There is a big difference though. For Indians, principles are an end in themselves. For the Chinese, theories are meant to achieve practical outcomes. Hu’s political purpose in coining the slogan of a “harmonious world” is to counter the perception that a rising China is a threat to the world. In that sense the theory on building a “harmonious world” is an adjunct to Beijing’s proposition that China’s rise, in contrast to the emergence of new great powers in the past, will not be destabilsing but peaceful. China today is conscious of its power potential and its emerging capabilities to alter the regional and international system. It is responding to the incipient resistance to its rise and finding ways to pre-empt it. India is a long way from strategising about its own future in the global order and finding an ideological wrapper for it.

Hu in Pakistan

As Hu heads off to Agra and Mumbai on Wednesday and then to Pakistan, the focus now shifts to the Chinese President’s agenda in Islamabad. In contrast to the many anxieties in New Delhi that surrounded Hu’s visit to India, in Pakistan it will simply be a celebration of a bilateral relationship that has often been called “deeper than oceans and higher than mountains”.

Among the agreements to be signed by Hu in Pakistan include a free trade treaty, modernisation of transport corridors between Xinjiang and Pakistan occupied Kashmir and the Northern Areas, and the expansion of Chinese presence in the sensitive Gwadar port. There are reports that China will announce new projects in Gwadar to build an airport, oil refinery, and an oil pipeline.

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