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India, China and Japan

From New Statesman, a special report on the factors behind the miraculous success that is India, including a review of In Spite of the Gods: The Strange Rise of Modern India by Edward Luce, Planet India: How the Fastest-Growing Democracy is Transforming India and the World by Mira Kamdar, Holy Warriors: A Journey Into the Heart of Indian Fundamentalism by Edna Fernandes, The Clash Within: Democracy, Religious Violence and India’s Future by Martha Nussbaum, and India After Gandhi: the History of the World’s Largest Democracy by Ramachandra Guha. From The New Yorker, Pankaj Mishra on the legacy of Indian partition. Shashi Tharoor on an adventure called India: The reason India has survived all the stresses and strains that have beset it for 60 years is that it maintained consensus on how to manage without consensus. From Raj to riches: as India celebrates 60 years of independence, William Dalrymple salutes a country returning to its pre-colonial wealth.

America, India and the China bogey: The rise of China is no reason to trample on the non-proliferation regime. The People's Liberation Army is investing heavily to give China the military muscle to match its economic power. But can it begin to rival America? An interview with Susan Shirk, author of China: Fragile Superpower. A review of The Long March by Sun Shuyun. From Foreign Policy, in Beijing, some call her the “scum of the Earth” for her outspoken advocacy of Taiwanese independence. Her supporters call her Taiwan’s Nelson Mandela, because of her years as a political prisoner when Taiwan was ruled by the Kuomintang party. Either way, Taiwan’s vice president, Annette Lu, tends to make headlines with blunt talk; and with the world focused on Iraq, the standoff in the Taiwan Strait grows more explosive every day. Would the United States really go to war to protect Taiwan from China? 

A presidential victory would be the climax of Park Geun-hye’s lifetime in politics in South Korea. From Japan Focus, Japan as a Nuclear State: An excerpt from Client State: Japan in the American Embrace by Gavan McCormack. A review of Japan Rising: The Resurgence of Japanese Power and Purpose by Kenneth B. Pyle. Here are 5 myths about the Japan that can say no. Despite a law promising equal opportunity, women in Japan have had trouble reaching positions of authority. Another history controversy is roiling Japan, or at least Okinawa. Should textbooks clearly state that the Imperial Japanese Army ordered the island's civilians to commit suicide rather than surrender to the Americans?