Abstract: Chapter 5 presents an untold tale of an older brother and his younger sister. While their mother was the protagonist in Wolf’s classic ethnography, "A Thrice-told-Tale," the story of these children was obscured. Childhood sibling relation in “the Chinese family” was rarely studied by anthropologists, yet it is an important relation that shapes children’s moral development and family dynamics. I present systematic patterns of this sibling dyad’s social network positioning, uncover their distinct personalities, and trace their nuanced dynamics of care, rivalry and coalitional maneuvers. I closely examine projective tests data to reveal children's own emotional experience in and perspectives about their family life. This chapter is a unique narrative: in addition to illuminating childhood sibling relation, it simultaneously rediscovers the voices of these two children from ethnographic omissions and silences. Therefore, this case study echoes the dual themes of the entire book, children learning morality and anthropologists reconstructing an ethnography.

Most US lawsuits involving Chinese companies are initiated by or against their customers, employees, or business counterparts. However, on occasion, Chinese investors may go to court against a US government entity to resolve a dispute. As US–China relations continue to deteriorate, Chinese companies are increasingly caught in the crossfire of the geopolitical rivalry. Being suspected as agents for the Chinese state, China-headquartered multinational companies, especially those with ties to the Chinese government, have expressed growing frustration over what they perceive as unfair treatment by the US government. This chapter examines the legal reactions of Chinese companies to perceived official bias in the United States in the context of intensifying geopolitical tensions.

Enslaved people commonly claimed they sought to protect the aged from the excesses of their abusers, and were raised to respect their elders. Most scholarship on the topic reinforces this position, with an emphasis on support based on shared oppression and as a form of collective cultural resistance. This chapter, however, considers the consequences when enslaved people appropriated, internalized, or simply shared a belief that old age equated with diminished value and declining powers in work. Respect predicated on agedness was not always meant seriously nor received positively, and the transition to elder could be taken instead as an enforced relegation from the people one had once imagined as peers. The aged party sometimes resented and even resisted the imposition of such a label and its associated narrative, with such tension reflecting broader complexities surrounding age as a chronological, functional, and relational category and identity. People seen as elderly, but who struggled with this categorization of themselves, were forced to make choices – to accept, adapt, or to resist – and this could come at no little cost.

China’s rise has precipitated a crisis within the multilateral trading system.W hile frequently attributed to China’s model of state-sponsored capitalism, this chapter shows why that framing of the problem is misleading.T he primary complaints that the US and others have about China’s trade policy are not, in fact, unique to China, but common features of the developmental state.I nstead, I argue, the more fundamental challenge to the trade regime arises from the China paradox – the fact that China is both a major economic heavyweight and a developing country.C onflict over how China should be classified and treated under global trade rules has paralyzed global trade governance and led to a breakdown in rule-making.I n addition, China’s rise has sharply constrained the US’s “institutional power” – its power over the institutions and rules governing trade – leading to an erosion of American support for the multilateral trading system it once created and led.

In his work of 1844, Marx claims that human beings realize their nature through the joint activity of labor in a true communist society. In A Theory of Justice, Rawls calls the joint maintenance of a just society “the preeminent form of human flourishing. He says that “persons best express their nature” by maintaining just institutions. For both writers, what makes these joint activities central to the human good is the relationships they maintain among individuals who do not know of one another’s existence, relationships among distant unknowns. A necessary condition for these relationships to obtain is, in each case, a particular social ethos. If a standard left-wing critique of the market is cogent, and if the well-ordered society of Theory involves a widespread market, then the several elements in the desired social ethos of justice as fairness might be in tension with one another, might not be capable of being satisfied simultaneously. Rawls’s desired relationships might not obtain.

The 1962 Sino-Indian War was not just a border war over disputed territory (or the outcome of the Sino-Indian spatial rivalry alone) as is generally argued because issues related to their positional rivalry were also at stake. Sino-Indian positional rivalry in the Himalayan states and in Burma was linked with the Tibetan issue, and Tibet itself was at the nexus of Sino-Indian spatial and positional rivalries. Furthermore, the 1962 Sino-Indian War proceeded as wars between positional rivals tend to: with the near multilateralization of the war as India sought help from the United States (and that it was favorably considered). While China’s unilateral ceasefire that was accepted by India precluded overt American participation, India’s massive defeat also had positional consequences as it removed India as a contender for Asian leadership. Although this did not result in Chinese leadership in Asia, China continued to remain more important than India to the wider Asian strategic dynamic in the decades after 1962.

Given China and India’s claims to Asian leadership, the positional dimension of the Sino-Indian rivalry was central to their relationship in the 1940s and the 1950s. This positional contest played out in three venues: (i) in various Asian multilateral fora (such as the 1947 Asian Relations Conference and the 1955 Bandung Conference) and in India’s attempts to mediate in conflicts involving China and other players; (ii) in the Himalayan states (Nepal, Bhutan, and Sikkim) and in Southeast Asia; and (iii) in Tibet. The Tibet issue was particularly fraught with strategic consequences. As China sought India’s help to consolidate its own rule in Tibet, it gave India an exalted but much-resented position in China’s internal affairs (pertaining to Tibet). Matters related to Tibet also entangled the positional and spatial dimensions of the Sino-Indian rivalry because the territories in dispute between China and India had complex historical links with Tibet.

The simultaneous rise of China and India is exacerbating their strategic rivalry. The aim of this book is threefold. First, we describe and analyze the Sino-Indian strategic rivalry and its implications for rivalry escalation. We also pay attention to the spatial and positional contests that characterize their rivalry. Second, we examine how their material and cognitive asymmetries are shaping their conflict behavior. Third, we show that the Sino-Indian rivalry is consequential for the regional order in Asia and for the global order.

This chapter demonstrates how the genesis, growth, and evolution of the Sino-Pakistani nexus has impinged on India’s security interests since the early 1960s. Since then, the Sino-Pakistani strategic partnership has steadily deepened. By the late 1980s, for all practical purposes, Pakistan had emerged as a strategic surrogate for the Peoples Republic of China (PRC) in South Asia. Given the PRC’s reliance on Pakistan to pursue its security interests in South Asia and Pakistan’s goal of balancing against India, the relationship is likely to persist in the foreseeable future.

Multiple asymmetries characterize the Sino-Indian rivalry. India’s slow and fitful (absolute) rise over the past three decades has happened in the context of relative decline vis-à-vis China because the latter has grown faster and more comprehensively. Despite this asymmetry, newer functional areas – economics, nuclear, and naval – have appeared in this contest. These areas are riddled with domain-specific asymmetries and domain-specific pathways to conflict escalation. While there is no reason to believe that war is inevitable, the Sino-Indian relationship has entered a troubled phase because further asymmetry as well as strategies to address these asymmetries are both conflict-prone. There are three specific pathways (which are not mutually exclusive) that cut across these different domains and point towards heightened conflict: any Chinese attempt to create a new status quo reflective of the power gap in its favor; any Indian endeavor to redress this power gap in order to be taken more seriously by China; and the United States’ promotion of the rise of India.

The China–India rivalry could be the key to global stability in the coming decades even though this may not be apparent at first. In Asia, the hotspots of Korea, Taiwan, the East China Sea, and the South China Sea tend to receive more attention, while the China–India militarized disputes are perceived as the backwaters of the regional theater. However, a Sino-Indian confrontation – whether on land in the Himalayas or in maritime realm in the Indian Ocean – may very well be the trigger that leads to a systemic war involving the United States. The China–India rivalry for power and influence at the regional level in Asia is in the process of fusing with the US–China rivalry in Asia and consequently at the global level. Given that the Sino-Indian spatial contest has intensified in recent years, the probability of escalation in the Himalayas is a distinct possibility. In fact, the presence of the more consequential positional dimension of the Sino-Indian rivalry suggests that there would still be a strong Sino-Indian rivalry even if the spatial dimension were to disappear. The Sino-Indian rivalry is now a part of the larger mosaic of regional and global power competition.

The way in which major power wars have escalated into general or systemic wars is less straightforward than one might think. They start for various reasons and then become something else when other major powers join the fray and turn them into systemic wars. The initial grievances in these systemic wars may seem like acorns that become mighty trees. How, for example, does a bungled assassination of an Austrian archduke or even an attack on Poland mushroom into war on multiple continents? One answer is in the ways rivalries are linked. While it is true that the specifics of each systemic war have unique components, there are also some general features as well. One is that decision-makers do not tend to see general wars coming. They make decisions based on short-term considerations without necessarily seeing the big picture. That bigger picture includes linked or fused rivalries that blow up relatively local concerns into global wars. This chapter uses the Seven Years and Crimean Wars as examples. Rivalries like the Sino-Indian rivalry can be conduits to widening the local concerns that have the capability to become transformed into something far greater and more damaging.

Since the 1962 war, in which India suffered a disastrous defeat, a series of crises have punctuated Sino-Indian relations. The most serious of these probably took place in 1967 and in 2020. Both of these crises led to actual clashes between the Indian Army and the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) exacting material and human costs on both sides. Within the past decade, the PLA has made several limited probes along the Sino-Indian border, largely to test Indian resolve. These actions are unlikely to end, especially as the PLA has improved its infrastructure along the disputed border and is also bolstering its military capabilities. Consequently, there is every likelihood that further crises are likely to ensue.

There are disagreements about when the Sino-Indian rivalry began, what it is about, what its potential for escalation might be, and how significant the rivalry might be for the course of world politics. It is argued that this rivalry began with the advent of Indian independence, given that the earliest time point at which a rivalry between two states can commence is when both states are independent. There is not surprisingly a great deal of emphasis on disputes along the Tibetan border. They are not insignificant, but they may prove to be the least important part of the Sino-Indian rivalry. The positional contest between the two Asian giants seems more central to the rivalry overall. We think the rivalry has considerable potential for escalation – perhaps even more than the Sino-American rivalry does. If that is indeed the case, the rivalry may hold one of the most critical keys to world peace and stability. It is not something that can be dismissed as a minor tempest in a frozen region.

This chapter looks at the two men, T. V. Soong and H. H. Kung, who dominated financial positions from 1928 until the collapse of the Nationalist regime on the mainland. Both had personal ties to Chiang through his wife Madame Chiang Kai-shek (Song Mei-ling). A bitter rivalry developed between them that impacted the entire coterie of financial and banking officials. On a related issue, it examines the prevalence of American education among financial officials and its impact on ties to America, particularly in the Soong family. This chapter uses the papers of Lauchlin Currie, a key aide to Roosevelt, who made several trips to China on his behalf. The chapter closes with an examination of the way in which the two men have been portrayed in writings about the Chiang Kai-shek era, suggesting some reevaluation is needed.

This chapter examines the scandal associated with the American Dollar Bond issue and the resignation of H. H. Kung

An abiding concern throughout Molière’s works, masculinity is a more multivalent, complex and nuanced phenomenon than one might expect. Focussing primarily on various external signifiers coded as masculine – particularly elements of appearance and dress such as swords, hairstyles, and beards – this chapter outlines the various forms that seventeenth-century masculinity can take when it intersects with other variables of age, social class, biological sex and so forth. For example, while the barbons of the older generation regard their beards as an unassailable symbol of male authority, they are troubled by their younger blondin rivals, whose gallantry and blond wigs strike them as effeminate. An even more affected mode of masculinity can be found in the bodily stylisations and verbal uncouthness of the aristocratic petits marquis. As this chapter demonstrates, masculinity in Molière emerges as something largely performed or asserted in relation to others – through domination of women or competition with other men (in duels, warfare or seduction). Such issues are starkly flagged up when cross-dressing or cross-casting are involved: in many of Molière’s plays, women’s success at passing as men, and men’s failure to pass as women, can often demonstrate the fragility of both social gender roles and men’s authority.

Over human evolutionary history, women have benefited from competing with same-sex mating rivals to acquire and retain desired mates. Winning a rivalry may lead to direct advantages, such as securing an attractive, healthy mate who has the ability and willingness to invest in a relationship, as well as possessing important resources that may help sustain future children. Simultaneously, such competition is associated with potential costs, such as jeopardizing alliances, being victimized within social networks, becoming the target of malicious gossip, or, in the case of a loss, wasting one’s time and effort that could have been allocated elsewhere. Here I first present the evolutionary framework that underpins women’s intrasexual mating competition, and then review the existing literature on the specific ways that this competition is manifested. Attention is especially paid to competition via physical attractiveness, namely women’s efforts to improve or enhance their attractiveness, given men’s universal tendency to prefer attractive mates. I focus on how this competition typically utilizes indirect aggression tactics and relies on women behaving in a strategic manner that depends on the local environment, such as the number of available mates, the mate value of potential rivals, and concerns about maintaining one’s reputation.

The Sultanate drew upon concepts of martial skill, valor and aggression attributed to the Mongol Imperium and its unprecedented conquests. While idealizing these traits, Mamluk Sultans exploited them to thwart Mongol expansion into their territories. They welcomed renegades from Mongol armies (Wafidiyya) to mimic their prowess while limiting their aggression. Mamluk cadets were imported initially from the Qipjaq Steppe in Central Asia, subsequently from Circassia in the Caucasus, with numerous other regions represented. They were instructed in Arabic, Turkish and Islam prior to being trained in arms. The Mamluk military hierarchy consisted of elite Mamluks imported as cadets in the Sultan’s service, Mamluks of senior officers, soldiers of former rulers restive over their loss of status, and descendants of 1st-generation Mamluks who served as infantry and assimilated into Arabic civil society (awlad al-nas). Advancement through the military hierarchy was marked by endemic factional rivalry in which conspiracy was expected not repudiated. Whether conspiracy enhanced the Sultanate’s military prowess or destabilized its governance remains a debated issue.

The incursions of external competitors provides a further essential element in the definition of sovereign space. How the state’s boundaries were regarded spatially shifted in relation to the modes of their contestation: Perceptions of a state’s boundaries and territorializations were distinct depending on the apprehended cultural, and thus spatial, commensurability of the competitor, a distinction that is rendered visible in the noticeable shift in attention toward non-peer neighbors from the Warring States period to the Han dynasty. The spatial disposition (xing) of peer entities was distinguishable by a comparably ritualized adminstrative state structure. This influenced both the “paring off” of territory (xuedi) and on diplomatic treatment. The early Chinese state disparaged areas outside of its spatio-cultural purview as the “wilds,” but, in keeping with the zonal conception of space, the distinction between internal and external was gradual. The possibility of a ritualized fraternity impacted the character of a rivalry, and the spatial commensurability of rival polities. Because borders were fungible, crossing them was not itself a transgression; sovereignty was not equatable with a military line. Invasion (qin) was the penetration of a ritually sanctified space without permission.