China’s strategic goal is to stabilize relations with India to avoid a two-front war with the US & India.The Indo-Pacific Strategy has sent China into a frenzy of damage control in order to prevent the emergence of an India-U.S. alliance.
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warontherocks.com/2020/03/chinas…
Excerpts 1/7
warontherocks.com/2020/03/chinas…
2/ China’s elevation of relations with India reveals an inconvenient truth:exogenous factors primarily drive China’s rapprochement.Had US not adopted Indo-Pacific Strategy & pursued alignment with India,the trajectory of China’s policy toward India would’ve looked very different
3/ China might have concluded that improved ties with India were in its interests, but the decision to reach out to New Delhi occurred when it did because Beijing saw the United States swaying India’s preference.
4/ While India has no place in China’s vision for the regional order,US offers India a significant position in the Indo-Pacific Strategy.Trump’s India policy is the biggest factor that has altered China’s calculation abt India’s strategic importance & pushed China 2 appease India
5/ For hardliners in Beijing, the benefits that the United States has offered in material and diplomatic terms have already emboldened New Delhi to pursue risky policies vis-à-vis Pakistan in addition to a more assertive negotiating posture towards China.
6/ Despite the warming of ties on the surface, the suspicion and embedded hostility between China and India have in fact deepened since the introduction of the Indo-Pacific Strategy.
7/ China and India are both powers with regional hegemonic ambition and potential. Their structural conflict is irreconcilable.. Efforts to address the endogenous frictions... in the era of great-power rivalry and domestic populism, would be exceedingly difficult.
