Security Perception and China-India Relations

Li Li

As China and India are rising simultaneously, the implications of their relations have far gone beyond the bilateral level. The past few years have especially witnessed a worldwide increasing interest in this relationship, and heated debates have developed over such issues as follows: Has there been any substantial change in the China-India relations since the end of the Cold War? If there has, what is the driving force behind it? And what will characterize this relationship in the future: rivalry, alliance or cooperation? It is exactly these questions that Security Perception and China-India Relations attempts to address.

In this book, Li Li, a Chinese scholar, starts her study on China-India relations with a new approach. By introducing Constructivism, a mainstream school of IR theory that emphasizes the role of ideas in international politics, Li Li examines how a changed security perception on both sides has led to the easing of tensions and a remarkable improvement in the bilateral ties of China and India after the thirty years of a “cold” relationship.

With the help of a vast body of literature, including important government sources as well as secondary ones, Li Li explains how security perceptions of China and India have respectively transformed the Cold War mindset to the new security perspective built on comprehensive national strength and cooperative security, and explores the concept's influence on their mutual policies. On basis of her analysis, Li Li also predicts the way in which China and India could ensure their simultaneous rise in the coming years and decades.

Li Li Li Li is an assistant research fellow at China Institute of Contemporary International Relations (CICIR), Beijing, China. Since August 2004, under the supervision of Dr. Alka Acharya, she had been doing her research on China-India relations as a Ph.D. candidate at Centre for East Asian Studies, School of International Studies, Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi, India. In January 2008, she was awarded a doctorate degree in international relations by JNU. She got both her bachelor's (1991) and master's (2001) degrees in international politics from Institute of International Relations, Beijing.
Before coming to India, she had been working with CICIR since 1991. She had specialized in Middle East studies most of the time. Between 2002 and 2003, she shifted to Division of American Studies of the same institute. She has written extensively on Middle East politics, the peace process, and US relations with the Islamic world. She is the co-editor of Alabo xinsheng dai zhengzhi jia (New Generation Arab Leaders) (Beijing: Shishi chubanshe, 2004), and is the author of several papers and articles, both in Chinese and in English. During her stay in India, Li Li also became a guest faculty member and taught the Chinese language at School of Language, Literature and Culture Studies and School of International Studies of JNU.