Publishing:

Hurst / Melville House
|
2015

The China-Pakistan Axis

Asia’s New Geopolitics

The China-Pakistan axis plays a central role in Asia’s geopolitics, from India’s rise to the prospects for a post-American Afghanistan, from the threat of nuclear terrorism to the continent’s new map of mines, ports and pipelines. China is Pakistan’s great economic hope and its most trusted military partner. Pakistan lies at the heart of China’s geostrategic ambitions, from its take-off as a global naval power to its grand plans for a new silk road connecting the energy fields of the Middle East and the markets of Europe to the mega-cities of East Asia. Yet Pakistan is also the battleground for China’s encounters with Islamic militancy, the country more than any other where China’s rise has turned it into a target.

For decades, each side has been the other’s only „all-weather friend“, but the relationship is still little understood. The wildest claims about it are widely believed, while many of its most dramatic developments remain closely-guarded secrets. This book explains the ramifications of Sino-Pakistani ties for the West, for India, for Afghanistan, and for Asia as a whole. It tells the stories behind some of the relationship’s most sensitive aspects, including Beijing’s support for Pakistan’s nuclear program, China’s dealings with the Taliban, and the Chinese military’s planning for crises in Pakistan. From China’s involvement in South Asia’s wars to the Obama administration’s efforts to secure Chinese cooperation in stabilizing the region, it traces the dilemmas Beijing increasingly faces between pursuing its strategic rivalry with India and the United States, and the imperative to address a terrorist threat that has become one of the gravest dangers to China’s internal stability.

NEW PAPERBACK EDITION OF THE CHINA PAKISTAN AXIS
March 19, 2020

Buy the book

UK Edition 2020

Hardback Paperback: Hurst
Hardback Paperback & Kindle: Amazon.co.uk

U.S. Edition 2020

Hardback Paperback: Oxford University Press
Hardback & Kindle: Amazon.com

Indian Edition

Hardback & Kindle: Amazon.in
Paperback South Asian Edition: Amazon.inFlipkart

Pakistan Edition

Paperback South Asian Edition: Liberty Books | Saeed Book Bank 

Also available at other brick and mortar bookshops with good taste.

Book Reviews

Anatol Lieven | New York Review of Books
Review roundtable in NBR’s Asia Policy: essays by Dan Markey, Andrew Scobell, John Garver, Meena Singh Roy, Feroz Hassan Khan, and author response ‘an excellent book.’
Economist
‘An impressive account of a little-understood friendship…Six years of research have enabled Mr Small to produce a detailed account of decades of close dealings between the two countries. In that time he won the confidence of many sources in the Chinese army, military intelligence and the security services. Their officials are as tight-lipped as the Pakistanis are garrulous. Yet he managed to loosen them up’  
Shivshankar Menon, former Indian National Security Advisor | the Wire
‚This is the best account of what is probably the most special and purely strategic relationship in the world. Indeed, this is a book I would recommend to anyone interested in India’s foreign policy and future‘ 
Ashley Tellis | International Affairs
‘the felicity of his writing and the wealth of detail summoned in the book [make] this work indispensable even for scholars who otherwise follow south Asian security issues closely … Small brings to bear not only copious research but analytic subtlety that makes this book both a joy to read and a veritable „keeper“’
Andrew Nathan | Foreign Affairs
‘exceptionally well-informed and insightful’ 
Bruce Riedel | Lawfare / Brookings
‘An authoritative study of [this] pivotal entente … the book is a wealth of data on a previously under-researched subject … The region’s dual axes and their evolving relationships — India and America on the one hand, and Pakistan and China on the other — will be central to the global order in our times.’
Teresita Schaffer | Survival
“Valuable and perceptive … Small’s book is a welcome addition, the more so because it is both short and highly readable‘
Jacob Steiner | Dawn
‘A benchmark against which the often speculative writing on these two countries can be measured…not just an impressive scholarly effort with a trove of references but a diverting read’  
Edward Friedman | China Quarterly
‚Andrew Small’s compelling study is far more than the best up-to-date book on an important topic…this important study is solidly built on pioneering research and path-breaking interviewing all over the region.‘
A. G. Noorani | Frontline
‘It is a work of stupendous research, rich in fresh insights. Extremely well-written.’ 
Nayan Chanda |Times of India
‘A ground-breaking book… [Small] has had remarkable access to political, military and intelligence officials in both countries.’ 
John Garver | the China Journal
‘An insightful, soundly-argued, and well-researched analysis…the role of nonstate terrorist actors is also a major focus of Small’s excellent book’
Rana Mitter | Prospect Magazine
‘This fascinating book disentangles the relationship between one of the oddest couples in geopolitics: an unpredictable Islamic republic and a communist state that has turned to a mixture of consumerism and authoritarianism.’
F.S. Aijazuddin | Political Quarterly
‚Andrew Small’s timely and brilliantly researched book provides his readership with the perfect means to keep pace with a rapidly changing China and a dyslexic Pakistan … The China-Pakistan Axis: Asia’s New Geopolitics is akin to a Chinese ball puzzle – meticulously crafted, breathtaking in its detail, and articulated so that its seven chapters can rotate independently of each other‘
Kerry Brown | Asian Review of Books
‘This is an excellent, succinct book, and written with great verve. It is based, as the many pages of notes and references testify, on many hundreds of hours of interviews with key people throughout the region.’
Sherry Rehman | former Pakistani Ambassador to the United States
‘The hottest new read in Islamabad.’
Mark Leonard | Director of the European Council on Foreign Relations and author of What Does China Think?
‘This unique and timely work provides fresh insights into one of the most important and most neglected new developments in world affairs — China’s turn to south and west Asia. As the U.S. pivots toward (East) Asia, Andrew Small shows us how China is moving beyond traditional concepts of Asia.’ — Barnett Rubin, Senior Fellow and Director at the Center on International Cooperation, New York University ‘Andrew Small’s remarkable book paints a vivid picture of twenty-first century geopolitics by uncovering one of the most important and under-explored relationships. A gripping narrative of how China’s rise meets nukes, terrorists and the Taliban.’ 
Daniel Twining | Foreign Policy
‘Andrew Small spent years not only interviewing in foreign ministry reception rooms in Beijing and Islamabad but trundling around back streets in places like Kashgar and Gilgit-Baltistan, bearded and dressed like a local, to understand the nature of one of the world’s most important and least understood alliances. Promises profound insights into the two countries that (outside the Middle East) dominate American anxieties about future security challenges.’ 
New Statesman 
‘Fascinating book…Small’s book is gripping because he has traveled back and forth to both countries and built up lines with spies, diplomats and soldiers to uncover a secretive and poorly understood relationship.’ 
Christophe Jaffrelot | Research Director at CNRS, Sciences Po and author of The Pakistan Paradox: Instability and Resilience
‘The China-Pakistan Axis explores one of the most resilient and paradoxical bilateral relations of the post colonial era — a superb illustration of the manner in which international relations can be determined by power considerations. Pakistan and China have been “all weather friends” for more than fifty years in spite of their ideological differences. Andrew Small shows that their rapprochement resulted mostly from a real politik assessment of their common enemy, India, but that non material variables are back in the picture today because of the islamist connection in the case of the Uighurs, for example. The strength of Small’s work lies in its analysis of the fascinating scope and trajectory of the Beijing–Islamabad relationship.’
Shashank Joshi | The Interpreter
‘outstanding new book… Small pulls [the history] together deftly and with meticulous sourcing. But he supplements it with extensive interviews, and these paint a richer picture of Chinese foreign policy in motion.’ 
Myra MacDonald | War on the Rocks
‘It should be compulsory reading for anyone too carried away by the euphoria of warming U.S.-India ties and tempted to believe China can be nudged out of the picture.’
Sushant Singh | Indian Express
‘Interspersed with interesting anecdotes, Andrew Small’s thoroughly researched book provides fresh insights and places into geopolitical context, this axis between China and Pakistan which affects India the most.’ 
Alessandro Rippa | China US Focus
‘Small’s new book… is particularly significant as it relies on years of research and interactions with officials on both sides of the border, not to mention sound historical research.’ 
Varun Ramachandra | Business Standard
‚Laced with juicy anecdotes…chapters dedicated to the Chinese war on terror, the Sino-Pakistan nuclear collaboration and the grand economic projects between the two sides are the highlights of the work‘