In trip to India, Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao takes cues from Obama

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Source: Christian Science Monitor

While China is putting business deals front and center with India, the two largest countries on earth have major strains to hash out behind closed doors. Obama’s earlier visit put China on notice that its recent assertiveness over disputed territory has galvanized neighbors like India to deepen ties with the United States as geopolitical insurance.

Obama’s November trip tapped into growing trepidation in Asia over Chinese assertiveness and drew together a similar “string of pearls” of major democracies with navies that surround China – India, Indonesia, Japan, and South Korea. Strategist Robert Kaplan has called attention to the semicircle that those nations form around China.

“It's not a war I'm predicting, but what I am alluding toward is a very complex, Metternichian arrangement of power from the Horn of Africa all the way up through the Sea of Japan,” the Monitor quoted Mr. Kaplan as saying at a book event in Cambridge, Mass. "We don't have to interfere everywhere, we just have to move closer to our democratic allies in the region so they can do more of the heavy lifting."

“The notion that China will overtake the US and dominate the world is a myth,” State Councilor Dai Bingguo wrote in a Dec. 6 essay posted on the Chinese government’s website. “Our fundamental policy and strategy is to not take the lead and not seek hegemony.” Mr. Bingguo added: “The international community should welcome and not be afraid of China’s peaceful development, should help it rather than hinder it, and should support it and not to contain it.”

Read more: http://www.csmonitor.com/World/Asia-South-Central/2010/1215/In-trip-to-India-Chinese-Premier-Wen-Jiabao-takes-cues-from-Obama