New Delhi: The book ‘Smokeless War: China’s Quest for Geopolitical Dominance’ offers a gripping account of how China, one of the top global powers at present, sought to convert a potentially existential crisis into a historic opportunity.
Written by China expert Manoj Kewalramani, the book is a deep-dive into the country’s response to the pandemic and the diplomatic challenges that followed.
Published by Bloomsbury, it will be released online on 3 July on SoftCover, ThePrint’s e-venue to launch select non-fiction books.
The release comes around the same time the Chinese Communist Party (CPC) will be celebrating 100 years of its existence.
Kewalramani’s book draws on the latest academic research and Chinese language sources. It explores how China, under the CPC, has made efforts to achieve greater discourse power and political primacy amid the pandemic.
Kewalramani is among the foremost Indian analysts studying Chinese politics, foreign policy and approaches to new technologies. He heads the China Studies Programme and is the Chairperson of the Indo-Pacific Research Center at think tank Takshashila Institution.
Kewalramani’s work has been featured in publications like The Indian Express, Al Jazeera, Hindustan Times, Japan Times and The Diplomat. Previously, he spent over a decade working as a journalist in India and China, where he helped set up digital newsrooms and train journalists.
China’s political, diplomatic responses during pandemic
In January 2020, the pandemic in China was viewed as an unpredictable event and a threat to the Communist Party’s rule. However, the country later appeared to have controlled the virus, while the rest of the world struggled to contain it.
As country after country imposed lockdowns and the human cost began to rise, geopolitical frictions flared up over the origins of Covid-19, along with Beijing’s early failures, diplomacy and discourse. The book delves into China’s political, diplomatic and narrative responses to these challenges.
China has so far recorded over 91,000 coronavirus cases and 4,636 deaths. Earlier this week, reports emerged that the country is planning to extend its pandemic border restrictions for at least another year in a bid to keep the new variants of the coronavirus out of the nation.
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