It Is Not Decided Yet: The Scripts of China's and India's Rise Are Still Being Written

The rise and fall of great powers has long preoccupied scholars of international relations. This moment in international politics is also rife with the possibility of a power transition as the United States starts to look inward and China asserts its power across the globe. As a result, debates around the concepts of "rising powers," "emerging powers," and "major powers" have attained a new policy relevance as well.

Manjari Chatterjee Miller has waded into this discussion with a fascinating new book that details an interesting argument about why some rising powers, like China, become great powers while others, like India, do not. In her assessment, while material capabilities are important, equally significant are the ways in which different states think about their own role in world politics. Miller compares the national narratives of rising powers and makes such narratives integral to the assessment of state power. Why some countries actively rise while others remain reticent is thus a function of "particular type of narratives, narratives about how to become a great power according to the prevalent norms" (p. 11).

What is just as interesting and important is Miller's focus on the process of rising to emerge as a great power, and she underscores the differences among rising powers by going beyond standard material arguments. So, "if a country seeks to increase its relative material power without attempting either to acquire global authority or to court both external and internal recognition of itself as a great power in the making, it is unlikely to become a great power" (p. 10). Such powers, which Miller terms "reticent," lack narratives about their roles on the global stage. This results in their not acquiring global authority, thereby hindering their rise to the status of a great power. Rising powers that adopt and debate great-power ideas of the day emerge as great powers, while those who are not able to do this remain forever rising. Miller examines this argument using six cases: three active rising powers (the nineteenth-century United States, Meiji Japan, and post–Cold War China) and three reticent powers (the nineteenth-century Netherlands, Cold War Japan, and post–Cold War India).

With this book, Miller has brought together the material and ideational determinants of great-power politics like few others have managed, and has provided us with a new lens to examine shifts in global politics. Miller's argument once again underlines that ideas matter in shaping the trajectory of international relations, and as great-power politics return with a vengeance, it is important to be aware of how some rising powers will continue to have a disproportionate influence in shaping global outcomes. Not all rising powers are equal, and what makes some more important than others is what Miller explicates in her wide-ranging analysis.

In this context, the cases on China and India present an interesting contrast. Miller is right that Chinese foreign policy changed dramatically in the 1990s as China began to integrate itself much more robustly into global multilateral frameworks. This attempt by China to enmesh itself in global trade, diplomatic, and security regimes is an important marker in her argument, as "great power by the late twentieth century meant the exercise of power through multilateralism and international institutions" (p. 108). As China tried to set the global agenda through extant and new institutions, its narratives about its own role in global politics evolved. This included presenting itself as a stabilizing influence in the global order as well as promoting and strategically using regional and multilateral frameworks to burnish its credentials as a "responsible global stakeholder."

In contrast, Miller suggests that while India had the potential to emerge as a great power in the post–Cold War world, the country remained a reticent power, not seizing upon the opportunities that presented themselves. India's narratives remained similar to the ideas it propounded during the Cold War. In particular, Miller argues that India remained reluctant to embrace multilateralism the way China did, and thus did not reach out to other nations that...