India and the English-Speaking World

07/18/17 • 24 min

In recent years, the English-speaking world has become wildly enthusiastic about India. India is a trusted ally, ‘the world’s largest democracy’, and it’s the ‘democratic counterweight’ to China.

Despite these pronouncements, India has continually defied and confounded the expectations of the English-speaking world. Dr Alexander Davis, (New Generation Network research fellow with La Trobe University Department of Politics and Philosophy and the Australia India Institute) speaks to Matt Smith about the English-speaking world's 'India problem'.

Follow Alex Davis on Twitter: @AlexEDavisNGN
Follow La Trobe Asia on Twitter: @latrobeasia

Follow Alex Davis on Twitter: @AlexEDavisNGN
Follow La Trobe Asia on Twitter: @latrobeasia

Previous Episode

The Great Wall of China

The Great Wall has long been a symbol of China, but a problematic one - an authentic experience can be hard to find, and in the modern day China wants to be seen as open and inviting, but a wall closes off, and keeps people out.

Associate Professor James Leibold (Department of Politics and Philosophy, La Trobe University) and Dr Graeme Smith (Research Fellow at the Australian National University) take Matt Smith on a tour of the Great Wall of China.

Next Episode

Asia's Reckoning

For more than half a century, American power in the Pacific has successfully kept the peace. But it has also cemented the tensions in the toxic rivalry between China and Japan, consumed with endless history wars and entrenched political dynasties.

Now, the combination of these forces with Donald Trump's unpredictable impulses and disdain for America's old alliances threatens to upend the region, and accelerate the unravelling of the postwar order. If the United States helped lay the postwar foundations for modern Asia, now the anchor of the global economy, that structure is now crumbling.

This seminar examines the tectonic shifts in diplomacy, domestic political trends, and the personalities driving them.

Richard McGregor is a journalist and an author with extensive experience in reporting from East Asia and Washington. He worked for The Australian in Tokyo and Hong Kong and established the paper's first China bureau in Beijing in 1997. He later headed the Financial Times bureaux in Shanghai, Beijing and Washington. He is the author of The Party, looking at political leadership in China, and a forthcoming book, Asia's Reckoning: China, Japan, the US and the Struggle for Global Power will be published in September 2017.

A La Trobe Asia seminar recorded on 1st August, 2017.