China in South Asia: Three Things I Learned From Our Project

We still know too little about China’s rising influence in South Asia: beyond Beijing’s push factor, there are also important pull factors at play from countries in the region.

Jabin Jacob and I recently released the second edited report of our China in South Asia project at CSEP. How China Engages South Asia: In the Open and Behind the Scenes (2025) features twelve case studies of Chinese influence in the region, from Afghanistan to Myanmar and from Nepal to Sri Lanka. Sectors examined include civil society and culture, economy and governance, conflict mediation, defence and security, and influence operations. This is the follow up to our 2023 report How China Engages South Asia: Themes, Partners and Tools.

This report is the most recent outcome of a multi-year research project that we jointly directed together with support from Shivshankar Menon, Shruti Jargad and – most importantly – over twenty regional experts who offer an in-depth perspective on the instruments and partners that China engages in and around the Indian subcontinent.

There are many important reasons to invest in a more granular understanding of how China operates in South Asia. For some, especially in India, the relevance will be to better deter or counter China and preserve New Delhi’s predominance. Others will be concerned about the authoritarian nature of the Chinese party-state and its impact on South Asia’s democratic and pluralist regimes, especially on policy-making accountability and transparency.

But in our introduction to the report, Jabin Jacob and I also refer to other, equally important reasons. For example, we argue that “there is also much to learn from Chinese diplomatic practices and outreach regarding effective engagement strategies.” China’s rise in the region in recent years has been formidable, as an economic actor (major trade partner and source of investments), as well as a security and political actor that is engaging different public and private actors, from political parties to the military, civil society and sub-national units.

All this is not something that can be achieved merely through the power of capital and coercion: Beijing wields several softer instruments of statecraft and diplomatic approaches that hold important lessons for India and other major powers. In what follows here, I share three broad learnings from my collaborative work on this project over the past three years.

Beijing wields several softer instruments of statecraft and diplomatic approaches that hold important lessons for India and other major powers

First, I noticed a significant knowledge gap about China across the region. There are still far too few scholars who specialise on China and even fewer have experience in China or the required language expertise to access primary materials and conduct interviews with Chinese government or company officials. The number of South Asian students going to China has risen fast in recent years – and in some cases (such as Bangladesh) that flow is now larger than those choosing India for higher education. It will take some time for this outflow to translate into a return “brain gain” in the form of cutting-edge research on China. But there are already positive indications, including the Araniko Project led by two of our contributors from Nepal.

The same holds true for the broader policy ecosystem, whether bureaucracy or industry: they are engaging in more frequent interactions with their Chinese counterparts, but that has not yet led to a critical mass of former technocrats or corporate leaders who are experts on China. There is a lag effect: China is engaging fast and deep with countries in the region but – unlike in other regions such as Southeast Asia or Europe – overall China literacy here remains limited. This knowledge gap naturally brings risks. As Jabin and I emphasise in the report’s introduction, “at the very least, the lack of such understanding—of China’s priorities and primary interests—will constrain countries engaged in negotiations with the Chinese from achieving better terms.”

There is a lag effect: China is engaging fast and deep with countries in the region but – unlike in other regions such as Southeast Asia or Europe – overall China literacy here remains limited.

One final note: India is not necessarily ahead of the Sinology curve when compared to its neighbour countries. The gap has been articulated repeatedly by Jabin Jacob, Madhavi Thampi, Arunabh Ghosh, and Tansen Sen, who have mapped the field of China studies in India and beckoned for more support. As Shruti Jargad and I argue in a forthcoming CSEP working paper that unpacks Chinese official discourse on the region: “Governments, particularly that of India, should increase investment in China studies programmes at universities, think tanks, and diplomatic training institutions. Strengthening policy-oriented research will ensure better decision-making and more accurate assessments of China’s regional role.”

I have interacted with several researchers who consider writing assessments about China in their respective countries to constitute a risky or “sensitive” task – except, of course, if it is to laud the BRI and portray the “middle kingdom” in a positive light.

My second, related learning from this project is that there are still significant concerns for scholars in the non-India neighbourhood to write about China. I have interacted with several researchers who consider writing assessments about China in their respective countries to constitute a risky or “sensitive” task – except, of course, if it is to laud the BRI and portray the “middle kingdom” in a positive light. One gets the same feeling during conferences and workshops I attend in Kathmandu, Dhaka, or Colombo: here, speakers frequently and comfortably criticize India or “the West” but when it comes to discussing the less rosy effect of Beijing’s political interference or governance conditionalities, the room often goes eerily silent.

The sad result of this is a balkanization of the research ecosystem across the region, as different groups of think tanks and scholars align with different geopolitical camps and funding sources. The effect is that critical, independent and evidence-based work suffers: with reference to China, this also leads to a subcontinental partition between two extremes; on the one hand, those who demonise China (the predominant tone in India) and, on the other hand, those who glorify China (the predominant tone in other countries).

Congrats and kudos to the 20+ scholars from across this region who agreed to contribute with empirically rich and well researched articles that compose our two CSEP reports. They understood and trusted our project’s objective: evidence-based, judgement-free case studies on China’s influence in different domains across the subcontinent. They offer a unique, local perspective that should inform future research and policymaking.

we sometimes overrate China’s influence because in several instances it is less about the push factor (from Beijing) and more about the pull factor (from South Asian countries).

My third and final learning: we sometimes overrate China’s influence because in several instances it is less about the push factor (from Beijing) and more about the pull factor (from South Asian countries). In one example, of what Shivshankar Menon calls “anticipatory compliance,” political leaders across the region take actions in expectation of – or hoping to curry favour with – China. They also do so as an attempt to increase bargaining power over India. Finally, they may also signal proximity to (and initiatives with) China to expand their political support base at home, especially during electoral periods or when recently voted into power.

Ironically, this is not always in Beijing’s interest. But it is a good example of smaller states’ geopolitical agency which transcends the India-China dimension and often also involves a third country or block (the US, Europe, Japan, Australia). Leaders are learning to play the different sides of this strategic triangle: through such dynamic balancing they seek to maximise their time in power and their country’s interests across economic, security and other indicators. So even if Beijing is presently not interested to cooperate or fails to reciprocate, from their perspective, the mere attempt to engage offers dividends: in game theory parlance, this is China’s shadow of the future across the subcontinent today.

As Nicolas Blarel and I show in this article on “reinventing non-alignment” with case studies on Nepal and the Maldives, South Asian countries have had different levels of success in achieving this. This depends on varying levels of state capacity (including leadership acumen and bureaucratic expertise) and on degrees of electoral instability and consequent incentives to politicise foreign policy.

Our China in South Asia project is continuous work in progress and relies on a growing regional research collaborative. Through workshops, we had the opportunity to also develop a comparative dimension with some of the world’s top Sinologists who work on China’s influence in other regions, including Southeast Asia, Europe, and Africa. Two areas interest me, in particular: 1) China’s legal influence in shaping governance through standards and regulations; and 2) China’s military diplomacy, with a focus on operational doctrines, training and new domains of warfare (for example: cyber). I look forward to more learnings!