Political memoirs or, worse, philosophical treatises by political leaders, are often books best avoided. Yet Anwar Ibrahim’s recent Rethinking Ourselves is nonetheless one the most erudite collection of essays out in this or any recent year.
International relations
Today’s international system is made up of states: Territorial entities with defined borders, with exclusive control within those borders, diplomatic recognition by other states outside of them and usually (though not always) tied to some idea of the “nation”. But how many states have existed throughout history, such as during the 19th century? Some early counts put the number at just a few dozen—a measure that international relations professors Charles R. Butcher and Ryan D Griffiths thought was far too low, missing polities throughout the non-Western world.
The marketing blurb for Amitav Acharya’s most recent book From Southeast Asia to Indo-Pacific begins, rather portentiously, “Southeast Asia was created by geopolitics, and it might die with it.” The book itself, thank goodness, is a considerably more measured (and clearly-written) overview of how Southeast Asia and ASEAN came to be more or less synonymous and how the region, as a region, might fare in the newly-turbulent world of the second quarter of the 21st century.
That Before Colonization can be read in several ways is to its favour, but also makes it hard to review. It takes aim at the way international relations (referred to by the field’s formal initials IR) has tended to go about its business; it is also a refreshingly straightforward discussion of, as in the subtitle, “Non-Western States and Systems in the Nineteenth Century”, which includes clear explanations of theory as well as numerous interesting examples. But, most interestingly perhaps, authors Charles R Butcher and Ryan D Griffiths also treat their data statistically, implying that IR could do with some additional empirical rigor.
China and India have had a tense relationship, disagreeing over territory, support for each other’s rivals, and even, at times, leadership of the “Global South.” But there were periods where things seemed a bit rosier. For about a decade, between 1988 and 1998, relations between India and China thawed—and prompted heady predictions of an Asian century.
Despite the title of India and China At Odds in the Asian Century: A Diplomatic and Strategic History, Vappala Balachandran’s new book mostly discusses internal Indian politics. Other than the first two chapters and the book’s conclusion which deal with the diplomatic and strategic history of Sino-Indian relations, the bulk of Balachandran’s observations are devoted to the “competing visions” of India represented by the conservative Hindu nationalist/populist Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) political movement that supports current Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), and the Indian National Congress (INC) or Congress Party that ruled India for decades after independence.
Kishore Mahbubani, longtime Singaporean diplomat and academic, opens his new memoir with a provocative line: “Blame it on the damn British.” Kishore, who later served as Singapore’s ambassador to the UN and founding dean of the Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy, was born to poor migrants in Singapore, studied philosophy on a government scholarship—and from there, somehow got roped into the foreign service.
Pakistan’s history since independence is… complicated. Partition wrecked the economy, leaving all the economic infrastructure in India. Democracy was weak, as the military launched multiple coups to overthrow the civilian government. The country was split into an unsustainable two halves—with one declaring independence as Bangladesh by the 70s.
After student protests toppled Bangladesh prime minister Sheikh Hasina last year, New Delhi and Dhaka have been at odds. Indian politicians complain about Hindus being mistreated in the Muslim-majority country; Bangladesh’s interim government fears that Hasina may launch a bid to return to power from India.
At a time when much of what passes for international commentary has the depth and nuance of a tweet, Geoff Raby’s Great Game On is something of a relief. The former Australian Ambassador to China keeps his politics largely to himself, but doesn’t have much time for mainstream Western (read “American” for the most part) views, which he finds simplistic.
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