The primary aim of this volume, titled, Waiting Games: The Politics of Patience in Indo-Pacific Strategy , has been to break out from the mainstream preoccupation with geopolitical contestations defining Sino-Indian relations in order to examine their interactions from a holistic perspective to gauge their future trajectories in the making and their impact on regional and future orders. In the Indo-Pacific theatre, patience becomes a strategic instrument, signalling commitment while preserving leverage as allies test timelines and rivals recalibrate red lines.

The Introductory chapter, followed by twelve chapters, accordingly, move from broader and generic to specific issues and interactions, which are organised in three sections. The first section, themed ‘Conceptualisation’, has three chapters, the second, themed around ‘Regional Borders’, includes six chapters, and the last section, with the theme of ‘Bilateral Interactions’, has three chapters examining critical relationships. Collectively, they seek to provide an alternate perspective on how continuing Indic and Sinic cosmologies influence their contemporary relations.