Great Game East: India, China, and the Struggle for Asia's Most Volatile Frontier

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Yale University Press, Apr 1, 2015 - History - 376 pages
Since the 1950s, China and India have been locked in a monumental battle for geopolitical supremacy. Chinese interest in the ethnic insurgencies in northeastern India, the still unresolved issue of the McMahon Line, the border established by the British imperial government, and competition for strategic access to the Indian Ocean have given rise to tense gamesmanship, political intrigue, and rivalry between the two Asian giants. Former Far Eastern Economic Review correspondent Bertil Lintner has drawn from his extensive personal interviews with insurgency leaders and civilians in remote tribal areas in northeastern India, newly declassified intelligence reports, and his many years of firsthand experience in Asia to chronicle this ongoing struggle. His history of the “Great Game East” is the first significant account of a regional conflict which has led to open warfare on several occasions, most notably the Sino-India border war of 1962, and will have a major impact on global affairs in the decades ahead.
 

Contents

Introduction
1
War and Spookery in the Himalayas
13
The Nagas Challenging the Idea of India
40
The Mizos From Famine to Statehood
80
Manipur The Eternal Imbroglio
109
Assam and Bangladesh Foreigners? What Foreigners?
144
Burma A State of Revolt
171
The Indian Ocean A Tale of Two Islands
204
Chronology of Events
241
Major Armed NonState Actors in Northeastern India the Chittagong Hill Tracts and Northern Burma
255
Rebel Missions to China
262
The Chittagong Arms Haul
268
Notes
271
Annotated Bibliography
298
Acknowledgments
320
Index
323

Postscript
233

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About the author (2015)

Bertil Lintner has written for numerous publications including Foreign Policy, Foreign Affairs, the Asia Times Online, the Wall Street Journal, the International Herald Tribune, and Politico. He lives in Chiang Ma

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