Contending Nationalisms: China and India March into the Twenty-First Century

Abstract

In recent years, China and India have come to be considered rising great powers by many analysts and scholars around the globe. Although the future course of relations between these two rising states could evolve along a number of paths, their shared history of troubled relations and current tensions suggest that their bilateral relations will be increasingly adversarial. In particular, both states are home to powerful nationalist movements with expansive worldviews. As India and China continue their rise to global imminence, these nationalist forces have the power to put the two states on a collision course. In this article, the author evaluates the history and contemporary power of nationalism in each nation today, analyzing in particular Indian nationalist attitudes toward China and Chinese nationalist perceptions of India.