Class 12 Political Science Chapter 2 Contemporary Centres of Power NCERT Solutions

Q. Arrange the following in chronological order.
a. China’s accession to WTO
b. Establishment of the EEC
c. Establishment of the EU
d. Birth of ARF

Answer: b, c, d, a

Q. The ‘ASEAN Way’
a. Reflects the life style of ASEAN members
b. A form of interaction among ASEAN members that is informal and cooperative
c. The defence policy followed by the ASEAN members
d. The road that connects all the ASEAN members

Answer: (b) A form of interaction among ASEAN members that is informal and
cooperative.

The chapter’s own sentence is: “ASEAN countries have celebrated what has become known as the
‘ASEAN Way’, a form of interaction that is informal, non-confrontationist and cooperative.”
Respect for national sovereignty is critical to the functioning of ASEAN, which is why, unlike the
EU, there is little desire in ASEAN for supranational structures and institutions.

Q. Which of the following nations adopted an ‘open door’ policy?
a. China    b. South Korea    c. Japan    d. USA

Answer: (a) China.

“By 1978, the then leader Deng Xiaoping announced the ‘open door’ policy and economic reforms in
China. The policy was to generate higher productivity by investments of capital and technology from
abroad.”

Q. Fill in the blanks:

The lines these come from. (a) “China and India were involved in a border conflict in 1962
over competing territorial claims principally in Arunachal Pradesh and in the Aksai Chin region of
Ladakh.” (b) “The ASEAN Regional Forum (ARF), which was established in 1994, is the organisation
that carries out coordination of security and foreign policy.” (c) “China ended its political and
economic isolation with the establishment of relations with the United States in 1972.” (d) “Under
the Marshall Plan, the Organisation for European Economic Cooperation (OEEC) was established in
1948 to channel aid to the west European states.” (e) The same line as (b): the ARF “is the organisation
that carries out coordination of security and foreign policy”. (The ASEAN Security Community is one
of ASEAN’s three pillars, agreed in 2003, not the organisation this blank asks for.)

Q. What are the objectives of establishing regional organisations?

Answer: The chapter does not give a single list, so build the answer from what it says
the EU and ASEAN were set up to do.

1. To replace old rivalries with cooperation. As the Second World War came to an end,
many of Europe’s leaders grappled with the ‘Question of Europe’: should Europe be allowed to revert
to its old rivalries, or be reconstructed on principles and institutions that would contribute to a
positive conception of international relations? A regional organisation is the second of those
answers, put into institutional form.

2. To accelerate economic growth. “The objectives of ASEAN were primarily to accelerate
economic growth and through that ‘social progress and cultural development’.” The EU began the same
way, as a step-by-step process of economic integration that led to the European Economic Community
in 1957.

3. To promote regional peace and stability. ASEAN’s secondary objective was to promote
regional peace and stability based on the rule of law and the principles of the United Nations
Charter, and its Security Community rests on the conviction that outstanding territorial disputes
should not escalate into armed confrontation.

4. To build a common market and a free trade area. The ASEAN Economic Community aims to
create a common market and production base within ASEAN states, to aid social and economic
development in the region and to improve the existing Dispute Settlement Mechanism. ASEAN has
focused on creating a Free Trade Area for investment, labour and services.

5. To gain weight in the world that no member has alone. The EU’s economic power gives it
influence over its closest neighbours as well as in Asia and Africa, and it functions as an
important bloc in international economic organisations such as the WTO. ASEAN is the only regional
association in Asia that provides a political forum where Asian countries and the major powers can
discuss political and security concerns.

6. To resolve conflicts by negotiation. ASEAN’s policy is to encourage negotiation over
conflicts in the region, and it has mediated the end of the Cambodian conflict and the East Timor
crisis.

7. To become an alternative centre of power. This is the chapter’s own frame: after the
end of the bipolar structure of world politics in the early 1990s, it became clear that alternative
centres of political and economic power could limit America’s dominance.

Q. How does geographical proximity influence the formation of regional organisations?

Answer:

1. Neighbours share a history, and therefore share a problem. Before and during the Second
World War, the southeastern region of Asia suffered the economic and political consequences of
repeated colonialisms, both European and Japanese, and at the end of the war it confronted problems
of nation-building, the ravages of poverty and economic backwardness and the pressure to align with
one great power or another. Europe’s states, in 1945, confronted the ruin of their economies and
the destruction of the assumptions and structures on which Europe had been founded. A shared
problem of that kind is what makes a shared institution worth building.

2. Neighbours pay the price of each other’s conflicts. In Southeast Asia the combination
of poverty, nation-building and Cold War pressure “was a recipe for conflict, which the countries
of Southeast Asia could ill afford”. Distance would have made those quarrels somebody else’s
business; proximity made them everybody’s.

3. Trade and investment are naturally heaviest between neighbours. China’s economic
integration into the region makes it the driver of East Asian growth, and the current economic
strength of ASEAN lies in its relevance as a trading and investment partner to the growing Asian
economies such as India and China.

4. Proximity gives the organisation practical work to do. Border controls, a shared
currency and free movement only make sense between neighbours: under the Schengen agreement a visa
from just one EU country allows entry into most of the others.

5. The limits of proximity. Nearness alone is not enough. Efforts at Asian and Third
World unity, such as the Bandung Conference and the Non-Aligned Movement, were ineffective in
establishing the conventions for informal cooperation and interaction, and the chapter notes that
the regions where India and China exercised influence rarely ever overlapped, so the two were never
very familiar with each other despite being neighbours.

Q. What are the components of the ASEAN Vision 2020?

Answer: The book names two components under the Vision itself.

1. An outward-looking role. “Its Vision 2020 has defined an outward-looking role for
ASEAN in the international community.” ASEAN is not to remain a purely internal arrangement of ten
neighbours.

2. Encouraging negotiation over conflicts in the region. The Vision builds on the existing
ASEAN policy of doing exactly this.

What ASEAN has done under that policy. These are not themselves components of the Vision;
they are what the Vision and the policy behind it have produced in practice.

a. Mediation. ASEAN has mediated the end of the Cambodian conflict and the East Timor
crisis.

b. An annual forum on East Asian cooperation. ASEAN meets annually to discuss East Asian
cooperation.

c. Interaction and consultation as the method. ASEAN’s strength lies in its policies of
interaction and consultation with member states, with dialogue partners, and with other
non-regional organisations. It is the only regional association in Asia that provides a political
forum where Asian countries and the major powers can discuss political and security concerns.

Q. Name the pillars and the objectives of the ASEAN Community.

Answer: In 2003, ASEAN moved along the path of the EU by agreeing to establish an ASEAN
Community comprising three pillars.

Note. The ASEAN Regional Forum (ARF), established in 1994, is a separate body, not one of
the three pillars. It is the organisation that carries out the coordination of security and foreign
policy.

Why the Community was created. With some of the fastest growing economies in the world,
ASEAN broadened its objectives beyond the economic and social spheres. Even so, ASEAN was and still
remains principally an economic association, and unlike the EU there is little desire in ASEAN for
supranational structures and institutions.

Q. In what ways does the present Chinese economy differs from its command economy?

Answer:

Two things that did not change. First, the reform was gradual, not a rupture: “The Chinese
did not go for ‘shock therapy’ but opened their economy step by step”, and trade barriers were
eliminated only in Special Economic Zones where foreign investors could set up enterprises. Second,
“in China, the state played and continues to play a central role in setting up a market economy”.
So the present economy is a market economy built under state direction, not a withdrawal of the
state.

Q. How did the European countries resolve their post-Second World War problem? Briefly
outline the attempts that led to the formation of the European Union.

Answer:

The problem. The Second World War shattered many of the assumptions and structures on
which the European states had based their relations. In 1945, the European states confronted the
ruin of their economies and the destruction of the assumptions and structures on which Europe had
been founded. Many of Europe’s leaders grappled with the ‘Question of Europe’: should Europe be
allowed to revert to its old rivalries, or be reconstructed on principles and institutions that
would contribute to a positive conception of international relations?

How it was resolved. European integration after 1945 was aided by the Cold War. America
extended massive financial help for reviving Europe’s economy under the Marshall Plan, and also
created a new collective security structure under NATO. Under the Marshall Plan, the Organisation
for European Economic Cooperation was established in 1948 to channel aid to the west European
states, and it became a forum where the western European states began to cooperate on trade and
economic issues. The Council of Europe, established in 1949, was another step forward in political
cooperation. The process of economic integration of European capitalist countries then proceeded
step by step, leading to the formation of the European Economic Community in 1957, and acquired a
political dimension with the creation of the European Parliament. The collapse of the Soviet bloc
put Europe on a fast track and resulted in the establishment of the European Union in 1992, laying
the foundation for a common foreign and security policy, cooperation on justice and home affairs,
and the creation of a single currency.

The steps, in the chapter’s own timeline.

Q. What makes the European Union a highly influential regional organisation?

Answer: “The EU has economic, political and diplomatic, and military influence.”

1. Economic influence. The European Union’s GDP is projected to be approximately $19.35
trillion in the year 2024. Its currency, the euro, can pose a threat to the dominance of the US
dollar. Its share of world trade is much larger than that of the United States, allowing it to be
more assertive in trade disputes with the US and China. Its economic power gives it influence over
its closest neighbours as well as in Asia and Africa, and it functions as an important bloc in
international economic organisations such as the World Trade Organisation.

2. Political and diplomatic influence. One member of the EU, France, holds a permanent
seat on the UN Security Council, and the EU includes several non-permanent members of the UNSC.
This has enabled the EU to influence some US policies, such as the current US position on Iran’s
nuclear programme. Its use of diplomacy, economic investments and negotiations rather than coercion
and military force has been effective, as in the case of its dialogue with China on human rights
and environmental degradation.

3. Military influence. The EU’s combined armed forces are the second largest in the world
and its total spending on defence is second after the US. One EU member state, France, also has
nuclear arsenals of approximately 335 nuclear warheads. The EU is also the world’s second most
important source of space and communications technology.

4. It has become more than an economic body. The European Union has evolved over time
from an economic union to an increasingly political one, and has started to act more as a nation
state: while the attempts to have a Constitution for the EU have failed, it has its own flag,
anthem, founding date and currency, and some form of a common foreign and security policy. As a
supranational organisation it is able to intervene in economic, political and social areas.

The qualification the exam expects. Its influence has limits. In many areas its member
states have their own foreign relations and defence policies that are often at odds with each
other: Britain’s Prime Minister Tony Blair was America’s partner in the Iraq invasion and many of
the EU’s newer members made up the US-led ‘coalition of the willing’, whereas Germany and France
opposed American policy. There is a deep-seated ‘Euro-skepticism’ in some parts of Europe about the
EU’s integrationist agenda; Margaret Thatcher kept the UK out of the European Market; Denmark and
Sweden have resisted the Maastricht Treaty and the adoption of the euro; and in 2016 a referendum
in Britain went 51.9 per cent in favour of Brexit.

Q. The emerging economies of China and India have great potential to challenge the
unipolar world. Do you agree with the statement? Substantiate your arguments.

Answer: Yes, largely, and the chapter’s own framing supports it, but the challenge is
economic before it is military.

The chapter’s frame. After the end of the bipolar structure of world politics in the
early 1990s, it became clear that alternative centres of political and economic power could limit
America’s dominance. China is presented as the third major alternative centre of power in this
chapter, after the EU and ASEAN.

Arguments in favour.

1. China’s growth. China has been the fastest growing economy since the reforms first
began there, and it is projected to overtake the US as the world’s largest economy by 2040.

2. Regional weight. Its economic integration into the region makes it the driver of East
Asian growth, thereby giving it enormous influence in regional affairs. The strength of its
economy, together with other factors such as population, land mass, resources, regional location
and political influence, adds to its power in significant ways.

3. Leverage over trade partners. The integration of China’s economy and the
interdependencies this has created have enabled China to have considerable influence with its trade
partners, so its outstanding issues with Japan, the US, ASEAN and Russia have been tempered by
economic considerations.

4. A global, not merely regional, presence. China has become the most important
destination for foreign direct investment anywhere in the world, has large foreign exchange
reserves that allow it to make big investment in other countries, and its more outward looking
investment and aid policies in Latin America and Africa are increasingly projecting it as a global
player on the side of developing economies. It plans to deepen its integration into the world
economy and shape the future world economic order.

5. India and China together. Both view themselves as rising powers in global politics,
and both would like to play a major role in the Asian economy and politics. At the global level,
India and China have adopted similar policies in international economic institutions like the World
Trade Organisation, which is exactly the kind of joint weight that limits any single power. India
is also one of the growing Asian economies that make ASEAN an attractive trading and investment
partner, and its Look East policy since the early 1990s and Act East policy since 2014 have led to
greater economic interaction with the East Asian nations.

Arguments on the other side.

1. The chapter itself says China is projected to overtake the US only by 2040, so the challenge
is a prospect rather than an accomplished fact.

2. Not everyone in China has received the benefits of the reforms. Unemployment has risen, with
nearly 100 million people looking for jobs; female employment and conditions of work are as bad as
in Europe of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries; environmental degradation and corruption have
increased; and economic inequality has grown between rural and urban residents and between coastal
and inland provinces. These are internal weaknesses that a challenger has to carry.

3. India and China are not a bloc. They have contentious issues of their own, including the
boundary question, China’s part in the build up of Pakistan’s nuclear programme, and more recently
border disputes, the China-Pakistan economic corridor and China’s support to Pakistan in the UN
against India’s move to counter terrorism.

Conclusion. The two economies can and already do limit a unipolar order, but through
trade, investment and common positions in institutions like the WTO rather than through military
confrontation. That is the same route by which the EU and ASEAN became alternative centres of
power.

Q. The Peace and prosperity of countries lay in the establishment and strengthening of
regional economic organisations. Justify this statement.

Answer:

1. They turn old enemies into partners. This is the European case in one sentence.
Rather than let Europe revert to its old rivalries, its leaders reconstructed it on principles and
institutions that would contribute to a positive conception of international relations. The Treaty
of Paris of 1951 put coal and steel under a common community, and the EU
was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 2012.

2. They make prosperity a shared interest. The EU has transformed the countries of its
region into prosperous economies; its GDP is projected to be approximately $19.35 trillion in the
year 2024 and its share of world trade is much larger than that of the United States. ASEAN has
some of the fastest growing economies in the world, and although the ASEAN region as a whole is a
much smaller economy compared to the US, the EU and Japan, its economy is growing much faster than
all these.

3. Economic interdependence tempers political disputes. The integration of China’s
economy and the interdependencies this has created have enabled China to have considerable
influence with its trade partners, so its outstanding issues with Japan, the US, ASEAN and Russia
have been tempered by economic considerations. China even hopes to resolve its differences with
Taiwan by integrating it closely into its economy.

4. They build machinery for settling disputes. The ASEAN Security Community rests on the
conviction that outstanding territorial disputes should not escalate into armed confrontation, and
by 2003 ASEAN had several agreements by which member states promised to uphold peace, neutrality,
cooperation, non-interference, and respect for national differences and sovereign rights. The ASEAN
Economic Community wants to improve the existing Dispute Settlement Mechanism, and the ASEAN
Regional Forum coordinates security and foreign policy.

5. They actually stop wars. ASEAN has mediated the end of the Cambodian conflict and the
East Timor crisis, and it meets annually to discuss East Asian cooperation.

6. They protect the region in a crisis. Fears of China’s rise were mitigated by its
contributions to the stability of the ASEAN economies after the 1997 financial crisis, which shows
what a regional grouping is for when trouble comes.

7. They give small states a voice. ASEAN is the only regional association in Asia that
provides a political forum where Asian countries and the major powers can discuss political and
security concerns, and the EU functions as an important bloc in the WTO.

The honest qualification. Regional organisations are not automatic peace machines. The
process of taking in new EU members has not proved easy, people in many countries are not very
enthusiastic about giving the EU powers that were exercised by their own governments, and
Euro-skepticism, the failed constitution and Brexit all show the limits. Regional organisations
make peace and prosperity possible; they do not make them certain.

Q. Identify the contentious issues between China and India. How could these be resolved
for greater cooperation? Give your suggestions.

Answer:

The contentious issues.

1. Tibet and the boundary. Soon after independence both states were involved in
differences arising from the Chinese takeover of Tibet in 1950 and the final settlement of the
Sino-Indian border.

2. The 1962 conflict. China and India were involved in a border conflict in 1962 over
competing territorial claims principally in Arunachal Pradesh and in the Aksai Chin region of
Ladakh. India suffered military reverses, and the conflict had long-term implications for
India-China relations; diplomatic relations were downgraded until 1976.

3. Nuclear weapons. India’s nuclear tests in 1998 were justified on the grounds of a
threat from China, and China was seen as contributing to the build up of Pakistan’s nuclear
programme.

4. China’s military ties with India’s neighbours. China’s military relations with
Bangladesh and Myanmar were viewed as hostile to Indian interests in South Asia.

5. The recent downslide. Border disputes, the China-Pakistan economic corridor and
China’s support to Pakistan in the UN against India’s move to counter terrorism are some of the
factors for it.

6. Unfamiliarity itself. The regions where India and China exercised influence rarely ever
overlapped, so there was limited political and cultural interaction and neither country was very
familiar with the other. In the twentieth century, when both nations confronted each other, they
had some difficulty evolving a foreign policy to deal with each other.

Suggestions for resolving them, following what has already worked.

1. Keep the border talks going and separate them from everything else. A series of talks
to resolve the border issue was initiated in 1981 and the talks have continued without
interruption; the chapter treats that as the clearest sign that these issues will not lead to
conflict. China’s own policy became more pragmatic and less ideological after the mid-1970s, so it
was prepared to put off the settlement of contentious issues while improving relations with
India.

2. Maintain ‘peace and tranquility’ on the border. Since Rajiv Gandhi’s visit of December
1988 both governments have taken measures to contain conflict and maintain peace and tranquility on
the border. Military-to-military cooperation should be increased further, as it already is.

3. Expand trade and open more of the border to it. Four border posts have been opened for
trade, trade has grown at 30 per cent per year since 1999, and bilateral trade rose from $338
million in 1992 to more than $84 billion in 2017.

4. Turn possible rivalries into joint work. Both countries have agreed to cooperate in
areas that could otherwise create conflict between them, such as bidding for energy deals abroad.
The same method can be applied to other competitive areas.

5. Act together in global institutions. India and China have adopted similar policies in
international economic institutions like the World Trade Organisation, and both see themselves as
rising powers that want a major role in the Asian economy and politics.

6. Increase contact of every kind. Agreements on cultural exchanges and cooperation in
science and technology, more frequent visits by leaders and officials to Beijing and New Delhi, and
increasing transportation and communication links all address the original problem, which was
unfamiliarity. Chinese President Xi Jinping visited India in 2019 and Prime Minister Narendra Modi
visited China in 2018.

Conclusion. Increasing transportation and communication links, common economic interests
and global concerns should help establish a more positive and sound relationship between the two
most populous countries of the world.