Ploy to provoke India-China rivalry: China Daily editorial

During his four-day visit to India last week, the Commanding General of the US Army Pacific Charles Flynn showed that the United States is up to its old trick of pitting one regional country against another to serve its own interests.

As Flynn acknowledged, Washington's intention is for India to serve as a useful "counterweight" against China given the country's key position at the crossroads of Eurasia, South Asia and Southeast Asia.

Thus his remarks hyping up the Sino-Indian border dispute, and implying US support, were intended to lure India into the US-engineered geopolitical game targeting China. A game that is "at the heart of American grand strategy", as the US defense chief made clear at the Shangri-La Dialogue in Singapore on Friday.

Deliberately ignoring India's provocative construction of roads and bridges in the disputed border areas, Flynn said that some of the infrastructure constructed by China near its border with India is "alarming", while calling the Chinese activity in that region "eye-opening".

He also said that the "destabilizing and corrosive" behavior of China in the "Indo-Pacific" region is simply not helpful, revealing Washington's desire that India join its China-containment strategy.

It is perhaps because China and India have reached a consensus to solve their border disputes through communication and dialogue that the US is trying to fan the dying embers of the recent antagonism between India and China on the border.

The China-India border situation is generally stable at present, with the front-line forces of the two countries having disengaged in most parts of the western sector of the border after the recent round of senior commanders' meetings.

The two sides have also decided to hold the next round of meetings at an early date so as to reach a mutually acceptable solution to the border issues.

The dispute is a matter for India and China to settle between themselves. The US' attempts to drive a wedge between them by stirring up the border tensions are just further evidence of its efforts to build a gang that can hold regional peace and stability to ransom at the expense of China's development.

New Delhi should be aware that it will not gain anything by allowing itself to be sweet-talked into being another player in Washington's aggressive China-containment game, since that game is strictly self-serving. India will benefit the most by reaffirming its traditional independent foreign policy and working to uphold good-neighborly relations with China.