POWER 50 · Day 46 — Global Centres of Power — II: Japan · Europe · China

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POWER 50 is fifty capsules across fifty days — the whole PSIR syllabus revised once, in the order the syllabus is actually built. One topic a day. The method is plain and it only works if you hold to it: read the capsule, write the same day, and don’t break the chain. Running alongside are PSIR Dynamics 2026 and the PYQ Vault, which puts 560 previous-year questions in your hands over these fifty days — about eleven a day.

Day 46 — Global Centres of Power — II

Today closes the great-power set. We take India’s ties with Japan, Europe and China together, because each is now a variable in the others. Japan is the least encumbered by dispute and the most under-realised — political warmth well ahead of its defence and trade content. Europe is the largest economic partner and, until the Indo-Pacific supplied a shared frame, the narrowest strategic one; the bilateral tracks with France, Germany and the UK still outweigh the Brussels track. China is the only relationship where the primary question is security, not opportunity — trade has climbed while trust has fallen, and after Galwan the border conditions everything else. The capsule walks each tie through its phases, the Modi-era upgrades, the 2025–26 trade deals and the post-2020 disengagement, and closes with a synthesis built around the three triangles. Ten questions, 2018–2025 · 2 × 10-markers · 6 × 15-markers · 2 × 20-markers.

Write before the evening:

1. What are the main drivers of India-Japan Strategic and Global Partnership? (UPSC 2022, 20m)
2. Examine the Geo-strategic points of contention in the bilateral relationship between India and China. (UPSC 2020, 15m)
3. The tariff threats have pushed India and the European Union closer. Evaluate the India-EU partnership. (UPSC 2025, 15m)

If you go blank on a scholar, a phase or a date, it is covered in full in the Foundation and OGP class notes and handouts — revise it there, then write.