and ideological narrative that Rubio offered. There were some broad areas of concern:

1. Rubio’s characterisation of Western civilisation as fundamentally Christian is divisive from a European perspective. It hits at political cleavages within European societies and the broader EU project. When it came to this issue, as one seasoned American participant remarked, the speech was “Vance without the beard.”

2. Rubio’s diagnosis for why America needs strong allies and what it means for the West to be strong carried a strong sense of colonial romanticism. For instance, he talked about the “great Western empires” of the past and how America does not “want our allies to be shackled by guilt and shame. We want allies who are proud of their culture and of their heritage, who understand that we are heirs to the same great and noble civilisation, and who, together with us, are willing and able to defend it.” Who is it that he wants to defend Western civilisation against? Within this context, Rubio also called for the US and Europe to “build a new Western century”, including pursuing “a unified effort to compete for market share in the economies of the Global South”. Such framing is likely to further erode US legitimacy across the developing world.

The above two points link to the agenda that Rubio outlined, i.e., one of rebuilding international order and institutions. This is what Rubio said America under President Trump wants to achieve, and it wants to do this with Europe. The challenge for many across the Atlantic is the values that must underpin this new order. That’s where there is a fundamental disagreement for the moment. For instance, these are the key “mistakes” that Rubio argued the West had made. Read these and then refer to the text from German Chancellor Friedrich Merz’s speech that I have shared below.

• “a dogmatic vision of free and unfettered trade”

• outsourcing of sovereignty to international institutions

• the appeasement of a “climate cult”

• support for mass migration in “pursuit of a world without borders”

Second, along with the ideological divisions, the experience of American coercion appears to be leading to a strategic awakening in Europe. But there is a realisation that a new deal has to be struck with the US, one that is more transactional and interest-based. This was evident in the speeches by German Chancellor Merz, European Commission President Ursula von der Layen and British Prime Minister Keir Starmer. I am highlighting these three speeches particularly because while they all echoed an underlying message of European resolve, they also underscore challenges of the Brussels bureaucracy, uniting diverse systems and often competing economic interests, and with regard to standardisation and scaling of the defense industry.

Von der Layen said that:

“Europe must become more independent – there is no other choice. Independent in every dimension that affects our security and prosperity. Defence and energy. Economy and trade. Raw materials and digital tech. Some may say the word ‘independence’ runs counter to our transatlantic bond. But the opposite is true. And we’ve just heard it from State Secretary Rubio. An independent Europe is a strong Europe. And a strong Europe makes for a stronger transatlantic alliance. Today is the time for action and I want to focus on Europe’s plan for independence.”

She added that independence implies actions “to ensure that Europe can defend its own territory, economy, democracy and way of life at all times. Because this is ultimately the true meaning of independence.” In the rooms that I was in, this message was greeted with fairly robust applause.

Merz talked about the harsh realities of big power politics. He was blunt that “we have understood that in the era of big powers, our freedom is no longer a given.” He also talked about how he shared “uneasiness and the doubts” about the US as a partner. But he added that such “claims have not been fully thought through. They ignore hard geopolitical realities in Europe. And they underestimate the potential that our partnership with the US continues to have, despite all the difficulties that exist.”

In essence, Merz’s call appeared to be for a stronger Europe and new interests-based transatlantic relationship, rather than one driven by a congruence of values. Compare the text below from Merz to how Rubio framed the values pitch.

“Let me start with the inconvenient truth right from the start. A divide has opened up between Europe and the United States, and Vice President JD Vance said this very openly here at the Munich Security Conference a year ago, and he was right. The battle of cultures of MAGA in the US is not ours. Freedom of speech here ends where the words spoken are directed against human dignity and our basic law. We do not believe in tariffs and protectionism, but in free trade. We stick to climate agreements and the World Health Organization because we are convinced that global challenges can only be solved together. Now, the transatlantic partnership is no longer something we can just take for granted. First, it started in the United States, then here in Europe, but probably also here in this room. Ladies and gentlemen, if our partner is to have a future, we need to forge it and reason it in a new way. This reasoning must be hands-on and not esoteric. We need to realise on both sides of the Atlantic that we are stronger together.”

Finally, Starmer’s speech was interesting because it seemed far more conciliatory in terms of the relationship with the US in comparison to Ursula von der Leyen’s call for independence and Merz’s more interest-based perspective. For instance, he said that “the US remains an indispensable power. Its contribution to European security over 80 years is unparalleled. And so is our gratitude.” He further pushed back against Mark Carney’s framing of world order facing a “rupture”. Starmer added:

“I believe, we must make this a moment of creation. Instead of a moment of rupture, we must make it one of radical renewal. So, rather than pretending that we can simply replace all US capabilities, we should focus on diversifying and decreasing some dependencies. We should deliver generational investment that moves us from over-dependence to interdependence. I’m talking about a vision of European security and greater European autonomy. It does not herald US withdrawal, but answers the call for more burden-sharing in Europe and remake the ties that have served us so well. Because we know the value of our own power…”

Third, staying with the transatlantic relationship, it was interesting to listen to several US senators who traveled to Munich. In fact, there was quite a substantial Congressional delegation present. If I heard him correctly during his interaction with Politico, Senator Thom Tillis said that around 25% of the Senate had traveled to Munich. He interpreted this as an unprecedented expression of solidarity for the transatlantic relationship.

The reassurance that these individuals were offering was that despite the rhetoric from the administration, the broad American polity was still invested in the transatlantic partnership and the values that underpin it. There was also some rather frank acknowledgement from American participants within and outside the government about the damage that the Greenland issue had caused. The issue remains alive even today, if one goes by what Danish Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen said during the conference.

Fourth, there were some interesting conversations on Donald Trump’s use of military force in the first year of this term. Participants from the developing world were obviously extremely critical. European attendees were critical depending on where and how force was used. For instance, while the threat to use force to seize Greenland was simply unacceptable, the kidnapping and ouster of Nicolas Maduro was easily rationalised. Where there was debate was on the issue of Iran. This was not so much a debate about legality of the action and the impact on the “rules-based order”—one seldom heard this phrase, if at all. Rather, the discourse was around the nature and intensity of force that might be used and the dangers of the fallout of the use of military force.

In connection to Trump’s use of force and how one can think about it, let me summarise what I thought was an insightful analytical take was articulated during one of the panels. I am probably not going to articulate it as elegantly, but here goes:

• First, despite the election rhetoric of Trump being anti-war and wanting to be the president of peace, American presidents tend to be much more proactive in terms of foreign policy issues and potentially use of force in their second terms. There’s a legacy angle associated to this.

• Second, there are certain issues on which there is likely to be greater permissibility from the broader American political elite for Trump to use force. These are matters in which there is a historical or general consensus on the nature of regimes and actors. Venezuela and Iran fit this framework. This permissibility, however, does not mean blanket clearance to deploy troops or engage in large-scale conflict. That said, the use of force can create slippery slopes. And then there are certain areas that are no-go zones. These are domains wherein the broader polity has shown that it can function as a restraining force, i.e., Greenland.

Finally, two brief points of note.

First, there were several discussions on the role of middle powers and whether the world today provides a moment for middle powers to work together much more constructively and deeply. I think there were some interesting ideas on the table around de-risking from the US and China and pursuing new formats of plurilateralism. There is tremendous rhetorical energy and thinking that’s going into these conversations. But we’ll see if these are pursued among governments with greater purpose in the weeks and months ahead.

Second, the advancements in defense technologies, particularly unmanned systems, are truly breathtaking. There are tremendous opportunities for new, nimble and innovative actors to shape the future. In particular, there were several conversations around finding pathways for deeper civil-military defense linkages within Europe and the need to forge new partnerships.

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It is about who gets to shape and control the engines of future economic growth and prosperity. And it is about who builds the technologies, standards, and systems upon which the world will depend and, in doing so, who determines the direction of modernity. Technology is the principal terrain on which this geopolitical struggle over modernity is being waged. Understanding the scope of this contest requires assessing each side across three domains, i.e., innovation capability, ability to coerce and blunt coercion, and global penetration in terms of the adoption of technologies, standards, and systems by others around the world.

Beijing’s Innovation Policy

Over the past decade, Beijing has assiduously focused on strengthening domestic innovation capabilities, a trajectory now crystallised in its innovation-driven development strategy. At the highest levels, Chinese policymakers have repeatedly argued that the modernisation of science and technology is central to Chinese-style modernisation. In effect, the leadership sees China’s future development as inseparable from sustained advances in science and technology.

Consequently, policy has focused on expanding R&D expenditure, investing in basic research and original innovation, breaking through core technologies, building a national science and technology innovation system, integrating technological and industrial innovation, refining technology governance, and expanding a high-skilled human resource base. In 2024, China spent RMB 3.63 trillion ($506.41 billion)—around 2.69% of GDP—on R&D. The top 1,000 private firms accounted for around 40% of that amount. Basic research expenditure reached an estimated RMB 250.09 billion, more than 70% higher than in 2020 and accounting for 6.9% of total R&D spending. The same year, 524 Chinese mainland firms featured in the top 2,000 global industrial R&D investors.

At the same time, Beijing has displayed greater ideological adaptability. For instance, President Xi Jinping convened a special meeting in February 2025 to court the country’s private-sector technology giants, enlisting them in furthering the Party-state’s techno-strategic agenda. This came after nearly four years of regulatory crackdowns targeting the tech sector that had resulted in falling profits and weakened confidence. Despite domestic criticism, the Chinese government also introduced the new K visa in October 2025 in order to attract high-skilled foreign talent. Reinforcing this momentum, the Global Innovation Index—which evaluates economies based on science and innovation investment, technological progress, technology adoption, and the socioeconomic impact of innovation—now ranks China as the world’s 10th most innovative economy.

The leadership appears convinced that this strategy is delivering dividends, a confidence reflected in the recommendations for the formulation of the 15th Five-Year Plan, which doubles down on the innovation-led development approach.

US Continuities and Departures

Meanwhile, an emphasis on expanding domestic innovation capabilities has also been a consistent theme across recent U.S. administrations. There was a clear continuity in focus on sectors such as defence, artificial intelligence, biotechnology, semiconductors, and quantum computing between the first Trump administration and the Biden administration. Both approached the technology piece in the U.S.-China relationship primarily through the lens of strategic competition. Yet, significant divergences existed in each administration’s perspective on the role of government, the importance of federal research funding, the governance of technology giants, and engagement with allies and partners. Trump 2.0 has not only accentuated these divergences but also created new cleavages while rethinking direct competition with China.

The current administration places sharper emphasis on investing in domestic capabilities, particularly in semiconductors, AI, cloud computing, and data centres. Its approach combines aggressive deregulation, incentives for the private sector—which accounts for nearly 78% of R&D spending—and efforts to extract investment commitments from allies and partners. These initiatives, however, coexist with drastic cuts to federal R&D funding and political scrutiny of U.S. universities, reflecting an ideological agenda favouring small government and efficiency. While federal funding accounts for merely 19% of US R&D spending, it is critical to fund basic research.

In addition, nativist sentiments, which resonate strongly with the MAGA base, are increasingly shaping policies on skilled immigration, even as the U.S. continues to rely on global technology talent for competitiveness. At the same time, the administration remains internally divided over how technology should be conceptualised within the broader framework of competition. Should it be viewed as a commercial product that can be monetised for private and governmental revenue generation while flooding markets of rivals, or should it be considered an ecosystem to be cultivated with trusted partners and a strategic asset to be denied?

The administration’s decision to approve the sale of advanced NVIDIA chips to entities in the UAE and Saudi Arabia, alongside the controversial clearance for the H200 chip to China and the criticism of that decision, illustrates this debate. Overall, the current U.S. technology policy can best be described as a blend of techno-nationalism, nativism, and mercantilism. The techno-nationalistic agenda, in this case, sits uncomfortably with the mercantilist approach.

Beijing’s hesitation in accepting the unilateral H200 concession by the Trump administration is indicative of how deeply the Chinese leadership has internalised, and is weary of, the notion of great power competition. In this sense, it is at odds with Chinese capitalists, whose stated and revealed preferences are for interconnection with the US technological ecosystem. Nevertheless, great power competition is a central theme that runs throughout Chinese political and policy discourse.

For instance, at a key meeting of leading Chinese scientists and engineers in May 2024, Xi Jinping was unambiguous in arguing that technological revolution today is intertwined with great power competition, with high-tech fields becoming the “main battleground of international competition.” Further, writing after the fourth plenum of the 20th Central Committee, which outlined the agenda for China’s 15th Five-Year Plan, Vice Premier He Lifeng was categorical that “in the final analysis, competition among major powers is a competition in productive forces, with the focus being on the development of new quality productive forces.” The experience of dealing with Trump 2.0 has further strengthened this perspective. Xi rather emphatically underscored this at the December 2025 Central Economic Work Conference, telling the gathering that “practice has proven that they cannot choke us by grabbing our ‘neck’.”

Likewise, despite the incoherence in the executive’s approach in Washington, the US Congress continues to view technology policy vis-à-vis China through a competitive lens. In November 2025, the U.S.-China Economic and Security Review Commission published an assessment of the outcomes of the Made in China 2025 initiative. The study found that China broadly met its goals in only about half of the 10 focus sectors. More importantly, it added that across the 10 sectors, the country had “rapidly built domestically and, in many cases, globally competitive capabilities.” The study concluded that Made in China 2025 has “helped turn China into a formidable peer competitor with the United States and other global manufacturing leaders in many areas of leading-edge technology.”

Key Domains and Countermeasures

Increasingly, both China and the US appear to be pursuing breakthroughs in and independent control over supply chains across a select set of key domains. This sets the stage for future competition. China’s 15th Five-Year Plan clearly outlines a set of sectors as emerging industries, future industries and key core technologies that require breakthroughs. Several of these—such as AI, quantum computing, biotechnology, advanced semiconductors, industrial technologies, fusion energy, aerospace, etc—overlap with the priorities outlined by the US Office of Science and Technology Policy.

China is also increasingly catching up with the US in terms of developing a suite of systems and policies—such as export controls and imitations of the US Foreign Direct Product Rule and the US de minimis rule—to counter what it perceives as American coercion. Throughout 2025, Beijing responded to US pressure through mirror measures. However, it would be erroneous to view its approach to controls as simply a defensive tool. As Beijing gains ascendancy in a particular technology or production capability, it is likely to protect that dominance and use it as leverage politically with other actors.

At the same time, it is also keen on building partnerships to expand access to resources, talents, technologies and markets. Such interconnectedness blunts coercion and potential containment, while expanding avenues for advancement. Likewise, despite Trump’s abrasive and extractive approach towards partners and allies, the US is pursuing technological collaboration with select states, as evident by the Technology Prosperity Deals inked with Japan and South Korea in October 2025. In addition, both the US and China are also increasingly competing on standard-setting. While China unveiled its Global AI Governance Action Plan in mid-2025, the US’s AI Action Plan clearly calls to pursue the adoption of American standards among allies and partners and counter Chinese influence in international governance bodies.

This contest over standards is not merely about leadership in specific technologies or sectors. It is about shaping the socio-political parameters that will govern how future technologies are adopted, applied, and regulated. In this sense, as argued earlier, Sino-US great power competition is fundamentally about contouring modernity itself: which system can deliver superior outcomes, build durable capabilities, exert global influence, and ultimately shape the future.

The article was first published in India’s World magazine’s February edition, on 6, 2, 2026.

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The year 2025 marked a distinct shift in China’s engagement with its periphery. Addressing a symposium at the end of the year, Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi argued that while China’s relations with states along its periphery were “at their best since modern times”, regional dynamics were increasingly “deeply affected by the changes in the international landscape” and “maintaining prosperity and stability” across the periphery required “persistent efforts”. Earlier, in April, the Chinese leadership held its first-ever Central Conference on Peripheral Work. The meeting recognised that the periphery was a “vital foundation” for China’s development and prosperity and needed to be viewed from a “global perspective.”

Analysing this language, Chinese scholars like Zhai Kun and Li Kaisheng concluded that strategic competition with the United States was increasingly weighing heavily on China’s engagement with neighbouring countries. Faced with the threat of integrated containment, they contended that Beijing was devising a strategy of integrated engagement. The goal of this approach is to structurally tie countries closer to China in a more holistic sense, ensuring that they lean towards it. In essence, the conference presaged the evolution of a more broad-based and proactive diplomatic approach towards neighbouring states.

This has been particularly evident when it comes to Chinese engagement with states across the Indian subcontinent. China is already a critical trade and investment partner for countries in the region, with overall trade estimated at around US$200 billion. Beijing is now also increasingly positioning itself as a builder of regional order. For instance, addressing the media during a visit to Islamabad in August 2025, Wang described the region as “an important direction for China to build a community with a shared future in its neighbourhood”. He argued that China would be a “trustworthy partner and a strong support for South Asian countries” as they prioritised development and contended with “unilateral and bullying acts” of the United States. That said, events over the past year have also showcased the limits of Chinese influence in the region.

After over five years of friction, the India-China relationship appears to be moving towards a process of cautious re-engagement. The meetings between Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Chinese President Xi Jinping in Kazan in October 2024 and Tianjin in September 2025 provided the necessary impetus. Since the Kazan meeting, the two countries have restored direct air connectivity, resumed bilateral ministerial dialogues, and eased visa processes. Wang’s visit to India in August 2025 also yielded agreements to establish an expert group to explore early harvest in boundary delimitation in the India-China border areas, a working group to advance effective border management, and the creation of General Level Mechanisms in the Eastern and Middle Sectors of the boundary.

Trade between the two countries has thrived despite political acrimony and security challenges, and New Delhi now appears to be re-evaluating its restrictive posture towards Chinese investments. This positive momentum is as much a product of bilateral dynamics as it is driven by changes in the broader geopolitical environment since the re-election of Donald Trump as US president. Nevertheless, it would be premature to characterise this re-engagement as a strategic thaw. Diplomatic sparring over the Shaksgam Valley and Arunachal Pradesh in recent months underscores the deep fault lines between the two sides. Rather, this phase reflects an effort by both to put a floor under the relationship amid persistent structural frictions and adverse geopolitical currents.

The May 2025 conflict between India and Pakistan was another example of the limitations of Beijing’s influence in the region. While Indian officials said that China provided Pakistan with live intelligence support and Wang indicated that China played a role in managing tensions between Pakistan and India, there is little evidence that Beijing had any substantial influence over unfolding events. The only public engagement that the Chinese side had with both India and Pakistan was following their ceasefire announcement. The episode, however, underscored the threat that rapid conflict escalation and instability could pose for Chinese economic and security interests in the region.

The aftermath of the conflict also coincided with Pakistani army chief Asim Munir’s consolidation of power and intense courting of Washington. Munir publicly credited Trump with facilitating the ceasefire between India and Pakistan. In June, he became the first serving Pakistani army chief to be formally hosted by a US president. Soon after, the two sides inked a bilateral trade deal, expanding their engagement on the issue of critical minerals. In September, US Strategic Metals signed a US$500 million investment deal with Pakistan’s Frontier Works Organization. Later in the year, the US EXIM Bank agreed to provide a US$1.25 billion loan for the Reko Diq mine being developed in Pakistan by Barrick Gold Mining. Apart from its deepening ties with the United States, Pakistan also found itself far more deeply engaged in the turmoil across West Asia. In September, Pakistan and Saudi Arabia announced the inking of a Strategic Mutual Defence Agreement. Beijing’s response to the deal was muted, and Chinese analysts remain divided about the impact of the deal on China’s broader interests.

From the perspective of China’s engagement with Pakistan, however, the cumulative signal from these developments was clear. Islamabad has demonstrated an ability to broaden its external partnerships and diversify its strategic patrons. This diversification does not necessarily dilute the China–Pakistan relationship; after all, Pakistan’s Mohammad Ishaq Dar was the first foreign minister to visit China in 2026. But it does underscore Pakistan’s growing room for manoeuvre and introduces a more complex external environment for Beijing’s long-standing assumptions about its leverage over Pakistan.

Finally, across the smaller states in the Indian subcontinent, Beijing has clearly expanded its influence in Sri Lanka and Bangladesh. January 2025 saw Sri Lankan President Anura Kumara Dissanayake visit China, with the two sides inking several deals in areas such as economic development, education, media and culture. In October 2025, Sri Lankan Prime Minister Harini Amarasuriya travelled to Beijing and held talks focusing on closer cooperation in law enforcement. It is, however, important to highlight that Dissanayake’s visit to China followed his visit to India, and Amarasuriya’s visit to Beijing was followed by a trip to Delhi. In that sense, despite the political churn in Colombo, there remains a policy of balancing ties with India and China.

Bangladesh and Nepal, meanwhile, represent two points on the spectrum when it comes to evaluating Beijing’s responsiveness to sudden crises. The Chinese government was quick to adapt to the ouster of Sheikh Hasina in Dhaka in August 2024, engaging with the new centres of power in the country. By March 2025, Bangladesh’s new Chief Adviser Muhammad Yunus travelled to Beijing for a substantive visit. A few months later, the first meeting of the China–Pakistan–Bangladesh trilateral group was held in Kunming, with the three countries pursuing a wide-ranging cooperation agenda. Beijing is also likely supportive of the deepening defence cooperation between Dhaka and Islamabad. The two countries are reportedly discussing a deal for Bangladesh to procure the Pakistani-made JF-17 Thunder fighter jet.

In stark contrast to how it navigated the violent upheaval in Bangladesh, Beijing was caught rather flat-footed when the protests in Nepal toppled Prime Minister KP Sharma Oli’s government in September 2025. What was worse was that Oli had just returned after a visit to Tianjin, where he met with Xi Jinping. Beijing called for stability, terming the protests a “domestic issue”. It also remained rather cautious in its approach towards the interim government led by Sushila Karki, with no outreach by the senior Chinese leadership.

In conclusion, from a composite perspective, China’s more proactive peripheral diplomacy, thus far, reveals both ambition and constraint. While Beijing is increasingly keen on shaping the regional order, its ability to steer outcomes remains uneven and contingent on local political dynamics, along with the agency of regional actors.

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As a broad general point, what sets this NSS apart from earlier documents is its ideological departure. It represents, in many ways, an ideological rupture with the past and reflects the MAGA zeitgeist. Yet the ideological battle within American politics remains unsettled: there is no clear winner, and political polarisation suggests the pendulum will likely continue to swing. The US is, in effect, undergoing an ideological revolution. Seen in this light, the NSS appears to have been used as a tool in that ideological battle, with its primary adversary being the establishment and liberal elite. The extension of this conflict to Europe is also evident in the deeply derisive language about Europe facing a threat of “civilisational erasure”, the need to restore its “civilisational self-confidence and Western identity” and in the challenge it mounts to the EU’s authority and legitimacy.

From an Indian perspective, however, there is still much more to unpack. The broader point about the US viewing the world through an increasingly transactional lens, and demanding more from allies and partners, is well made. It is also consistent with the experience of the Trump administration, thus far. But several specific implications for India require deeper examination. For starters, the document has a few mentions of India and none of those are antagonistic, albeit the reference to Trump negotiating peace between India and Pakistan will irritate Delhi. Apart from this, the NSS merely talks about improving commercial relations with India and the need to get Delhi to contribute more to security in the Indo-Pacific. Beneath these direct mentions, however, lie several deeper signals and consequences for the broader India–US relationship.

First, the document makes clear that the Western Hemisphere now supersedes the Indo-Pacific in American strategic priority. It explicitly calls for “a readjustment of our global military presence to address urgent threats in our Hemisphere.” It remains to be seen what this will mean in material terms. At the same time, the NSS still stresses the need for a “vigilant posture in the Indo-Pacific” to deter war, prevent the seizure of Taiwan, and ensure security in the South China Sea—all accompanied, of course, by calls for greater burden-sharing by allies and partners. At one point, it even demands more access to allied ports and facilities for the US military.

Second, the approach to China is transactional but competitive. It is true that the overall framing of the relationship is not as adversarial as in the previous two NSS documents. It is also true that China is discussed primarily in the context of economic rebalancing and transactional engagement. But competition runs deep throughout the document. This is reflected not only in the aforementioned security issues but also in the catalogue of concerns listed: “Predatory, state-directed subsidies and industrial strategies; Unfair trading practices; Job destruction and deindustrialization; Grand-scale intellectual property theft and industrial espionage; Threats against our supply chains that risk U.S. access to critical resources, including minerals and rare earth elements; Exports of fentanyl precursors that fuel America’s opioid epidemic; and Propaganda, influence operations, and other forms of cultural subversion.” Similar concerns reappear in the Western Hemisphere section, which references “non-Hemispheric competitors” and the challenge of “foreign influence.”

Third, in dealing with these challenges and demanding more from allies and partners, the NSS frames the US as moving toward an offshore-balancing role, particularly in the Indo-Pacific. The NSS talks about the US offering a “suite of inducements—for instance, high tech cooperation, defense purchases, and access to our capital markets” to “tip decisions” in its favour. It also pledges to act as a “convener” and “supporter” of a burden-sharing network. This need not be inherently at odds with Indian interests. But the contemptuously transactional US policy under Trump 2.0 does raise significant questions regarding the reliability of America down the road.

Fourth, the prioritisation of economic security will impose costs on India. We are already seeing this through tariffs and broader economic frictions. The NSS frames economic security as national security and signals not only a transactional but an extractive approach toward allies and partners. It quite explicitly says that “America’s economic partners should no longer expect to earn income from the United States through overcapacity and structural imbalances but instead pursue growth through managed cooperation tied to strategic alignment and by receiving long-term U.S. investment.” For India, this means the US will expect more, making it difficult to arrive at a new and mutually acceptable equilibrium.

Finally, the NSS’ emphasis on sovereignty and its hostility toward multilateral institutions may prove a double-edged sword for India. Coupling this with its de-prioritisation of the threat from transnational terrorism, a significant area of shared interest becomes diluted. The current NSS is astounding in that it barely references the threat of terrorism. Of course, one could argue that this is not surprising, given how the Trump administration has approached countries like Pakistan or the new leadership in Syria. From an Indian perspective, over the past decades, the US and India have worked together on listing Pakistan-based terrorists at the UNSC Sanctions Committee and have cooperated at the multilateral forums like the FATF to pressure Pakistan. If the US is now no longer interested in countering radical terrorism or in working with partners on shared security concerns at multilateral forums, then a key pillar of cooperation is weakened.

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Realists view order from the perspective of the desire for power and security in an anarchical world. From the realist prism, nation-states that are driven by self-interest are the primary actors, navigating immutable anarchy, managing conflict and seeking cooperation in a competitive global arena. In this sense, world order refers to the distribution of power, which gives rise to structures, relationships and patterns of activities in order to manage competition between states. Orders, therefore, change or evolve based on the shifts in the distribution or balance of power. The liberal institutionalist perspective emphasises the importance of transnational institutions, global agreements, treaties and regimes, and even international civil servants that regulate various aspects of global politics and governance.

While states remain the primary actors, their behaviour is moderated and mediated through an institutional architecture that facilitates communication, provides a framework for cooperation and manages conflicts. This, in turn, endows these institutions with personality, interests and agency. Consequently, they have a critical role to play in shaping the contours of the world order. Finally, for constructivists, ideas, norms and values have a constitutive impact on the self-perceptions and behaviour of states. This in turn leads to the establishment of structures of order that organise state action and guide patterns of behaviour.

If one is to distill these arguments, it is evident that power is a necessary ingredient to construct an order. But it is insufficient to ensure its acceptability and sustainability. What is further needed are certain shared beliefs, values, norms and institutions. These have a constitutive effect on perceptions of the self and others, thereby shaping and regulating the behaviours of states, which impacts the emergence of order. Therefore, to understand the state of the world order at present and whether there is today an inexorable march towards multipolarity, it is essential to examine three factors: the distribution of power, the ideologies animating great powers, and the norms and institutions that are being shaped.

The Distribution of Power

The past decade has witnessed the gradual re-emergence of great power competition, with the US and China being the chief protagonists. While there exist significant disparities, assessed on broad metrics of power, the two countries are today the dominant global actors. As true as this is, it doesn’t capture the full complexity of the world.

Rather, what persists today is a state of tremendous fluidity. This is a product of the uneven distribution of power across different domains, along with the outcomes of decades of economic globalisation, which created deep networks between the American and Chinese economies and an unprecedented web of interconnected supply chains, powering the global economy. Shattering these is a lengthy and cost-intensive process.

When one looks at the sheer military capability and reach, the US remains far ahead of its competitors. Despite the tough lessons that Washington has learned over the past 25 years about the limited utility of the military instrument, no other country today has the capability to project force far from its borders like the US does. The decisive bombing of Iranian nuclear sites earlier this year was a case in point.

On the other hand, when one looks at economic capacity, technology development and research and innovation, the world is evidently bipolar. These are the domains where the US and China are locked in intense competition.

In this process, each is seeking to undercut and outpace the other by investing in domestic capacity, constraining and delegitimising the other’s actions and working to expand their capabilities through networks of partners. In doing so, both have deployed a mix of carrots and sticks. The US, in particular, has leaned heavy on the use of sticks under Donald Trump. Nevertheless, the end goal that each is pursuing is to cultivate an edge over the other.

This process has generated bargaining room for several other actors, who have been pursuing hedging and balancing, while seeking capability enhancement. In that sense, there persists a tinge of multipolarity to the distribution of power in the world today. What’s further added to this is the fact that there are certain transnational challenges, such as climate change, governance of emerging technologies, terrorism, etc., that neither great power can address alone.

These create spaces for middle powers to act, as was evident by the kerfuffle in the Western press over the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation Summit in Tianjin and India’s pursuit of a new equilibrium with China. That said, the space for such manoeuvring has clearly narrowed since January 20, 2025. Domestic political and ideological churn within the US and China significantly accounts for this shift.

Ideologies Animating Great Powers

Nation-states are indeed the primary actors when it comes to international relations, and policymaking is often a structured, institutionalised process. But that does not mean that nation-states are rational or even mechanistic actors that are capable of making precise cost-benefit calculations and choosing optimal policies to maximise their utility.

On the contrary, decisions are often taken in an environment of imperfect information. More importantly, nation-states, and the institutions that constitute them, are profoundly human. They are composed of individuals, and are shaped by their perceptions, cognitive limitations, and political incentives at any given moment. In that sense, state behaviour is not the product of objective rationality, but of subjective interpretation. It reflects the worldview or ideological prisms through which the humans who are in positions of authority distill the information that they receive of the world around them. It also reflects the limitations of systems and institutions that have been put in place to process and deliberate on said information. In this sense, ideology remains a central force in both the formation and functioning of states, particularly in terms of how interests are conceptualised and pursued. This, of course, has an impact on the world order.

Evidently, today, US policy appears to be riddled with ideological confusion. Is the Trumpian worldview one that seeks isolationism through scaling back America’s global commitments or one of reconsidering priorities and pursuing greater burden sharing with allies and partners as pathways to maintaining American primacy? Does Make America Great Again (MAGA) desire jettisoning the idea of America as defined by the classical liberal ideals of its founding texts in favour of a narrow ethno-religious definition of American civilisation? And by extension, is its vision for the world one that is carved into geographical and civilisational spheres of influence among great powers or one of the universality of certain values, even if not liberal values, realised through the international institutional order? One can identify elements of each of these impulses in American policy since Trump’s return to power.

On the other hand, Beijing has talked a good game when it comes to multilateralism and supporting the UN-centered international order. For all the comparisons to Mao Zedong, Xi Jinping’s global vision is unlike the revolution that Mao sought. On the contrary, it is rooted in a certain pragmatism. Xi has repeatedly talked about the need to adhere to the sovereign equality of states, pursue greater democracy in international relations, adhere to respect for diversity in international relations, resolve disputes peacefully, and oppose concepts like hegemonism and bloc mentality.

China’s actions, however, have often run contrary to the spirit of this rhetoric. This has been evident in the frothy waters of the South China Sea as it is along the treacherous terrain of the Line of Actual Control with India or even when it comes to the prickly issues of terrorism, trade and reform of global institutions. Even when it comes to the much-vaunted principle of sovereign equality, China’s actions in Ukraine fall short of its words.

Shaping New Norms

For all the high-sounding language, Beijing’s actions indicate that it views power as the fundamental currency in international relations. And the pathway to maximise its power is through dominating its periphery and leveraging partnerships to reform the institutional architecture of global governance to suit its interests.

In this quest, China has sought to expand its stake in the institutions under the UN framework. It has given new purpose to multilateral groupings that it dominates, such as the SCO and BRICS. And it has pursued the establishment of newer organisations, such as the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB) and now a potential SCO Development Bank. The US, on the other hand, is renegotiating old compacts with allies, and dithering on its stake in existing institutions. This is, in large part, a product of the ideological fissure that is at the heart of American politics today, along with a politics of grievance that has led to the demonisation of the very idea of globalisation. America needs to decide what it stands for and what it wants from the world.

Beijing, meanwhile, is continuing to challenge conventional notions of concepts like democracy and human rights. This effort is as much targeted at generating domestic legitimacy as it is at shifting the global normative paradigm. The Chinese argument is that these norms must account for civilisational and material diversities. To that extent, this is an argument against norm universality. But that does not necessarily make it an argument in favour of multipolarity. In essence, it is a call designed to rally others into its orbit, such that accommodation becomes an inevitable choice for the US. In such a world, multipolarity, therefore, is likely to emerge only to the extent to which the great powers compete along with the extent to which middle powers can take advantage of this competition while building capabilities to insulate themselves from either orbit.

The myths remind us that creation comes only by breaking what came before. The shifting balance of global power, the ideological churn of populism and nationalism around the world and the normative and institutional tug-of-war between the US and China reflect the collapse of one balance and the contested birth of another. Whether this destruction yields multipolarity or a new bipolarity is an open question. The answer to this will depend on the nature of struggle between great powers, and how others utilise the spaces that it opens for them.

This essay was first published in Outlook India

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Last week, I was in conversation with Shoma Choudhury on US-China competition and India’s evolving ties with both countries. It was an engaging discussion that touched on several key issues and helped me clarify my own thinking.

I hope you find it thought-provoking and worth your time.

Cheers,

Manoj

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The narrative from Beijing following the tariffs was one of the US policy being a strategic mistake and of Beijing being unwilling to back down in the face of bullying. This was typified in the invocation of Mao Zedong’s remarks by the spokesperson of China’s foreign ministry, stating that “we don’t back down.”

Likewise, Chinese media has been focused on projecting strength and resolve. Acknowledging the challenges that a trade war with the US will bring to China, in early April, the People’s Daily assured that while there will be a shock, the “sky will not fall.” Its argument resided on the claim that over the years, China’s dependence on the US market has been declining. “China’s exports to the US have dropped from 19.2% in 2018 to 14.7% in 2024. The decline in exports to the US will not have a subversive impact on the overall economy,” the paper said.

Another commentary earlier this week invoked the ancient Chinese myth of Nüwa mending the cracked sky to argue that while the US has delivered in “reckless tariff blows,” applied “extreme pressure”, and harbours “delusions of subduing China”, it is “in the face of crisis, the hero’s true character is fully revealed.” In other words, Beijing is projecting strength and resolve, along with signalling that its capacity and willingness to bear pain is far greater than that of the United States. In China, Trump’s 90-day reprieve to several countries and the subsequent announcement of exemptions for certain electronic and technology products have been perceived as a small climbdown by the US administration. Chinese officials are also likely keenly watching the American policy debate on bailing out farmers hit by the tariff war. At around $25 billion, China is the largest export destination for US agricultural products, accounting for nearly one-fifth of the total American agricultural exports.

At the same time, Beijing is also indicating that it is open to talks. Such dialogue, however, must be based on equal footing and process-based. While reports suggest that Trump is interested in direct dialogue with Xi Jinping, the Chinese preference is for appointed negotiators to flesh out the details that then allow for an outcome-based conversation between the leaders. Moreover, such dialogue need not simply be limited to trade issues, given that neither side seems to view the trade piece of their friction as distinct from broader Sino-US strategic competition.

In the meantime, the Chinese government has taken a myriad of retaliatory measures. It has hiked retaliatory tariffs against US imports to 125%. At those rates, Beijing argues that the competitiveness of US imports has already been eroded. Therefore, it no longer needs to engage in further hikes. Among other things, it has filed a suit under the WTO mechanism, placed American companies on China’s unreliable entities list and export control list, announced export control measures on certain items related to seven types of medium and heavy rare earths, and blocked purchases of Boeing jets.

These steps have been accompanied by an effort to build a diplomatic united front. Soon after the first announcement of tariffs, Commerce Minister Wang Wentao was working the lines, speaking to ministers from the EU, Malaysia, and Saudi Arabia, among others. In particular, China and the EU appear to be moving towards a formal negotiation process with regard to the vexed issue of Chinese EV subsidies. What’s on the table is likely the setting of a minimum price for Chinese-made EVs instead of tariffs imposed by the EU.

Xi Jinping, meanwhile, embarked on a three-nation tour of Vietnam, Malaysia and Cambodia to build common cause on maintaining smooth flow of industrial and supply chains. In his meetings, he has sought to project China as a defender of the international order and economic globalisation. Chinese diplomats and interlocutors have also been underscoring the self-serving and unstable nature of American policy under Trump to US allies and partners.

These efforts are critical from Beijing’s perspective, given the fear that Washington wants to use the tariff card with its partners to isolate China. However, Beijing’s biggest concern is fundamentally about the impact of US policy on China’s overall export sector and consequently employment. Last year, China’s exports accounted for 18.8% of the country’s GDP. Roughly 20 percent of the Chinese workforce—around 180 million people—is estimated to be engaged in export-oriented jobs. A significant loss of employment, particularly when the economy is already under significant strain, could result in social stability concerns. Consequently, Chinese leaders appear to be calling on foreign-trade enterprises to pivot towards international market diversification and domestic consumption. What tangible policy support will be provided to facilitate this, is still unclear.

Note: This piece was first published on MoneyControl on April 22, 2025.

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In China, it is Xi Jinping who has ushered in a new era. Writings in Chinese media often describe his leadership as the core as pivotal to navigate the profound changes unseen in a century that are taking place in the world. In India, Narendra Modi has dominated politics and the news cycle for over a decade. Vladimir Putin has steered Russia for 25 years, while in the US, Donald Trump serves today as a demagogue-in-chief. Each, at different times, has wrapped themselves in the mantle of destiny—whether invoking an omniscient cosmic force or the apparently immutable laws of historical materialism. In essence, the 19th-century Great Man Theory of History is back in vogue, accompanied by growing disdain for bureaucracy and institutional processes.

Yet this leader-centric view obscures the intricate machinery of political decision-making, especially in matters of war and peace. Leaders matter, but they are only as effective as the institutions they build and sustain. This argument lies at the heart of Tyler Jost’s insightful Bureaucracies at War: The Institutional Origins of Miscalculation. The book postulates an institutional design theory to understand how and why states miscalculate or succeed in their objectives when initiating or contending with a crisis. This theory is compared to alternate explanations such as the bureaucratic interest group theory, leader-based explanation, and accountability theory.

Jost contends that institutions are critical to understanding why some states are better positioned to manage uncertainty in international affairs than others. The argument is that bureaucracies within a state often operate as “islands of information” and these “gaps require bridges.” This is because access to quality information and competitive deliberations are what eventually yield the best national security outcomes. In making this case, he posits that “national security institutions help explain when and why states miscalculate on the road to war.” However, the choice of national security institutions entails a trade-off. Leaders “can design institutions that ensure they receive the best possible advice or they can design institutions that ensure the bureaucracy is powerless to threaten them” politically.

Jost defines national security institutions as follows:

“National security institutions refer to a comparatively stable and connected set of formal and informal rules that prescribe the roles that bureaucracies play, constrain their actions, and shape their expectations. Institutions do not refer to any single organization, such as a specific bureaucracy or advisory body, but rather the rules that govern how such organizations interact with the leader. If democratic and autocratic institutions are the rules shaping how political leaders are selected for office, national security institutions are the rules shaping how leaders manage the national security bureaucracy.”

The different types of institutions are then plotted on a framework taking into account leader information search capacity and bureaucratic access to information. The former ranges from inclusive to insular, the latter from open to closed. At their intersections emerge four distinct institutional options.

• Integrated Institutions: These are characterised by a combination of inclusive information and open bureaucratic access. They reduce risk of miscalculation through competitive dialogue. Integrated institutions hinge on the inclusion of diplomatic, defense, and intelligence bureaucracies in deliberations.

• Siloed Institutions: These entail inclusive structures in terms of the availability of information for a leader but limit the bureaucracy’s search capacity. In other words, key national security bureaucracies might have access to the leader but tend to operate in silos, hindering competitive dialogue and scrutiny. One key consequence of this is that “bureaucrats are more likely to provide leaders with information that reflects their parochial interests.”

• Fragmented Institutions: These engender systemic vertical and horizontal limitations. Jost argues that such institutions “introduce the possibility of functional failures in information exchange between the bureaucracy and the leader.” In other words, exclusion of certain bureaucracies could limit access to information that is essential to decision-making. The more pernicious effect of fragmented institutions, however, is that they “cause bureaucrats to censor their counsel and manipulate the information that they supply to match the leader’s beliefs. Fragmentation does not simply create barriers to information provision. It also shapes a bureaucrat’s understanding of types of behaviors that the leader deems appropriate and will therefore reward…”

• Dictatorial Institutions: These engender a mix of insularity and open bureaucratic access to information. Jost argues that dictatorial institutions tend to achieve outcomes “quite similar to fragmented institutions. Limited search capacity means that leaders should be more likely to miscalculate because they base their decisions on incomplete information. Yet dialogue and information sharing between bureaucracies should have comparatively little effect on the likelihood of miscalculation because higher quality information cannot reach the leader.”

The theory and the case studies that the book provides support the argument that integrated institutions are the most effective in avoiding miscalculation and achieving national security objectives.

Yet, leaders may not necessarily always opt for integrated institutions.

In order to understand why leaders chose a particular type of institution, Jost says that it is important to understand the incentives of political leaders. “Leaders make decisions that maximize the likelihood of remaining in office. Political survival is not determined solely by avoiding miscalculation in international crises. It is also determined by winning political debates about their performance in office,” he argues.

Two key factors are critical to the choice around integration: the political threat that bureaucrats pose and the focus of the leader’s agenda.

“When bureaucrats pose a limited threat to political survival, leaders can adopt integrated institutions regardless of what issues keep them in office. When the level of bureaucratic threat is high, however, how leaders respond depends on the issues that are most important to them. Leaders whose agendas prize domestic issues can choose fragmented institutions to neutralize the threat posed by national security bureaucrats, curbing both their access to the leader’s decision-making and to information in other bureaucratic silos. Leaders whose agenda is instead dominated by international issues choose the middle path of siloed institutions. They accept some political risk of censure via more competent and well-informed bureaucrats in order to get better advice, but restrict the amount of information which the bureaucracy might use to inflict political damage.”

The book tests the theory by leveraging the National Security Institutions Data Set. Subsequently, specific case studies are undertaken, discussing cases from China, India, the US and Pakistan. These are deeply researched and offer really engaging reads. They also allow for testing Jost’s theory across states with different governance systems and cultures, economic and administrative capacities and divergences in national power.

Two of these chapters cover China. The first one discusses China during the Mao years, with a specific focus on the 1962 war with India, the Nationalist Invasion Scare of 1962 and the 1969 Sino-Soviet Border Conflict. The second discusses Chinese decision-making during the war against Vietnam and the 2001 EP-3 incident. These offer detailed application of the institutional design theory across different periods and under different leaders.

Jost argues that in the early years of the PRC Mao Zedong opted for inclusive and open institutions “because the bureaucracy possessed minimal capability and intent to challenge his leadership.” These served China well, as the outcomes of the events of 1962 demonstrated. However, as the political landscape in China shifted heightening Mao’s perception of threat from the bureaucracy, he opted for fragmented institutions, which resulted in incomplete and biased information flow. Mao’s death did not alter this institutional structure, which Jost argues accounts for China’s failure in the 1979 conflict with Vietnam. In the decades that followed, he argues that Chinese leaders opted for siloed institutions, which have served them better comparatively, but still resulted in miscalculations in the specific incident, i.e., the EP-3 case, discussed.

The chapter on India was also particularly of interest to me. It charts India’s journey from a stage where it had fragmented institutions under a dominant leader to developing a siloed set-up before moving towards a more integrated institutional architecture. The role of bureaucratic threat perception from a leader’s perspective in a democracy is really well brought out in this chapter.

Finally, some of my takeaways from the book:

• I found the theory that Jost has articulated very compelling. I think the depth of research that he brings forth is truly remarkable. The theory does add a lot to current IR discourse around conflict decision-making, the interplay between leaders and bureaucracies and the importance of understanding how institutional design can impact information flow.

• The book also does a great job in juxtaposing the institutional design theory with other alternatives. It allows for a more nuanced understanding of the key arguments and makes the book that much more persuasive. Jost concludes that existing frameworks offer “an incomplete explanation of why states miscalculate and demonstrates that bureaucracy exerts more systematic and less deleterious effects on international politics than the conventional wisdom would suggest.”

• Third, information flows and incentives matter, and there can be substantive political costs for information search and access and providing and acquiring higher quality information. It is essential to take into account these incentives and costs for both leaders and bureaucrats when thinking about why states make certain decisions in the foreign policy or national security domain.

• Finally, for China analysts, it is important to delineate the changes in foreign and security policy institutional arrangement under Xi Jinping and gather data points about the nature and extent of integration that has taken place. In doing so, one must note that merely the presence of a bureaucracy, such as the Central National Security Commission, does not imply integration. Composition, leadership, diversity and weightage of different bureaucracies and regularity of meetings are important factors. Another point to consider is the threat-level that Xi perceives from the bureaucracy today. What metrics should one use to make this assessment of threat perception? If the book’s argument about the adoption of integrated institutions in the early years of the PRC under Mao are taken into account, then there is no reason why Xi cannot achieve greater integration. Once again, information about the composition of key bodies, meeting schedules and discussion agenda along with reportage on how Xi responds to ideational challenges or counter viewpoints is critical to make such assessments. This, however, is increasingly challenging given the opacity of China’s information ecosystem.

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This section is also a personal challenge and commitment. By curating and sharing my perspectives on books from various genres, I aim to push myself toward a more disciplined and diverse reading habit. Perhaps, it’s also a firewall against being numbed by the constant engagement with Chinese official discourse.

My immediate goal is to read and review two books a month. Over the years, I have found that writing detailed reviews allows me to retain the key insights. They also become useful when I’d want to refer to some specific aspects of the argument that someone has made in the past.

Finally, I would also like this is to become a collaborative space for conversations and ideas. So I welcome engagement, and if there is a book that you would like to recommend, please feel free to do so.

Cheers,

Manoj Kewalramani

Review of On Xi Jinping: How Xi's Marxist Nationalism is Shaping China and the World by Kevin Rudd

Over the past decade, policymakers, scholars, and analysts have been grappling with a particularly difficult puzzle amid China’s emergence as a global power. Could the trajectory of China’s rise have unfolded differently?

Were there alternate pathways that Xi Jinping could have taken to ensure that the country kept growing economically and accumulating international influence, while maintaining the Communist Party’s unrivalled control over political power and the military instrument? Furthermore, could such a path have minimised or even avoided the intensifying strategic competition with the United States—a competition that is likely to shape the future of the world order?

Addressing these questions require deep consideration of individual and systemic motivations, impulses and constraints. Are the sweeping changes in policies—from the centralisation of power, intensified Party-state intervention in the economy and society, and assertive foreign and security policies—the product of Xi’s ambition and ideological convictions? Or have they been a rational political response by a Leninist Party-state system to internal and external circumstances? This further leads to a deeper theoretical consideration: in a Leninist Party-state system, can one meaningfully distinguish between the leader and the structural logic of survival of the system? In other words, is Xi Jinping’s emergence as a dominant and transformative figure a product of his peculiarities or an inherent design flaw of the Marxist-Leninist Party-state system?

In his new book, On Xi Jinping How Xi's Marxist Nationalism is Shaping China and the World, Kevin Rudd essentially contends that it is the man that matters today. Rudd’s argument is that China under Xi has witnessed the “unalloyed rebirth” of the “ideological man.” Xi, as per Rudd, is a “convicted Marxist-Leninist”, who is driving China’s politics and policy towards what he envisions is the goal of national rejuvenation. Understanding his ideological positions and prescriptions for China are, therefore, essential.

Or as Rudd, rather helpfully summarises: “Xi’s ideological worldview offers us a unifying ‘red thread’, providing a useful, albeit incomplete, illumination of the unfolding contours of Xi’s plans for China and the world.” Essentially, he argues that in China today, ideology is “a real barometer of much deeper change.” That it “represents a new and significant driving force, which we ignore at our peril.” “Understanding Xi’s ideational world a useful guide to understanding the ‘real world’ of politics and public policy” within Zhongnanhai.

Another reason why understanding ideological shift matters is because in the Chinese system, ideological messaging “sets the parameters within which a more granular, internal political and policy discourse can proceed.”

The ideological framework that Rudd ascribes to Xi is one of ‘Marxist-Leninist Nationalism’. He argues that in his approach, Xi has moved China to a Marxist and Leninist left along with a Nationalistic right. In particular, he describes Xi Jinping Thought as follows:

“It does not offer an alternative epistemology or methodology to that of classical Marxism-Leninism as interpreted through Mao Zedong’s principal works on historical and dialectical materialism, contradiction, and practice. Indeed, Xi explicitly affirms these previous approaches but is critical of the party for not having rigorously applied classical Marxist methodologies to the contradictions confronting it under his immediate predecessors. As noted previously, where XJPT does differ significantly from the past is in its periodization of recent Chinese history, its redefinition of the party’s principal contradiction, and its articulation of the party’s more detailed policy challenges arising in this new era. Beyond these three major changes, however, XJPT does not offer the party a new, free-standing ideological system. Rather, XJPT is highly elastic, building on the ideological inheritance of Mao and Deng, albeit with a decidedly stronger preference for the methodological approach and many of the conceptual conclusions of the former. And, as with Mao Zedong Thought, XJPT can be moulded to meet the party’s future political needs by legitimizing actions that Xi may need to take in response to as-yet-unknown policy pressures in the years that lie ahead.”

At this point, it is useful to unpack some of the key concepts that help one understand the argument. The author does in the early chapters:

Key Concepts:

• Ideology: Rudd defines it as “a systematic body of ideas that provides an organization with a defined unity of purpose, giving rise to a program of action, irrespective of whether those actions arise as a direct or indirect consequence of that body of ideas.”

• Worldview: When exploring the concept of worldview, Rudd engages in a discussion on the distinction between pure and practical ideology. This is because “a world view may give the individual a certain outlook, but it does not indicate to him how he should act. Therefore, he distinguishes pure ideology from practical ideology. “Pure ideology is a set of ideas designed to give the individual a unified and conscious world view; practical ideology is a set of ideas designed to give the individual rational instruments for action…of practical ideology have no legitimation. But without practical ideology, an organization cannot transform its Weltanschauung into consistent action.”

In his analysis, Rudd eventually brings these two concepts together:

“China’s ideological worldview should therefore be defined as the CCP’s analytical methodology for understanding the world both at home and abroad and its conclusions about the changing nature of the world they face, including the range of strategic threats and opportunities they identify as a result of this analysis. It also includes their view on how the Chinese party and state should respond to these changing circumstances through political and policy action.”

Let’s now turn to some of the other concepts from the book.

• The Leninist Party: Rudd defines a Leninist party “as a political organization that applies the disciplines of historical and dialectical materialism, the theory of contradiction, and the targeting of political struggle, on the one hand, to the praxis of current, real-world circumstances, on the other. It therefore analyses where contradictions exist, whether they are major or minor, whether they are violent or non-violent, and what form of struggle is required in order to achieve resolution and progress. The Leninist party is also responsible for maintaining both ideological and organizational discipline within the party so that revolution at home and abroad can be achieved without internal political dissolution, or through deviation from the agreed ideological line. These form the core tenets of Chinese Leninism.”

• Left & Right in CCP Context: This is an important explanation. “In CCP history, ‘left’ and ‘right’ as political labels have been shaped around several recurring, core issues within the party’s debates over more than a century. Principal among these are: the scope of the dictatorship of the proletariat; the dangers of bourgeois liberalism and democracy; the primacy and permanency of class struggle; the centrality of the relations of production over the factors of production; the importance of equality and inequality; deep questions of the periodization of party history, including the primary stage of socialism; the socialist law of value; the socialist market economy; the relative roles of the party, the government, and the state; and the legitimacy of supporting world-wide revolution beyond China’s borders. In other words, the ideological epithets of ‘left’ and ‘right’ are therefore not simply hollow phrases designed for prosecutorial purposes and devoid of substantive meaning. Indeed, throughout party history, they have been both tools of intra-party politics as well as means of expressing real-world ideational, political, and policy divergence.”

• The Leninist Left in his view, encompasses “reasserting the leader’s power over the party’s collective leadership, redeploying a Mao-like party rectification movement to restore party discipline, and reinforcing the dominant role of the party over the professional technocratic machinery of the Chinese state.”

• The Marxist Left: Rudd also identifies 7 essential feature of Chinese Marxism. Key among these is that Chinese Marxism is fundamentally “materialist rather than idealist,” and that its “machinery of change” “is dialectical materialism, based on the concept of the unity of opposites, the inter-permeation of phenomena, and the theory of contradiction.” He defines the shift to Marxist Left essentially in the context of the economy. Rudd argues that Xi has done so by “asserting the primacy of state planning over market forces, the state-owned enterprise sector over private firms, and greater income equality over rampant inequality.”

• Nationalistic Right: This refers to the changes in Chinese foreign and security policy. This, he argues, is reflected in increasing, top-down, nationalist campaigns about Chinese civilisational centrality, an enhanced grievance culture about the West’s past occupation and continued containment of China, the prospect now for the ‘great rejuvenation of the Chinese nation’, articulated by a new ‘wolf warrior’ diplomacy legitimizing a more assertive and aggressive posture towards the world, all harnessed by a new, ideological assertion that China’s time has now come with ‘the rise of the East, and the decline of the West’.”

  Importantly, Rudd contends that “Xi’s nationalism is sui generis—it differs significantly from the forms of defensive nationalism often found in the Deng-Jiang-Hu era, but neither is it a simple reprise of Mao-type revolutionary nationalism. Although the nationalist component of Xi’s overall ideological worldview is clearly driven by a number of revisionist ambitions from ‘the right’, there is also evidence of a number of residual Marxist-Leninist concepts. These are further reinforced by certain classical Chinese ideations of the ‘Middle Kingdom’, all combined in an eclectic vision of a form of future Chinese-led international order. In other words, Chinese nationalism under Xi is emerging as a composite of three inter-connected traditions. It evidences: a nationalist-revisionist core; a Marxist, historically determinist rationale concerning the inevitable collapse of the international capitalist order led by the United States; while also wrapping itself in the classical garmentry of universal Confucian values, Tianxia, and other forms of more ancient Sino-centrism.”

Next, I’d like to highlight two key arguments from the book, which I found deeply thought-provoking.

The Primary Stage of Socialism

One of the most intriguing arguments in the book deals with changes in China’s economic policy under Xi. Rudd argues that Xi believes that “the analytical paradigm of dialectical (and historical) materialism was important for China’s ‘strategic thinking’ across the board.” In other words, it is an essential tool to analyse and respond to the changes in China’s internal and external environments.

In discussing China’s shifting policies, Rudd explains that it is not his view that Marxist-Leninist ideology or the instrument of dialectical materialism did not matter during the Deng-Jiang-Hu era. He says that it mattered “in terms of the party’s ongoing claims to national political legitimacy in the eyes of its membership and the people” and “it mattered as a central medium for both internal party discourse and as a guide to substantive policy action by the Chinese state.” The key difference, however, was that Deng, Jiang, and Hu “remained ideologically disciplined in their respective levels of policy activism” for a variety of reasons. This is not the case with Xi, who is the first leader since Mao “to deliver speeches explicitly dedicated to Marxist analytical methodology.”

Xi’s policy activism is primary due to his assessment of the changes in China’s domestic and external contradictions. In addition, something about the 2015-16 stock market crash also seemed to leave a deep impact on Xi.

From the perspective of the economy, Rudd explains that the change in the understanding of China’s principal contradiction at the 19th Party Congress in 2017 was incredibly important. He argues that Xi seems to have assessed that although China continues to remain in the primary stage of socialism, the progress made since the era of Reform and Opening up has brought it to towards latter phase of this stage.

Discussing the concept of periodising development into different stages of socialism, Rudd explains:

“The underlying ideological logic of this official periodization of China’s development trajectory is that it determined the level of class inequality to be tolerated at each stage in order to raise the people’s overall living standards. But, in Xi’s logic, the ideological purpose of generating greater wealth was not to permit higher levels of inequality forever; it was to accelerate the overall economic development process towards higher levels of socialism. In the primary stage of socialism, higher levels of class inequality have been permitted in order to generate more rapid economic growth. However, as the party moved towards more advanced levels of socialism, that inequality must be moderated before being eliminated altogether under communism.”

This requires purposeful action to correct the imbalances that decades of pro-market policies had generated. Xi’s answer to this challenge is the New Development Concept, which Rudd says “represents his overarching ideological alternative to Deng’s concept of ‘reform and opening’.” He adds: “It is designed for the ‘new era’ that had been heralded by the ‘higher phase’ of the primary stage of socialism that Xi believed China had now reached, as the country proceeded along its pre-ordained path—one that had been determined long ago by the ineluctable forces of historical materialism.” Interestingly, examining Xi’s speeches, Rudd concludes that Xi seems to be suggesting that the “mid-century goal (2049 goal of modernisation) as the official benchmark for formally ending the primary stage of socialism”.

It is within this context that Rudd also characterises Xi’s drive for common prosperity, which the Chinese leader has classified as an essential aspect of Chinese-style modernisation. A direct consequence of this assessment is intensified intervention in the markets and the need to constrain and direct the growth of the private sector and wealth creation.

Foreign Policy & World Order

Rudd is rather clear-eyed in his assessment of Xi’s global ambitions. Examining Xi’s speeches, he concludes that the Chinese leader views foreign policy and the shape of the international order within the context of his broader goal of national rejuvenation. In this context, he views competition with the US as an inevitable contest between national systems. He also appears to believe that in this regard, China’s Party-state system enjoys superiority. This not only has implications for domestic policy and bilateral relationships with other countries but also for the future of the world order.

Rudd argues:

“Xi Jinping is signalling loudly and clearly through his expanding nationalist narrative that the time has come to take active measures to change the international status quo in a direction that is more compatible with Chinese national interests, values, and power. This includes consciously and actively reshaping the international rules-based order. It also means resolving outstanding challenges to China’s perception of its territorial integrity.” He further writes that in Xi’s view, going forward, “China’s growing national power would be the fulcrum of the emerging international system; it would not be an international structure still underpinned by historical American power—or by some loose, power-sharing arrangement with others.”

Rudd argues that Xi’s vision for the world order is that “China should lead the building of this order, and that it should draw on its own reservoir of national wisdom in doing so.” This vision for order is encapsulated in the concept of the community of common destiny for mankind.

“These propositions”, Rudd writes, “represent a major departure from Deng’s underlying argument that Beijing should work within the framework and structures of the existing international order as a continued precondition for maximizing China’s national economic development.” From Rudd’s perspective, this is a product of a sense of new nationalism but also the outcome of Xi’s assessment of the state of the world through the methodology of dialectical and historical materialism. He adds:

“the central ideological construct of ‘struggle’ unifies both Xi’s domestic and international missions. Xi also refers to Marxist understandings of the ‘underlying trends’ that warrant this new exercise in international institutional reform or ‘struggle’, as an old, American-led order passes away and a new Chinese-led order comes into being.”

My Takeaways:

On Xi Jinping is a truly compelling read. Rudd has waded through vast amounts of Xi Jinping’s writings, official discourse and scholarly work distilling important insights for analysts and policymakers around the world.

Indeed, we are in an era where tracking ideological discourse is critical to understand the long-term, strategic policy trends. However, ideological clarity from Xi Jinping does not necessarily imply rigidity in policymaking. In fact, at different points in the book, Rudd argues that Xi himself does not view Marxism as a rigid, dogmatic ideology. Furthermore, towards the latter part of the book, Rudd delves into Xi’s discourse on strategy and tactics.

Xi has argued that “strategy and tactics are powerful weapons for our party to lead the people to transform the world, change practice, and promote historical development. The correct application of strategy and tactics is the secret of our party’s success in creating a glorious history…To promote Chinese-style modernization, we must pass on, apply, and develop this successful secret well.”

The secret essentially implies persisting with strategic objectives while maintaining tactical flexibility because the “environmental conditions for implementing the strategy change at any time”. Of course, this proposition does not take into account the elephant in the room, i.e., there can always be a moment when tactical changes acquire critical mass thereby having a strategic effect.

Anyway, while I am not going to detail it, Rudd’s eventual prognosis for China and the world is not terribly optimistic. He believes that Xi is set to hold the reigns of power for the foreseeable future. This, in turn, will continue to yield tumult and turbulence at home and abroad.

Beyond this, as an analyst studying Chinese politics and policy-making and as someone who reads an unhealthy amount of official discourse, there are five practical lessons that I would like to draw from the book.

1. First, while official language and discourse is often dull, repetitive and exhausting, it is important to go slow and take your time with it. Often the difference lies small changes in language or the use of certain adjectives and adverbs. These can be significant. Analysts tend to be most acutely aware of these changes when examining language related to monetary or fiscal policy, but even on ideological issues, it is important to not glaze over such changes.

2. Second, ideological framing of policy shifts might take place after the fact but that does not render ideological discourse meaningless. It is still critical to continue deciphering the ideological casting of real-world policy changes because it sets the parameters for and can circumscribe the scope of action. More importantly, it sets the terms of debate for the future. This is because demonstrating ideological continuity even when breaking from the past is critical to the party’s legitimacy. Therefore, understanding the codes of communication within the Marxist-Leninist system is critical for any analyst of China.

3. Third, when engaging with the system’s codes of communication, it is important to unpack how certain terms are understood within the Marxist ideological worldview. For instance, what does Xi mean when uses terms like modernisation, democratisation or common prosperity? What are the constituents of national rejuvenation, and what is its linkage with an emerging trend of global interventionism by China? This underscores the importance of work like The Decoding China Dictionary that the good folks at MERICS have put together.

4. Fourth, analysing the use of banner terms is important. I have often been guilty of underplaying some of this in my assessments. For instance, I have seldom put as much stock in counting the number of references to terms like security or development in key speeches. But, after reading Rudd’s book, I think it is worthwhile to take this into account far more than I have, particularly through the use of historical comparisons. In other words, changes in the number of times a concept is mentioned by Xi in comparison to his predecessors is useful. Likewise, increased references to a certain concept in speeches at recurring forums or changing prioritisation of tasks compared to the past can be useful markers of shifting objectives. It doesn’t tell the whole story, but it is an important data point.

5. Finally, everything has a purpose, and timing matters. This is perhaps one of the most significant analytical tools that I draw from Rudd’s work. Editorial decisions taken by the Chinese media and theory ecosystem are not ad hoc, driven by market demands or conventional metrics of newsworthiness of a development. These are purposeful choices to communicate primarily to a domestic and, more narrowly, a party audience. It is, therefore, important to understand the timing and context within which a certain speech delivered or made public through Qiushi months or even years after it was delivered. Understanding the thought-process behind such communication and how it intervenes in or shapes ongoing debate on an issue is essential. One must also view this from the perspective of different stakeholders, i.e., officials, bureaucracies, cadres and private sector actors.

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