Multiple asymmetries characterize the Sino-Indian rivalry. India’s slow and fitful (absolute) rise over the past three decades has happened in the context of relative decline vis-à-vis China because the latter has grown faster and more comprehensively. Despite this asymmetry, newer functional areas – economics, nuclear, and naval – have appeared in this contest. These areas are riddled with domain-specific asymmetries and domain-specific pathways to conflict escalation. While there is no reason to believe that war is inevitable, the Sino-Indian relationship has entered a troubled phase because further asymmetry as well as strategies to address these asymmetries are both conflict-prone. There are three specific pathways (which are not mutually exclusive) that cut across these different domains and point towards heightened conflict: any Chinese attempt to create a new status quo reflective of the power gap in its favor; any Indian endeavor to redress this power gap in order to be taken more seriously by China; and the United States’ promotion of the rise of India.

This chapter examines the history, following their return from overseas, of the Madagascar Youths sent to Mauritius to learn European music and those who served apprenticeships aboard British naval vessels. It surveys the history of traditional Malagasy music and, in that context, explores the role of the returning musicians at court. It also examines the history of the naval apprentice returnees in military and ‘naval’ duties, as well as – alongside other Madagascar Youths – in diplomatic roles, as representatives of the Merina crown in its relations with foreign powers.

This chapter explores how these efforts at resolving the empire’s crisis began to fail and produce unintended consequences. It traces the breakdown of cooperation on naval strategy and shipbuilding among colonial governments, especially that of Wilfrid Laurier’s and Robert Borden’s naval bills in Canada. It shows that the deep involvement of colonists in the forthcoming world war was not a certain proposition between 1910 and 1914, and that the empire’s security crisis threatened to derail colonial state-building projects in India and South Africa.