The Hindu Business Line : <I>Chennai Centre for China Studies </I>

Almost every university in the US has a Centre for China Studies. That country has also dozens of other institutions established by various groups of scholars and academics for the same purpose. The reason is obvious: China has already acquired the status of a counterpoise to the US and, probably, the only possible global power capable of challenging its hegemony in the near future. China has come to have a hypnotic hold over other countries too, in view of its economic performance, its Defence and military capabilities, the rapid advances it is making in science and technology as well as in research and development, and its determined diplomatic offensives in Africa, Central Asian States and elsewhere.

The number of China-centric think-tanks may not be that large in Europe, the UK and Japan, but their contribution to the corpus of knowledge on China is still considerable.

In India, the Institute of Chinese Studies, located in the Centre for the Study of Developing Societies, the China Centre of the Institute of Asian Studies Institute set up by the Observer Research Foundation, the Centre for East Asian Studies under the auspices of the Jawaharlal Nehru University, and the South Asia Analysis Group are notable for keeping interest alive in this field with seminars and publications.

Their first drawback is that they are Delhi-based. This is not something special to centres devoted to studies on China: Other types of scholarly and academic pursuits too have tended to gravitate to Delhi, bypassing other parts of India, especially the South.

The institutes undertaking China studies in India are also small in number, their activities being largely confined to circles close and familiar to them in and around the nation's Capital. This has had the effect of lessening their impact on intellectuals and opinion-makers in the rest of the country and their ability to press into service the immense talents and expertise available outside of Delhi and adjoining States.

To an extent, thereby, their capacity to generate awareness in, and disseminate information and knowledge on, events and issues pertaining to India-China relations as also China per se in the whole of India, has been compromised.

Welcome initiative

In this background, one cannot but welcome the recent initiative to establish a Centre for China Studies in Chennai. It is the brainchild of Mr D. S. Rajan, formerly a Director in the Cabinet Secretariat, a specialist on China with command of the Chinese and Japanese languages, who has served in Beijing, Tokyo and Hong Kong and watched and written about developments in China and South-East Asian countries for more than three decades.

Since renowned academics and eminent former policy-makers in government are associated with the move, it starts with the advantage of being able to draw on their experience of handling national and international political, economic and security issues.

If the Chennai Centre has to carve out a niche for itself in a context in which there is no dearth of papers produced and seminars and conferences held round the world on every conceivable aspect bearing on China, it will have to stand out with a distinctive appeal of its own in terms of quality, depth of scholarship, credibility, authenticity and its penchant for original and even audacious thinking.

It should boldly go into India-China relations, particularly with reference to China's role in the nuclear build-up of Pakistan, the continuing border dispute and `hot spots' such as Tibet and Taiwan, and come up with workable solutions. It could also provide pointers to the future evolution of Chinese polity and the way it could affect the emergence of a stable and peaceable world order.

B. S. RAGHAVAN