India’s Foreign Policy and Economic Challenges: Friends, Enemies and Controversies

This book provides a state-of-the-art analysis of India’s foreign and security policies, examining e.g. the country’s security, economic and trade ties and interactions with Pakistan, China, the United States, Japan, the Middle East and ASEAN. Furthermore, the contributors provide the reader with an overview and analysis of the quality and challenges of India’s regional and global trade and investment policies. While in the past India has been a reluctant and not particularly prominent foreign and security policy actor in East and Southeast Asia as well as globally, China’s resurgence and its assertive and increasingly aggressive regional security policies have led India’s policymakers to reconsider the country’s decades-old non-alignment policies and opt for expanding security and defence ties with the United States, Japan and others. The Indian-Chinese border clashes in 2020 and China’s unlawful occupation of disputed territories along the Indian-Chinese border in the Himalayas have convinced Delhi’s policymakers and the country’s security and defence elites that India is well advised to join and contribute to US-led China containment policies. The expansion of India’s security and defence ties with Japan over recent years in particular will continue to be instrumental to keeping Beijing’s territorial expansionism in Southeast and South Asia in check.

This volume analyses India’s involvement and engagement in regional and global trade and investment structures and flows in great detail. Written by a team of prolific European and Indian scholars, the book will be of interest to researchers in the fields of international relations and security studies, as well as policymakers at governmental or international organizations.

Axel Berkofsky is Associate Professor at the University of Pavia, Italy and Co-Director of the Asia Centre at ISPI. Axel Berkofsky is also Executive Committee Board Member at the Stockholm-based European Japan Advanced Research Network (EJARN) and Research Affiliate at the European Institute of Japanese Studies at the Stockholm School of Economics. Previously, Dr. Berkofsky was Senior Policy Analyst and Associate Policy Analyst at the Brussels-based European Policy Centre (EPC), Research Fellow at the Brussels-based European Institute for Asian Studies (EIAS). Axel Berkofsky has published numerous papers, articles and essays in journals, newspapers and magazines and has lectured and taught at numerous think tanks, research institutes and universities in Europe and Asia. His research interests are amongst others Japanese and Chinese foreign and security policies, Chinese history, Asian security and EU-Asia relations.

Silvio Beretta is Professor Emeritus at the Department of Political and Social Sciences at the University of Pavia (Italy) and currently lecturer of international economic cooperation and development policies at the same department. Silvio Beretta is also former Dean and Director of the Department of Economics, Statistics and Law. He is member of the Istituto Lombardo-Accademia di Scienze e Lettere as well as Foreign Research Fellow at the Center of European Studies at the City University of New York and Honorary Member at the Academy for the Humanities and Sciences at the same university. Silvio Beretta is scientific director of the journal “Il Politico” and has extensively published on international and European economics, on decision-making processes of Italy’s economic policies, the territorial structure of financial systems and the history of economic policy and comparative economic systems.

Giuseppe Iannini is Professor (Ret.) of Monetary Economics and Economic Policy in the Department of Political and Social Sciences at the University of Pavia, Italy. Professor Iannini has worked on, among other subjects, banking and financial systems in emerging economies, in particular China and Russia. He has published a number of articles and books on banking and financial systems and has organized conferences and research projects in partnership with business and business associations. In addition to his academic and research activities, he has held courses at the Istituto per gli Studi di Politica Internazionale (ISPI) in Milan and has taught on master courses organized by the Italian–Russian Chamber of Commerce in Milan. Professor Iannini has led several scientific projects at the Center for Asia-African Studies at the University of Pavia and has on various occasions collaborated with the Italian economic and financial newspaper Il Sole 24 Ore on issues concerning the role of emerging countries in the context of financial global imbalances.