As he lands in Beijing next weekend, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh would countenance a China vastly different from the one his predecessors knew. It is a China that is at once conscious of and comfortable with its position as the world’s newest great power. Beijing’s warm hospitality is unlikely to hide the chilling sense of China’s rise — the single most important geo-political fact of our time.

As he launched the Chinese economic miracle in December 1978, Deng Xiaoping had some simple advice on foreign policy — “keep a cool head, maintain a low profile and never take the lead.”

The current generation of Chinese leadership, basking in the glory of nearly three decades of miraculous economic growth, is looking beyond Deng’s advice and asserting itself much like the great powers of the past.

Over the last two decades, India’s China policy was largely focused on bilateral issues — resolving the boundary dispute and normalising relations. Despite some progress on boundary management, the resolution of the underlying dispute has remained elusive. Meanwhile, bilateral cooperation — especially in trade — has blossomed, with China all set to emerge as India’s largest trading partner.

What has changed, however, is the international balance of power now marked by the rapid rise of China and the somewhat slower emergence of India. The altered international context demands a restructuring of the agenda of Sino-Indian relations.

PM’s agenda

With no room for sentimentalism in China’s hard headed world-view, India too is free to explore a pragmatic agenda of engagement, without having to dress it up in ideological rhetoric.

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