Vision 2020 or re-vision 1958: the contradictory politics of counter-insurgency in India's regional engagement
Insurgency in Northeast India has long been explained as an outcome of poverty and isolation that in turn produces further poverty and militancy. In order to break this cycle and achieve ‘peace and prosperity’, the Indian Government released North Eastern Region Vision 2020 in July 2008 – a comprehensive policy agenda to achieve ‘peace and prosperity’ in the Northeast. This is to be realised through deeper economic and political engagement with neighbouring countries and a ‘paradigm shift in development strategy’ that will be simultaneously more participatory and more infrastructure intensive. This paper argues that in practice the political manifestations of increased regional engagement are contradictory. Each measure designed to break the region's isolation is countered by measures to maintain control of borders, trade, and the movement of people. At the heart of this new development vision is a re-visioning of counter-insurgency underpinned by the Armed Forces Special Powers Act (1958). Far from signalling a new era in the region, the measures contained in this new development vision appear more likely to exacerbate the grievances of people in the region and reinforce the ways the region has been governed through five decades of counter-insurgency.
Comparing China and India’s Disputed Borderland Regions: Xinjiang, Tibet, Kashmir, and the Indian Northeast
The paper tries to make an assessment of the borderland regions of China and India with a focus on Xinjiang, Tibet, Kashmir and the Indian Northeast. The paper looks at the conflict in India and China's periphery, how these conflicts have evolved with time and how they have changed their character with the passage of time, from the 1950s until the present day. After looking at some background, the paper primarily focusses on three key issues which impact on all four of the conflicts: the rise of ethnic nationalism, the impact of external forces on the conflict and the human rights situation. After making an assessment of the political situation, the paper looks at the areas of similarity and differences between the four regions. Methodologically, a bottom-up approach was taken and in-depth unstructured interviews were carried out with people from the conflict zones that the paper considers.
The Internet and the Changing Beijing-Taipei Relations: Toward Unification or Fragmentation?
Information and its technologies facilitate the exercise of what has been called “soft power,” a concept that differentiates information from the conventional dimensions of “hard power,” which is mainly associated with military force and economic influence. Soft power, according to Nye, a former Assistant Secretary of Defense of the United States, means that “A country may obtain the outcomes it wants in world politics because other countries want to follow it, admiring its values, emulating its example, aspiring to its level of prosperity and openness. In this sense it is just as important to set the agenda in world politics and attract others as it is to force them to change through the threat or use of military or economic weapons.”1