The Centre for Social and Economic Progress hosted the seminar titled “China In South Asia: Impact and Implications” on Tuesday, August 5, 2025. 

Constantino Xavier, Senior Fellow, CSEP presented the key findings of the new CSEP report ‘How China Engages South Asia: In the Open and Behind the Scenes‘, followed by a panel discussion featuring Lailufar Yasmin, Professor, Dhaka University, George I.H. Cooke, Executive Director, Regional Centre for Strategic Studies, Sri Lanka and Jabin T. Jacob, Associate Professor, Shiv Nadar University and Non-Resident Fellow, CSEP. The session was moderated by Shruti Jargad, Research Analyst, CSEP.

About the event

The range and intensity of China’s presence in South Asia has increased since the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) was launched in 2013. From Afghanistan to Bangladesh and Myanmar and from Nepal to Sri Lanka and the Maldives, China has become a key trading partner and investor, as well as a provider of military supplies. Yet, beyond these visible sectors, China is also quietly shaping regulatory standards, education, media, and political contexts. This is of particular relevance to policymakers in governments, as well as other actors engaging with China across the region, including industry, media and civil society.

The new CSEP report ‘How China Engages South Asia: In the Open and Behind the Scenes‘, co-edited by Constantino Xavier and Jabin Jacob, throws light on some of these understudied aspects of China’s regional outreach. The outcome of a multi-year research project to understand the range, methods, and effects of China’s influence, the report features 12 case studies on: civil society and culture, economy and governance, conflict mediation, defence and security, and influence operations. These are arranged along a spectrum of types of engagement: from the more visible (“in the open”) to opaque (“behind the scenes”).

This seminar marked the official release of the report with a panel discussion on the impact and implications of China’s rising influence on South Asia’s political, economic and security future.

Presenter

Constantino Xavier

Constantino Xavier is a Senior Fellow in Foreign Policy and Security Studies at CSEP, where he leads the Sambandh Initiative on Regional Connectivity. He is also a Non-Resident Fellow in the Foreign Policy program at the Brookings Institution in Washington DC. Dr Xavier holds a PhD in South Asian studies from the Johns Hopkins University, School of Advanced International Studies, an M.Phil. and M.A. in International Politics from Jawaharlal Nehru University, and a B.A. with undergraduate studies at Nova University Lisbon and Sciences Po Paris. His research focuses on India’s changing role as a regional power, and the challenges of security, connectivity, and democracy across South Asia and the Indian Ocean. He also works on India’s relations with the European Union and other democratic powers in the Indo-Pacific, and has published widely in academic books and journals on India’s foreign and security policies with a focus on state capacity, regional institutions, economic and infrastructure diplomacy and soft power.

Discussants

Shivshankar Menon

Shivshankar Menon is a Distinguished Fellow at CSEP, Visiting Professor at Ashoka University and Chair of the Ashoka Centre for China Studies. Menon served as National Security Advisor to the Indian Prime Minister (2010-2014); Foreign Secretary of India (2006-2009); and as Ambassador and High Commissioner of India to Israel (1995-1997), Sri Lanka (1997-2000), China (2000-2003) and Pakistan (2003-2006). He has served in the mission to the IAEA in Vienna and in the Department of Atomic Energy in Mumbai. He was also a Distinguished Fellow with Brookings India. He has published Choices: Inside the Making of Indian Foreign Policy in 2016 and India and Asian Geopolitics: The Past, Present (Brookings Press USA, & Penguin Random House India) in April 2021.

Lailufar Yasmin

Lailufar Yasmin is Professor at the Department of International Relations, University of Dhaka, Bangladesh. She has undertaken her studies at the University of Dhaka, Bangladesh, Georgia State University, Atlanta, USA, and Macquarie University, Sydney, Australia. Her areas of research include Bangladesh’s politics, economy and foreign policy, South Asian Affairs, China’s Rise, maritime security and the Indo-Pacific Region, and women’s participation in the UN Peacekeeping, among others. She has been a recipient of the US Fulbright, the British Chevening, and the Australian International Post-Graduate Research Scholarship (IPRS). She has done her fellowships on peace and conflict issues in the University of Ulster, Northern Ireland, UK; in the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences (CASS), Beijing, China, as an Asia Fellow under the Ford Foundation Fellowship; among others.

George I. H. Cooke

George I. H. Cooke is a diplomatic historian. He is a visiting lecturer at the Sri Lanka Air Force Academy, the Defence Services Command and Staff College, the University of Colombo, and the Bandaranaike International Diplomatic Training Institute. His main areas of research include diplomacy, foreign policy, regionalism and integration. He served in the Sri Lanka Foreign Services for more than a decade before leaving for an academic career. Whilst stationed at the Embassy of Sri Lanka in Paris, he was also at the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation (UNESCO). He pursued his tertiary education at the University of Colombo and the Open University of Sri Lanka, and is an alumnus of the Netherlands Institute of International Relations – Clingendael. He was a Visiting Fellow at the Ubon Ratchathani University, Thailand.

Jabin T. Jacob

Jabin T. Jacob is Associate Professor at the Department of International Relations and Governance Studies, and Director of the Centre of Excellence for Himalayan Studies at Shiv Nadar University, Delhi National Capital Region. He is a Non-Resident Fellow at the Centre for Social and Economic Progress, New Delhi. He was formerly Fellow and Assistant Director at the Institute of Chinese Studies, Delhi and Associate Editor of the journal, China Report. Jacob holds a PhD in Chinese Studies from the School of International Studies, Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi and has spent time as a student/researcher/faculty in Taiwan, Singapore and France. His research interests include Chinese domestic politics, China in South Asia and the Indian Ocean region, Sino-Indian border areas, Indian and Chinese worldviews, and centre-province relations in China.

Moderator

Shruti Jargad

Shruti Jargad is a Research Analyst in the Foreign Policy Vertical. She has a double masters in China Studies and Political Science from Peking University and Jawaharlal Nehru University, respectively. She has spent time in China and Taiwan as a student researcher. She has previously worked at the Institute of Chinese Studies, New Delhi and Ashoka University, Sonipat. Her research interests lie in the party-state system, China’s domestic politics and its relations in the neighbourhood. She has working proficiency in Mandarin Chinese.

All content reflects the individual views of the speakers. The Centre for Social and Economic Progress (CSEP) does not hold an institutional view on any subject.

Please contact Gurmeet Kaur at GKaur@csep.org for general queries and Ayesha Manocha at AManocha@csep.org for media queries.