“‘Asia’ is already the 21st century’s most contested term. For some it represents a block comprising most of the world’s population, for others a region rife with historical rivalries. In this engaging narrative, Thant Myint-U shows us how Asia is still under construction, with new ports, canals, railroads and passageways are knitting together a continent. Most interestingly, these new Silk Roads enjoin the world’s two most populous nations, China and India, via Burma, a land of incredible diversity and promise, but also despair and risk. If the presumed geopolitical rivalries in Asia are to be averted, it will be by following Thant’s road-map.”—Parag Khanna, author of The Second World: Empires and Influence in the New Global Order and How to Run the World
"Where China Meets India is a rare find, an ambitious, comprehensive work that is at once entertaining and illuminating by a leading scholar on Burma.”—Andrew Pham, author of The Eaves of Heaven: A Life in Three Wars
Thant Myint-U was educated at Harvard and Cambridge Universities and later taught history for several years as a Fellow of Trinity College, Cambridge. He has also served on three United Nations peacekeeping operations, in Cambodia and the former Yugoslavia, as well as with the United Nations Secretariat in New York. He is the author of a personal history of Burma, The River of Lost Footsteps.
Myanmar mostly makes news in the West these days with blood and iron, when the brutal military regime cracks down on monks and others protesting for democracy. Weekend Edition host Scott Simon chats with Thant Myint-U, author of Where China Meets India: Burma and the New Crossroads of Asia, who says the country may have a bright and bold future as a bridge between China and India's growing economies.
Thant Myint-U describes the remote region suddenly a geopolitical center of the world—Burma, where Asia’s great powers appear to be vying for supremacy. Where China Meets India: Burma and the New Crossroads of Asia looks at the ways China and India are becoming exposed to each other as never before, and how the basic shift in geography will lead to unprecedented connections among the three billion people of Southeast Asia and the Far East.
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