America’s decision of changing the venue of joint military maneuver with South Korea in Japan Sea last month in the face of Chinese pressure indicates the limit of balance-of-power dynamics practiced so far by the US and China. Does the reversal of an earlier plan of conducting joint military exercise in the Yellow Sea mark the decline of US dominance and permanency of Chinese strong hold in the region? Patterns of interaction between America and China are fabulously multidimensional and symbiotic.

Knowledge plays a vital role in nation building and in controlling of society. From the last decade of nineteenth century to the May Fourth period, Chinese intellectuals of different backgrounds – reformists, revolutionaries, pragmatist thinkers, anarchists, and would-be communists engaged themselves in a debate to decide upon the suitable knowledge for nation building in China. They borrowed from both the Western as well as Chinese tradition for rescuing their country from the imperialist forces and making it a rich and militarily powerful nation (富国强兵).

Amidst the doom and gloom generated by an Indian foreign policy, which has for the last several years been marked by lack of vision and by pusillanimity in dealings with USA, Pakistan and China, there are two areas in which there are grounds for cheer notably in our relations with Bangladesh and Myanmar.