I know this score is very low but think this score is without any preparation. I personally expected 200 only and it more than twice and also know time is very short but I think I can do this all Insha Allah just confused about kay current affairs & essay kay liae kitne din Dawn parhna hai or kon konsay pages because I can't read it daily due to my office work and also I can't leave my job too so wahan se aa ker hi parna parta hai raat 3 bjay tak. please pray for me because this is my last attempt if I will not got any govt. job shortly and thanks to tell me that I am eligible for this attempt. and Dawn news kay kon konsay pages I have to read to cover these areas ?

Dear for me this paper consists of two parts:

1. Conventional Issues (like Kashmir, Palestine, Iraq, Afghanistan, Pak educational, economical Issues etc)
2. Current Issues of the changing world Policies (e.g election 2013, relations with emerging and old allies/foes, Dynamism in South Asian Politics etc)

For first part you may follow any book/Internet (e.g Imtiaz Shahid book) and collect material of your taste from it.

For the 2nd part you should focus on three things:

• Jahangir World Times monthly Magzine
• Dawn or any other newspaper of some good repute
• Internet

I hope this will help you in grabbing this paper.

Regards

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When Problems are so Big & Your Strength is no Longer enough to CaRRy them, Don't Give uP; Because where your Strength Ends the Grace of Almighty ALLAH Begins

31 dec 1988 did M.sc Economics from Quaid-I-Azam university. did 1 year job in an NGO Matric with Science F.sc with Maths and B.A with Psychology and Economics. this is all about me Tassawar Sir now suggesst me what should I do?

read the tips and tricks by Hamza Salick:

http://www.cssforum.com.pk/beginners...core-high.html

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The power that signals success is the power of your mind.

You are just 24 years old; and can appear up to CE2017. So, you have adequate time for preparation. i would suggest, you must reconsider you decision to appear in CE2013. if i were you, i would utilize CE2014, CE2015,and CE2016. For one thing, CSS is not a game of 3 or 4 months. it needs hard and smart work at least for 8 months. Being a senior it is my suggestion that do not get a jump on CE2013. Rest is up to you. In addition, If you make your mind for CE2014, you preparation should be start by Now. Regards.

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"Our Lord, give us the good in this world and the good in the hereafter." (Al-Qur'an, 2:201).

Pakistan in Search of Future

History cannot be replicated by superficial images and video sounds as a reality factor that happened in the past. Thinkers, philosophers, political visionaries, common folks, poets, artists, and so many others activists who were committed to their sublime aims and ambitions in life and enriched a specific time span. Faith, Unity and Discipline were the lifeline characteristics of the Pakistan freedom movement more than six decades earlier. All movements indoctrinate people to a sense of unity and equality for its aims and purposes that nothing else can or will establish a coherent relationship between the aims of the movement and its pursuit until accomplished. It was not haphazard but intellectually, morally and politically an organized scheme of things to define the Pakistan movement that “there is no god but Allah and Mohammad is the Messenger of Allah.” It embodied knowledge, proactive vision, wisdom and consistent principles of human intellectual pursuit to achieve the aims of the movement. Today’s Pakistan and its physical body, leadership and political systems and culture point out a sharp disconnect with its past – the Pakistan movement and its ultimate goals for national freedom and the unity of purpose.

The challenges common Pakistanis face today are the result of the wrong people, wrong thinking and wrong actions. But the Pakistan freedom movement had two major challenges: (1) the illegal British Raj and military occupation of Muslim India and the implications of racial superiority of the British rule by destroying Muslim culture and civilization; and (2) overwhelming domination of Hindus in business, trade, politics and collaboration with the British to support the colonization to gain a Hindu dominated India. None of these historical factors are reviewed by Pakistanis for change and reformation of the contemporary affairs. Whereas, comparatively, India has pursued planned change and achieved progress to become a leading industrial and cultural hub center of Asia. It should be important to note that military Generals in India remained out of the political scope and dictatorial governance enabling the Indian politics and policy making to enrich its capacity for future-building. The same has unfolded a dark chapter for Pakistan by military interventions and martial laws to incapacitate the nation and its thinking- intellectual powers for change and development. No sensible person or businessmen invests in a society dominated or controlled by military dictators.

After the 9/11, the American and British political lobbyists zeroed-in on Pakistan as the epicenter of a fake phenomenon – “Islamic terrorism.” The American leadership and the neocons needed this escape from reality to reinforce “fear” as strategy in the hearts and minds of the America masses and to implement the PNAC ( Project for the New American Century), Plan for political domination of the oil-gas rich resources of the Middle East and Central Asia. Ignorant Pakistani military rulers like General Musharaf and cheap politicians were bought and bribed by foreign powers to make Pakistanis look-like terrorist enabling them to remake the global crusade against Islam. The mainstream Western news media was one of the innovative weapons used by the US-British political strategists. The New York Times in its front page headlines (July 2007) reaffirmed that “Pakistani Generals are paid to do the job.” The Washington Post characterized General Musharaf in cartoon as “dog” that Commander Bush trusts as an ally. Was it an insult to Muslim Pakistan or was it a real world reflection how America sees the bootlicking General Musharaf standing before his Master. Musharaf was not a leaders but a stupid and timid soldier coerced by George Bush, Candeelica Rice, George Tenet (CIA Director) and General Powell to wage war against the Taliban run Afghanistan. The military dictator had no sense of the national interests of Pakistan or capacity to seek advice from educated Pakistanis and intellectuals. Musharaf did what no other responsible and intelligent could have done to join hands and allow Pakistani territory and facilities for the US warmongering. Consequently, the country is stampeded, its economic and social life ruined and so are its peace loving and simple people with destroyed social and natural habitats. While Pakistan and the nation is strangulated by the foreign powers, Musharaf lives happily in London $1.4 million flat, protected by the British security force. The end goal is chaos and destruction of the Muslim nation.

Pakistan faces multiple problems. But there are no real world public institutions or leadership to THINK of the viable alternatives, conflict management and conflict resolution. For its survival, Pakistan must be re-connected to its ideological foundation of Islam as a system of life. Otherwise, its people have no other credible identity. Viewing the bigger picture from North America, we see an emerging collaborative understanding at work between the current corrupt and criminal political elite (PPP and MQM), and the US to encourage and instigate internal political disruptions and bloodbaths and to dismantle the physical body of the nation over certain period of time.

Pakistan is politically chaotic, weak and torn apart between foreign dictated conflicts. It is not operational from a position of strength but extreme weakness and vulnerability to foreign dictates and ultimate self-destruction. Pakistan needs a NAVIGATIONAL CHANGE in policies, practices and national priorities to regain political institutions, different military role and intelligent and accountable political governance. But where would this change come from? Who would THINK and PLAN for the change? Legal judgments do not change the human behaviors or rebuild nations. The US and Britain are fighting against Islam and Muslims. Their strategic plans include annihilation of Muslim Pakistan and Muslim Afghanistan to restore supremacy of India and secularism. A different course of policy and action is needed to stop the emerging internal militancy, daily bloodbaths of the civilians, destruction of the social and economic lifelines of the nation. After decades of martial laws (rule of the jungle) and established political institutions of corruption across the board, how do you imagine to plan and devise strategies for change and a sustainable FUTURE? Zardari is not a leader or thinker but an indicted criminal and has no capability to think of change. The Generals can only march left and right, cannot THINK of the nation-building. They failed miserably to defend its national interest and are bootlickers of America and Britain, the colonial masters. There is no defined systematic mechanism for political change. Since its inception, and shortly after the death of Mohammad Ali Jinnah – Qaide-Azam, power was not transferred peacefully to any elected officials or political establishments. There were military coups and backdoor conspiracies to assume the leadership role. Most of the time by ignorant and arrogant ex-colonial politicians or families, not the enlightened and responsible new generation of educated Pakistanis who could have, for sure taken a different route for change and development of the nation. They have been denied all opportunities for participation except through coercion and political disruption. How could the problem of much needed change and political reformation be addressed under the present circumstances? There is no single remedy or diagnostic pill to cure the sickness but many non-violent and peaceful avenues to further the goal of change and reformation.

There are daily killings of the innocent civilians either by gangsters (hired militants by foreign interests), or the US drone attacks creating an havoc social and political destabilizing culture in the North Western frontiers – Waziristan parts of Pakistan. Malala Yousefzai – the innocent school girl drew world attention for her shooting by a militant group or individual. But there are countless innocent Malalas killed every day by the American drone attacks. Do they deserve less humanitarian attention? The common citizen could make the difference as did the Italian masses two decades earlier against the institutionalized corrupted politics run by mafia gangs. The Supreme Court or its verdicts would not create a new political culture of positive thinking and action but people’s movement can and will, if they are ONE and organized for change against the militancy. Recently, the People’s Occupy Movement across the globe has done it against many powerful political odds and obstacles. A new strategy of open public marches/demonstration for unity and Islamic solidarity will be helpful in short terms to challenge the nuisance of the militancy. It could discourage the blood baths engineered by extremist groups and send-out a strong message of national unity organized by the people. Non-violent peaceful movement as was the original Pakistan Movement and continued peaceful public demonstrations could reverse the thoughts and strategies of the enemy of Islam and Pakistan. The nation NEEDS anew THINKING HUB, New Institutions and New Educated and Visionary Leaders to plan and implement anew political system. We are of the opinion that Pakistan needs URGENTLY a non-partisan government of national unity to deal with the current emergencies and to evolve institutional capacity-building for change and reformation of the neo-colonialism and a promising future based on the originality of the Pakistan freedom movement. Pakistan needs a non-partisan government of national unity replacing the current PPP self-proclaimed regime. Pakistan needs a major policy shift asking the US and Britain to immediately withdraw their military forces from Afghanistan. The overwhelming presences of foreign forces in neighboring Afghanistan have catastrophic impacts on political, economic and social life in Pakistan and its future. For change to come into force, Pakistan needs a new leadership and a new foresight way from the military engagements and self-destined destruction pursued by the stupid military Generals and the Zardari regime.

The nation MUST assume the responsibility for the time and opportunities lost and the current political extremism. The Generals, Musharaf, Bhuttos, Zardaris and Sharifs could not have done it alone. There are hundreds and thousands of their accomplices actively engaged in stealing the national financial resources, precious time and opportunities of the nation. Institutionalized corruption is not a one man job.

Pakistan has lost the operational capacity to endure any more emergencies.
Its essential energies of positive thinking and producing the things and national resources were wasted by the stupid and corrupt rulers. The nation has LOST too much over the fifty years: half of Pakistan, rationale for Kashmir, public institutions of originality of THINKING and ACTION, opportunities to have educated people to lead the 21st century development of Pakistan. The Generals and the military sponsored so called politicians have sucked out the positive energies of the nation, leaving behind a skeleton under the IMF debts of $70. Billions or so without any accountability. The remaining skeleton could be further broken by the on-going conspiracies and warmongering of the enemies of Islam and Pakistan actively pursuing their plans from within and externally. To safeguard the present and future of Pakistan, planned change is the best strategy to ensure a sustainable future for the nation.

Pakistan desperately needs a navigational change to return to its original roots of participatory democracy and a new foreign policy disconnecting its coercive partnership with the US-British led bogus war on terrorism. For Pakistan’s sustainable future, a non-partisan government of national unity under new leadership should be the immediate action replacing the corrupt and illegitimate Zardari gang, and ceasing the confrontational strategy in North Waziristan and the US drone attacks and demanding immediate withdrawal of the American and British troops from Afghanistan.

In “Pakistan in Search of Change and New Leadership” (2011), the author offered this candid observation:

“American friendship is more dangerous than its publicly defined animosity. Rejecting cynicism but pondering on the US rationale of “war on terrorism”, there are ample similarities of the blueprint what happened in Iraq, the same fate could be waiting for Pakistan.

Nobody would cry nor would the sky fall if the corrupt Zardari regime is ousted by the voices of reason and a much desired non-partisan government is put in place to re-arrange the affairs of the nation……. The recent Wikileaks documents reveal how some of the Generals and the PPP politicians are accomplice to conspire against the interest of the people of Pakistan. Their mindset and behaviors belong to draconian age full of poisonous backdoor conspiracies for continued power sharing governance. The so called PPP operated democracy does not have roots in Pakistani society; it is a mere foreign illusion to destroy the nation by it sown agents. The political gangsterism has ruined the life of ordinary Pakistanis. These agents of foreign rule have no sense of fear and shame that emboldens them to commit any wicked and cruel crime against the freedom and security of Pakistan.”

(Dr. Mahboob A. Khawaja specializes in global security, peace and conflict resolution with keen interests in Islamic-Western comparative cultures and civilizations, and author of several publications including the latest: Global Peace and Conflict Management: Man and Humanity in Search of New Thinking. Lambert Publishing Germany, May 2012).

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When Problems are so Big & Your Strength is no Longer enough to CaRRy them, Don't Give uP; Because where your Strength Ends the Grace of Almighty ALLAH Begins

Now that the U.S. election finally is over, it's time to focus on the other most important leadership transition in the world: China's.

Like the United States, China is also at a turning point, and though the specifics differ, the crux of the problem is the same: major structural change is critical to sustained future growth and stability, but the country's current leaders have been unable, or unwilling, to implement the necessary reforms to shift its economy onto a path of sustainable development.

If anything, China's heirs apparent have the harder task.

Unlike Barack Obama, for instance, the incoming leader Xi Jinping won't be able to choose most of his own team. Beginning Nov. 8, when the Communist Party convenes its 18th Party Congress, and continuing in March 2013, Beijing will in two steps replace about 70 percent of the incumbents in its top communist party, government, and military bodies. China watchers expect Xi Jinping and Li Keqiang to ascend to the most powerful two spots on the Politburo Standing Committee, the country's highest decision-making body, but nobody outside a small circle of insiders knows who will fill the other 5-7 spots -- let alone what those individuals think about how to run the world's second-biggest economy and one of its major military powers.

Nor is the president of China as powerful as is commonly assumed. Since Hu Jintao, the outgoing leader, ascended to the top job in 2002, collective leadership built around consensus decision making has become the norm. Each Standing Committee member manages a distinct part of the overall Chinese system. The outgoing premier Wen Jiabao runs the cabinet, Zhou Yongkang runs domestic security, and so forth.

This system has its advantages, such as the ability to mobilize enormous resources and act quickly when all Standing Committee members agree on a priority course of action. But it has also produced a willingness to spend more money on top priorities ("you vote for my priority and I'll vote for yours"), coupled with an inability to adopt decisions that seriously disadvantage any member's sector, such as reducing subsidies to major state-owned enterprises or cutting back the scope of the civilian security apparatus. There have thus been no major structural reforms in China for the past five years, and few in the half-decade before then.

The recognition of the need for sectoral reform of the Chinese economy -- and related political reforms to make that happen -- is so widespread that Xi undoubtedly has this on his agenda. But it is unclear how high a priority he attaches to this or whether he can fairly easily be dissuaded by other considerations.

And even if Xi proves to be an ardent reformist (which is by no means clear), he may prove unable to move the system sufficiently in the directions he knows it must go. Wen has called for such changes for at least the past half decade, even as the system has in fact moved in the opposite direction. Success or even rapid progress here is far from assured.

The hurdles are high for Xi. Because he does not even get to pick most of the members of his own team, virtually no other Standing Committee member will owe his job solely to him -- current and former members select the lineup of the new Standing Committee in order to achieve a balance among their interests. It may take an impending or actual major crisis, therefore, for Xi to garner the authority to drive through necessary but painful decisions.

And painful decisions are essential to avoid snowballing structural drags on growth and heightened social tension and instability. With the government already spending more on domestic security than on the military in the face of a reported 180,000 "mass incidents" in 2010, serious reform is necessary.

The outgoing leadership of President Hu and Premier Wen has in recent years chosen to muddle through, handing off the problems to their successors. But China's huge economic gains over the past decade primarily reflect the payoffs from reforms made in the decade before that, including the privatization of housing, drastic downsizing of state-owned enterprises, restructuring of the banking system, joining the WTO, and expanding the political base of the party to include businesspeople. Despite early signs that Hu and Wen would continue to promote reforms meant to improve social equality and rural living standards, these initial initiatives took place years ago, and problems have since multiplied.

Beijing's economic strategy must be drastically overhauled. The Hu/Wen leadership, recognizing the danger, in March 2011 formally adopted a new development strategy that stresses increasing household consumption, reducing reliance on exports, expanding services, and moving to more innovative, less resource-intensive manufacturing. A study released this February by the World Bank in conjunction with the State Council Development Research Center, one of China's top government think tanks, confirmed the importance of this new strategy. But little serious reform has happened to date.

A key obstacle is that the old way of doing business is now built into the DNA of the leaders of the roughly 40,000 political jurisdictions outside of Beijing, from the province to the city to the county to the township level. These officials, rewarded primarily on the basis of producing rapid GDP growth while keeping a lid on social unrest, have used their political power to nurture infrastructure building and other capital-intensive projects. This in turn has generated short-term GDP growth and employment, along with massive flows of bank loans and other funds from which they can skim.

The results have been clear: breakneck growth, huge infrastructure and manufacturing development, enormous corruption, massive environmental devastation, growing inequality of wealth, and rising social tensions. If they wish to change the behavior of these local leaders, Xi and his colleagues must expend enormous political capital to do so.

And local officials are hardly the only impediments to reform. Beijing has fostered "national champions" -- state-owned corporate behemoths, many of which are seen as key to the party’s grip on power and are closely tied to elite political families. This marriage of wealth and political power presents major obstacles to effective changes in economic strategy.

Corruption at all levels, moreover, makes reforms even more difficult to implement through China's massive bureaucracy. And the fear that reform itself can generate expectations that may get out of hand adds to the hurdles to making necessary changes.

Thus, there are no simple solutions to China's challenges, almost all of which are more difficult than those confronting the United States. In the United States, the core issue is one of gaining a political consensus on federal revenues and expenditures. For China, the challenges require major structural overhaul of the economy and wide-ranging changes in the political system. The complexity of both the problem and the necessary corrective measures are massively more daunting in Beijing than in Washington.

The reforms China knows it should undertake are very much in America's interests -- reducing Beijing's need to resort to unfair trade practices, while at the same time further opening its economy, increasing the role of the market, and allowing greater opportunities for U.S. investments in sectors (such as financial services) in which the United States is highly competitive. In addition, putting China on a path of more sustainable, less environmentally damaging growth increases the chances that its government will be more confident, outward-looking, and constructive internationally. China, in turn, has a major interest in U.S. success in getting its deficit under control, given how heavily Beijing has invested in the health of the U.S. dollar and the American economy.

U.S.-China relations, in short, will almost certainly experience less strain if both Beijing and Washington deal more effectively with their need to undertake significant reforms. If each falls short, the opposite is true. Leaders on both sides should keep this fundamental reality in mind over the coming years.

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When Problems are so Big & Your Strength is no Longer enough to CaRRy them, Don't Give uP; Because where your Strength Ends the Grace of Almighty ALLAH Begins

Unless Pakistan and US manage to remove the deep seated suspicions they entertain about one another, there is little likelihood of any significant improvement in their relations. The relations may in fact further deteriorate. This would harm the common cause of putting an end to militancy in the region. While the failure would only partially damage the US interests, it would exacerbate the existential threat being faced by Pakistan. Ties can improve only if both try to accommodate each other’s concerns by displaying sufficient flexibility. As things stand a hubris ridden Washington attempts to dictate to Pakistan without giving any weight to its concerns. On the other hand, the decision makers in Pakistan act in a way that they are seen to be running with the hares and hunting with the hounds.

Both Zardari and Imran Khan have expressed what they expect from Obama during his second tenure. Zardari hopes the relations between the two countries would “continue to prosper”. Imran Khan wants Obama to put an end to drone attacks and order ceasefire in Afghanistan.

The US belatedly apologised for attack on Salala that killed 24 Pakistani soldiers. Islamabad in return allowed the NATO containers to carry goods for the troops fighting in Afghanistan. On Wednesday, fuel supply through Torkham was also restored. This has removed a major source of tension between the two countries. Oil tankers were the main target of militants before the supplies were suspended last year. The attacks had destroyed more than 200 tankers and left over a dozen drivers and owners killed over the past five years. Scores of local also died as a result of these attacks.

Another major source of worry for the US still remains unaddressed. Washington and Kabul both have accused the Haqqani network of launching some of the deadliest attacks inside Afghanistan, killing scores of US and foreign troops as well as Afghan soldiers. While the army had initiated air attacks in South Waziristan on its own, taking major political leaders into confidence days later, a national consensus was demanded before an operation in North Waziristan. A perception has arisen that when those who matter want to delay a thing, they send it to the Parliament. The decision to reopen the NATO routes was handed over to a parliamentary committee whose report was put in cold storage for weeks after it had been submitted. The parliament, as was widely expected, has failed to develop consensus on operation against the Haqqani network.

This has led to tit for tat retaliation from Kabul and Washington. TTP militants have been given safe havens inside Afghanistan from where they continue to launch deadly attacks on civilians and Pakistan’s security personnel. Quoting officials, a Washington Post report on Tuesday tells that the ISAF knows about the presence of Mullah Fazlullah, who ordered the attack on Malala Yousafzai, in Nooristan and Kunar but has declined to take action on two grounds. First, Fazlullah is neither a member of Al-Qaeda nor involved in attacks on US-led NATO troops. Second, because ISAF advisers believe that the Afghan army is allowing the Pakistani Taliban to operate. This was reportedly being done in retribution for Pakistan not doing enough to stop cross-border rocket attacks and armed infiltrators using Pakistan as a haven. Action against TTP militants operating from Afghanistan is thus conditioned with operation inside North Waziristan. Similarly, drone attacks are tied up with Pakistan getting its tribal areas vacated from militants.

There is a bipartisan consensus in the US over the use of drones to fight the terrorists as they are considered the most efficient way of killing the terrorist leaders. The American administration is least bothered about the proliferation of suicide bombers due to these attacks as they can only attack Pakistani citizens and army personnel. As far as Washington is concerned, it has secured itself against suicide attacks after 9/11. The US administration does not care if it becomes unpopular in the Muslim world. Hasn’t it supported Israel which frequently resorts to acts of state terrorism against unarmed Palestinians? What can dissuade the US from drone attacks is to ensure an end to cross-border attacks.

A state of denial about militants crossing over to Afghanistan will convince few. Leaders of banned militants working under different names in Pakistan continue to exhort people to launch jihad against the US. Even Imran Khan maintains that the war in Afghanistan is a ‘jihad’. If militants can crisscross between the settled areas and South and North Waziristan, why can’t they cross into Afghanistan to fulfill what they are told is their religious duty? The only way to ensure an end to drone attacks is for Pakistan to cleanse on its own the havens used by Arab, Uzbek, Chechen, and Pakistani militants. As things stand their largest concentration is in North Waziristan.

Pakistan has done well by renouncing the ill-considered notion of seeking strategic depth in Afghanistan. This was seen by Afghanistan as desire by its neighbour to treat it as a backyard. No independent country can allow another country to use it as a shield. It has to be ensured now that Pakistani Taliban do not use Afghanistan as a safe area to launch attacks on Pakistan’s territory. It suits both the US and Pakistan that Afghanistan does not once again become a sanctuary for terrorists and a launching pad for the export of terrorism.

If Pakistan wants concessionary access to Western markets, loans from the international financial organistations and aid from the US, it has to give something in return. Cooperation is always mutual. Pakistan has a choice either to fight the militants in collaboration with the US or fight them alone. The US has more options than Pakistan. Now that he has won the elections Obama is in a better position to revive the US Taliban talks. He can release some of the Taliban prisoners from Guantanamo to give a fillip to the talks. Instead of painting itself into a corner, Pakistan has to actively get engaged in tripartite talks.

So far the military has ignored the importance of a most vital element of national security. As the CJ has maintained, missiles and tanks cannot guarantee stability and security of a country nor are any more to be considered manifestation of a ‘hard power’. A country can achieve stability only if its economy is vibrant, the population is educated and healthy and it has a developed social infrastructure. A foreign policy with peace with neighbours as a cornerstone is highly vital for national security. Much needs to be done by politicians, which they have so far failed to do. As has been pointed out, strong institutions form the bedrock for building lasting mechanisms and sustaining socio-economic, political and cultural growth and development.

Pakistan’s relations with the US should be guided by enlightened self-interest. While cooperating with the US over shared objectives like fight against militancy, Islamabad must not be seen as a tool in the super power’s hands against any other country.

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When Problems are so Big & Your Strength is no Longer enough to CaRRy them, Don't Give uP; Because where your Strength Ends the Grace of Almighty ALLAH Begins

The Arab Spring that swept away dictatorships across North Africa and the Middle East in 2011 unnerved many in the Chinese leadership. Liu Yuan, one of the boldest and most ambitious generals in China's People's Liberation Army, was particularly shaken by what he identified as a fatal weakness of Colonel Muammar al-Qaddafi: his son. Until the revolution, Qaddafi's second-oldest son, Saif al-Islam, was seen as a Western-leaning reformer, a voice for modernization and democracy. And he was educated in the same class of prestigious overseas universities attended by dozens of princelings (the sons and daughters of high-ranking Chinese officials).

In an extraordinary closed door speech in February, notes of which Foreign Policy has seen, Liu cautioned that Saif exposed himself to the flattery, privilege, and ideological brainwashing of the "Western hostile forces" -amorphous enemies of Chinese communism. And he returned to Libya with ideas of liberty and democracy, which fatally softened the ideological defenses of his once-defiant father, Liu said, leading to his bloody demise. It is exactly this kind of Fifth Column that Liu fears could kill China from the inside.

That's not a message that China's elite are pleased to hear. The son of former President Liu Shaoqi, Liu was listed as one of the Party delegates assembled this week in Beijing for the Communist Party's epochal 18th Congress, where President Hu Jintao will begin to officially yield power to the next generation of leaders. But Liu didn't appear onstage on Thursday with his peers. His absence could mean that the leadership's most outspoken advocate for Communism's anti-corruption and anti-Western ideals may have been sidelined. "Perhaps people feared Liu could not be controlled," said a princeling friend of Liu's this week, whose father was a top Chinese general.

General Liu's fascination with Qaddafi may seem surprising, given the differences of their respective regimes. The world's second-largest economy, run by nine unassuming technocrats, is seldom compared with the oil-rich basket case formerly run by a madman. But Liu believes that the world's most successful dictatorship could quickly go the way of Libya if the Communist Party loses the ability to tell itself a unifying story that justifies its monopoly on power. Qaddafi's mistake was not that he had failed to reform towards democracy and law, as many believed, but that his son, seduced by Western ideas, persuaded him to reform at all. On the eve of the Party's transition, as cries for the new generation of leaders to reform China grow louder, Liu fears that if the elite do not insulate themselves, their children will devour the revolution.

Some rival princelings inside the Party claimed to me that Liu was taking a swipe at his own leaders. Indeed, at least eight of the nine members of the outgoing Politburo Standing Committee, China's top decision-making body, have a child who has studied or worked extensively abroad. Premier-in-waiting Li Keqiang and the incumbent, Wen Jiabao, both have children who have studied in the United States; Winston Wen studied at Northwestern University and went on to found the private equity firm New Horizon Capital. President Hu Jintao's son-in-law, Daniel Mao, studied at Stanford, worked in Silicon Valley, and headed the Internet portal Sina, which owns the popular micro-blogging service Sina Weibo. The daughter of propaganda chief Li Changchun, Li Tong, studied at the University of New South Wales in Sydney, and now has a senior investment banking position at the state-owned Bank of China. Zhou Bin, the son of security chief Zhou Yongkang is believed to have studied in Canada, according to Chinese business sources. A son of the Standing Committee's fourth-ranking member, Jia Qinglin, is rumored to have been living in Australia, while granddaughter Jasmine Li studied at Stanford. The list even includes Liu's close friend, Xi Jinping, the general secretary in waiting. Xi's daughter is studying at Harvard, appearing to show great caution in her dealings with the Western world.

The downfall of Chongqing Party chief Bo Xilai presents the best-known case of a princeling who has been what Liu might call "infiltrated." Family members of Bo, another of Liu's close princeling friends, have paid an enormous price for not being as guarded as their elite peers. If Saif Qaddafi exposed himself to what Liu calls Western spies at the London School of Economics, then Bo's son, Bo Guagua did so while studying at Oxford and Harvard, where he grew dangerously entwined with a British businessman and casual intelligence informant, Neil Heywood. (Bo Xilai's career exploded in March; it emerged soon after that his wife, Gu Kailai, had murdered Heywood last November.)

Liu voiced fears about his colleagues' vulnerabilities just days after Bo Xilai's kingdom in Chongqing began to crumble, though it's unclear what effect Liu's words have had. "U.S., British, and other Western intelligence agencies brainwashed Qaddafi's second son, Saif, while he was studying in the West," said Liu in his February speech to officers in the People's Liberation Army's (PLA) sprawling Logistics Department, where he is political commissar. (The department handles enormous contracts in land, housing, food, finance, and services for China's 2.3 million-strong military.)

"Saif accepted the West's so-called ‘universal values' of freedom and democracy and then imparted these values to his father, who abandoned his once-strongly propagated ‘Libyan values', teetering towards the West until finally losing faith," he said.

Liu's speech built upon an internal report by one of the Party's senior ideological warriors, Zhu Jidong, who holds a position China's propaganda system (which he asked me not to identify).

Zhu told me that the West's "hegemonic capitalist class" created Western values -- democracy, human rights, and freedom -- disguised them as "universal values," and deployed them to infiltrate and brainwash Chinese people via non-government organizations, the media, and the children of top leaders. This Western conspiracy, rather than any natural evolution in the aspirations of an increasingly prosperous, pluralistic, and well-informed society, is the root cause of the ideological warfare that is now raging across China, says Zhu. "Universal values and red culture are in conflict."

Liu lives more frugally than many of his princeling peers and makes a point of demonstrating that he can easily mix with peasants and rural cadres. He loves to golf but avoids visiting any of Beijing's luxurious golf courses because that would clash with his revolutionary ideals. (And it would hurt his carefully constructed image.) He confines himself to belting balls against a net he has erected on the roof of his villa, which was allocated to him when he was in the People's Armed Police, China's internal security force.

Over the last year, Liu has marshaled his family's prestige and gambled his future by challenging what he sees as the corruption, inequality, and hypocrisy of the Communist Party and the PLA. As I reported in April in Foreign Policy, Liu described the army beset by a disease of "malignant individualism" where officers follow only orders that suit them, advance on the strength of their connections, and openly sell their services at "clearly marked prices."

Some Chinese netizens see parallels between the ideals that Liu has both publically and privately fought for, and those that motivated the Libyan people to overthrow Qaddafi. When confronted with the thought of losing the regime his father helped establish, however, Liu instinctively identifies with the predicament of the dictator -- rather than the people he brutalized.

Zhu's internal report mentioned "family members;" but Liu focused only on the children. Liu's only son is developmentally disabled, excluding him from college. His sister, Liu Ting, was educated at Harvard and runs the Asia Link Group, a lucrative consultancy that helps foreign businesses cut through the opaque bureaucracy responsible for China's tightly restricted aviation airspace.

Whatever Liu's motivations, Chinese officials responsible for counterintelligence share his concerns. "Yes, this is something we worry a lot about," says a security official. (When pressed, however, the official said he may yet send his own daughter overseas for college for a more open-minded education.) High-ranking officials are struggling to reconcile the need to maintain the ideological purity of the collective while giving their own children, some of whom are among the 1.4 million Chinese who were studying abroad as of the end of 2011, the chance for a better life.

In recent years, as internal stresses have grown, the Party has increasingly blamed the West for China's domestic instability. In the 1950s, Chairman Mao seized on U.S. Secretary of State John Foster Dulles's concept of China's "Peaceful Evolution" -- wherein the children of Chinese leaders would want more freedom, a path that could lead to democracy -- to claim that Western leaders had a strategy to erode the ideological integrity of China's leading families, over the course of several generations. After the Tibet riots in 2008, the phrase returned to prominence the pages of the People's Daily, the official newspaper of the Communist Party.

The People's Daily printed the phrase "Western hostile forces" only twice in 2007. In 2009, however, the year of the bloody Xinjiang riots, it used the phrase 16 times. In 2011, when fear of revolutionary contagion was at its height, the phrase-count jumped to 21; In February, days after the Egyptian people forced then-President Hosni Mubarak to step down, a Chinese security chief warned of "schemes of some Western hostile forces attempting to Westernize and split us." In mid October 2011, after Mubarak had appeared in court in a steel cage, and NATO forces and Libyan rebels were closing in on Qaddafi, President Hu Jintao sounded the alarm about nefarious Western forces -- the first time he is known to have used the phrase."International hostile forces are intensifying the strategic plot of Westernizing and dividing China," Hu said in a speech to party leaders, not published until this January.

The Maoist Internet platform Red Flag published some of Zhu's report last November. A classified section, which deals directly with lessons for China, has been seen by Foreign Policy. It says Chinese children educated in the West are at risk of being "infiltrated by hostile forces" and must, therefore, be strictly screened and monitored before returning to important work.

"When employing those with experience of studying or working in the West we must first examine their political stance," wrote Zhu. "Those who have a question or problem of politics should be strictly banned from service no matter how talented and capable they are." Zhu wrote that all returnees need to be urgently "investigated ... as soon as possible to check whether they have been ‘peacefully evolved' by the West." Only with such vigilance, Zhu insists -- to the point of treating the children of the Party as potential traitors -- can China avoid the disastrous road of privatization and Westernization dressed up as "reform." (Chinese who have studied abroad, including princelings, are screened before taking significant government positions, but Zhu recommends the process be far more rigorous.)

Zhu's report seemed to resonate among China's leaders, at least those whose children have not lived overseas. "There were a few ministry and provincial level leaders who rang me directly or reached me through other channels," said Zhu, in the March interview. "Some believed my warning was excellent; others felt it did not go far enough."

Liu told his officers in February that Western brainwashing of Chinese children was part of a much larger ideological struggle: amorphous enemy forces had precipitated the Arab Spring and then turned their "spears" towards China. "We must not change our beliefs," he said. "Once we lose our pursuit and veneration of long-term common ideals we have lost our flag and lost our spirit, even lost our nation." Zhu and Liu both believe the Party should return to the "serve the people" ethos of the early Maoist era. It's an uphill battle that Liu may no longer be in the position to fight.

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When Problems are so Big & Your Strength is no Longer enough to CaRRy them, Don't Give uP; Because where your Strength Ends the Grace of Almighty ALLAH Begins

Just as the Indian subcontinental plate has a tendency to constantly rub and push against the Eurasian tectonic plate, causing friction and volatility in the entire Himalayan mountain range, India’s bilateral relationship with China is also a subtle, unseen, but ongoing and deeply felt collision, the affects of which have left a convoluted lineage. Tensions between the two powers have come to influence everything from their military and security decisionmaking to their economic and diplomatic maneuvering, with implications for wary neighbors and faraway allies alike. The relationship is complicated by layers of rivalry, mistrust, and occasional cooperation, not to mention actual geographical disputes.

Distant neighbors buffered by Tibet and the Himalayas for millennia, China and India became next-door neighbors with contested frontiers and disputed histories in 1950, following the occupation of Tibet by Mao’s People’s Liberation Army (PLA). While the rest of the world started taking note of China’s rise during the last decade of the twentieth century, India has been warily watching China’s rise ever since a territorial dispute erupted in a brief but full-scale war in 1962, followed by skirmishes in 1967 and 1987.

Several rounds of talks held since 1981 have failed to resolve the disputed claims. During his last visit to India, in 2010, Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao dashed any hopes of early border settlement, stating that it would take a very long time to settle the boundary issue—a situation that in many ways works to Beijing’s advantage. An unsettled border provides China the strategic leverage to keep India uncertain about its intentions, and nervous about its capabilities, while exposing India’s vulnerabilities and weaknesses, and encouraging New Delhi’s “good behavior” on issues of vital concern. Besides, as the ongoing unrest and growing incidents of self-immolations by Buddhist monks in Tibet show, Beijing has not yet succeeded in pacifying and Sinicizing Tibet, as it has Inner Mongolia. The net result is that the 2,520-mile Sino-Indian frontier, one of the longest inter-state boundaries in the world, remains China’s only undefined land border. It is also becoming heavily militarized, as tensions rise over China’s aggressive patrolling on the line of actual control (LAC) and its military drills, using live ammunition, for a potential air and land campaign to capture high-altitude mountain passes in Tibet.

Over the last decade, the Chinese have put in place a sophisticated military infrastructure in the Tibet Autonomous Region (TAR) adjoining India: five fully operational air bases, several helipads, an extensive rail network, and thirty thousand miles of roads—giving them the ability to rapidly deploy thirty divisions (fifteen thousand soldiers each) along the border, a three-to-one advantage over India. China has not only increased its military presence in Tibet but is also ramping up its nuclear arsenal. In addition, the PLA’s strategic options against India are set to multiply as Chinese land and rail links with Pakistan, Nepal, Burma, and Bangladesh improve.

Developments on the disputed Himalayan borders are central to India’s internal debate about the credibility of its strategic deterrent and whether to test nuclear weapons again. Being the weaker power, India is far more concerned about the overall military balance tilting to its disadvantage. India sees China everywhere because of Beijing’s “hexiao gongda” policy in South Asia: “uniting with the small”—Pakistan, Bangladesh, Nepal, Burma, and Sri Lanka—“to counter the big”—India. When combined with Chinese nuclear and missile transfers to Pakistan and building of port facilities around India’s periphery, and a dramatic increase in the PLA’s incursions and transgressions across the LAC, the official Indian perception of China has undergone a dramatic shift since 2006, with China now being widely seen as posing a major security threat in the short to medium term rather than over the long term. The Indian military, long preoccupied with war-fighting scenarios against Pakistan, has consequently turned its attention to the China border, and unveiled a massive force modernization program, to cost $100 billion over the next decade, that includes the construction of several strategic roads and the expansion of rail networks, helipads, and airfields all along the LAC. Other measures range from raising a new mountain strike corps and doubling force levels in the eastern sector by one hundred thousand troops to the deployment of Sukhoi Su-30MKI aircraft, spy drones, helicopters, and ballistic and cruise missile squadrons to defend its northeastern state of Arunachal Pradesh, territory three times the size of Taiwan that the Chinese invaded in 1962 and now claim sovereignty over as “Southern Tibet.”

Propelled by incidents related to border disputes, Chinese opposition to the US-India nuclear energy deal, India’s angst over the growing trade deficit due to perceived Chinese unfair trade practices, potential Chinese plans to dam the Brahmaputra River, and the “war talk” in the official Chinese media in the 2007 to 2009 period (reminding India not to forget “the lessons of 1962”), mutual distrust between the Indian and Chinese peoples is growing. Clearly, China’s extraordinary economic performance over the last three decades has changed the dynamics of the relationship. China and India had similar average incomes in the late 1970s, but thirty years later they find themselves at completely different stages of development. China’s economic reforms—launched in 1978, nearly thirteen years before India’s in 1991—changed their subsequent growth trajectories by putting China far ahead of India in all socioeconomic indices. Both China’s gross domestic product and military expenditure are now three times the size of India’s; recent surveys conducted by Pew Global Research show a growth in popular distrust, with just twenty-five percent of Indians holding a favorable view of China in 2011, down from thirty-four percent in 2010 and fifty-seven percent in 2005. Likewise, just twenty-seven percent of Chinese hold a favorable view of India in 2011, down from thirty-two percent in 2010, with studies of Internet content showing a large degree of “hostility and contempt for India.”

Nor is there much effort to keep these emotions submerged. Reacting to the test launch in mid-April of a long-range Agni-V ballistic missile, dubbed the “China killer” by India’s news media, a Chinese daily wryly noted that “India stands no chance in an overall arms race with China,” because “China’s nuclear power is stronger and more reliable.” The unequal strategic equation, in particular the Chinese perception of India as a land of irreconcilable socioreligious cleavages with an inherently unstable polity and weak leadership that is easily contained through proxies, aggravates tensions between the two. In 2008, an official reassessment of China’s capabilities and intentions led the Indian military to adopt a “two-front war” doctrine against what is identified as a “collusive threat” posed by two closely aligned nuclear-armed neighbors, Pakistan and China. This doctrine validates the long-held belief of India’s strategic community that China is following a protracted strategy of containing India’s rise.

India is also responding by strengthening its strategic links with Afghanistan, Tajikistan, Mongolia, Vietnam, and Burma—countries on China’s periphery. In testimony to the US Senate in February, James Clapper, the director of national intelligence, noted that “the Indian military is strengthening its forces in preparation to fight a limited conflict along the disputed border, and is working to balance Chinese power projection in the Indian Ocean.” That “balance” includes a strategic tilt toward the United States that has also had a damaging effect on Sino-Indian relations.

Although leaders from both countries often repeat the ritualized denials of conflict and emphasize burgeoning trade ties, such platitudes cannot obliterate the trust deficit. Few if any of China’s strategic thinkers seem to hold positive views of India for China’s future, and vice versa. Chinese strategists keep a wary eye on India’s “great power dreams,” its military spending and weapons acquisitions, and the developments in India’s naval and nuclear doctrines. A dominant theme in Chinese commentary in the last decade is that India’s growing strength—backed by the United States—could tip Asia’s balance of power away from Beijing.

Not surprisingly, bilateral relations between Asia’s giants remain, in the words of Zhang Yan, China’s ambassador to India, “very fragile, very easy to be damaged, and very difficult to repair.” Both have massive manpower resources, a scientific and industrial base, and million-plus militaries. For the first time in more than fifty years, both are moving upward simultaneously on their relative power trajectories. As the pivotal power in South Asia, India perceives itself much as China has traditionally perceived itself in relation to East Asia. Both desire a peaceful security environment to focus on economic development and avoid overt rivalry or conflict. Still, the volatile agents of nationalism, history, ambition, strength, and size produce a mysterious chemistry. Neither power is comfortable with the rise of the other. Both seek to envelop neighbors with their national economies. Both are nuclear and space powers with growing ambitions. Both yearn for a multipolar world that will provide them the space for growth and freedom of action. Both vie for leadership positions in global and regional organizations and have attempted to establish a sort of Monroe Doctrine in their respective neighborhoods—without much success.

And both remain suspicious of each other’s long-term agenda and intentions. Each perceives the other as pursuing hegemony and entertaining imperial ambitions. Both are non–status quo powers: China in terms of territory, power, and influence; India in terms of status, power, and influence. Both seek to expand their power and influence in and beyond their regions at each other’s expense. China’s “Malacca paranoia” is matched by India’s “Hormuz dilemma.” If China’s navy is going south to the Indian Ocean, India’s navy is going east to the Pacific Ocean. Both suffer from a siege mentality born out of their elites’ acute consciousness of the divisive tendencies that make their countries’ present political unity so fragile. After all, much of Chinese and Indian history is made up of long periods of internal disunity and turmoil, when centrifugal forces brought down even the most powerful empires. Each has its vulnerabilities—regional conflicts, poverty, and religious divisions for India; the contradiction between a market economy and Leninist politics for China. Both are plagued with domestic linguistic, ethno-religious, and politico-economic fault lines that could be their undoing if not managed properly.

In other words, China and India are locked in a classic security dilemma: one country sees its actions as defensive, but the same actions appear aggressive to the other. Beijing fears that an unrestrained Indian power—particularly one that is backed by the West and Japan—would not only threaten China’s security along its restive southwestern frontiers (Tibet and Xinjiang) but also obstruct China’s expansion southwards. Faced with exponential growth in China’s power and influence, India feels the need to take counterbalancing measures and launch strategic initiatives to emerge as a great power, but these are perceived as challenging and threatening in China.

China’s use of regional and international organizations to institutionalize its power while either denying India access to these organizations or marginalizing India within them has added a new competitive dynamic to the relationship. In the past decade, India has found itself ranged against China at the UN Security Council, East Asia Summit, the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation, the Nuclear Suppliers Group, and the Asian Development Bank. In 2009, China vetoed a development plan for India by the latter in the disputed Arunachal Pradesh, thereby internationalizing a bilateral territorial dispute. In a tit-for-tat response, New Delhi has kept Beijing out of India-led multilateral frameworks such as the Bay of Bengal Initiative for Multi-Sectoral Technical and Economic Cooperation, the India-Brazil-South Africa Dialogue, and the Mekong–Ganga Cooperation forums, and rejected China’s request to be included as observer or associate member into the 33-member Indian Ocean Naval Symposium, started by India in 2008.

Resource scarcity has added a maritime dimension to this geopolitical rivalry. As China’s and India’s energy dependence on the Middle East and Africa increases, both are actively seeking to forge closer defense and security ties with resource supplier nations (e.g., Saudi Arabia and Iran), and to develop appropriate naval capabilities to dominate the sea lanes through which the bulk of their commerce flows. Since seventy-seven percent of China’s oil comes from the Middle East and Africa, Beijing has increased its activities in the Indian Ocean region by investing in littoral states’ economies, building ports and infrastructure, providing weaponry, and acquiring energy resources. Nearly ninety percent of Chinese arms sales go to countries located in the Indian Ocean region. Beijing is investing heavily in developing the Gwadar deep-sea port in Pakistan, and naval bases in Sri Lanka, Bangladesh, and Myanmar. Whether one calls it a “string of pearls” or a series of places at which China’s navy can base or simply be resupplied, that navy is setting up support infrastructure in strategic locations along the same sea lanes of communication that could neutralize India’s geographical advantage in the Indian Ocean region. A recent commentary from the official Xinhua news outlet called for setting up three lines of navy supply bases in the northern Indian Ocean, the western Indian Ocean, and the southern Indian Ocean. It stated: “China needs to establish overseas strategic support stations for adding ship fuel, re-supply of necessities, staff break time, repairs of equipment, and weapons in Pakistan, Sri Lanka, and Myanmar, which will be the core support bases in the North Indian Ocean supply line; Djibouti, Yemen, Oman, Kenya, Tanzania, and Mozambique, which will be the core support bases in the West Indian Ocean supply line; and Seychelles and Madagascar, which will be the core support bases in the South Indian Ocean supply line.”

For its part, New Delhi is pursuing the same strategy as Beijing and creating its own web of relationships with the littoral states, both bilaterally and multilaterally, through the Indian Ocean Naval Symposium, to ensure that if the military need arises, the necessary support infrastructure and network will be in place. India has also stepped up defense cooperation with Oman and Israel in the west, while upgrading military ties with the Maldives, Madagascar, and Myanmar in the Indian Ocean, and with Singapore, Indonesia, Thailand, Vietnam, Taiwan, the Philippines, Australia, Japan, and the United States in the east. In December 2006, Admiral Sureesh Mehta, then India’s naval chief, expanded the conceptual construct of India’s “greater strategic neighborhood” to include potential sources of oil and gas imports located across the globe—from Venezuela to the Sakhalin Islands in Russia. The Indian navy currently has a stronger naval presence on the Indian Ocean than does China. It is strengthening its port infrastructure with new southern ports, which allow greater projection into the ocean. Taking a leaf out of China’s book, the new focus is to develop anti-access and area-denial capabilities that will thwart any Chinese attempt at encirclement or sea-access denial.

In short, maritime competition is intensifying as Indian and Chinese navies show the flag in the Pacific and Indian oceans with greater frequency. This rivalry could spill into the open after a couple of decades, when one Indian aircraft carrier will be deployed in the Pacific Ocean and one Chinese aircraft carrier in the Indian Ocean—ostensibly to safeguard their respective trade and energy routes.

In turn, India’s “Look East” policy is a manifestation of its own strategic intent to compete for influence in the wider Asia-Pacific region. Just as China will not concede India’s primacy in South Asia and the Indian Ocean region, India seems unwilling to accept Southeast and East Asia as China’s sphere of influence. Just as China’s rise is viewed positively in the South Asian region among the small countries surrounding India with which New Delhi has had difficult relations, India’s rise is viewed in positive-sum terms among China’s neighbors throughout East and Southeast Asia. Over the last two decades, India has sought to enhance its economic and security ties with those Northeast and Southeast Asian nations (Mongolia, South Korea, Japan, Taiwan, Vietnam, Singapore, Thailand, Indonesia, and Australia) that worry about China more than any other major power. As China’s growing strength creates uneasiness in the region, India’s balancing role is welcome within the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) in order to influence China’s behavior in cooperative directions. While the Southeast Asian leaders seek to deter China from utilizing its growing strength for coercive purposes and to maintain regional autonomy, Indian strategic analysts favor an Indian naval presence in the South China Sea and the Pacific Ocean to counter Chinese naval presence in the Indian Ocean. On maritime security, Southeast Asians seem more willing to cooperate with India than China, especially in the Strait of Malacca.

A key element of India’s Pacific outreach has been regular naval exercises, port calls, security dialogues, and more than a dozen defense cooperation agreements. India has welcomed Vietnam’s offer of berthing rights in Na Trang Port in the South China Sea, and news reports suggest that India might offer BrahMos cruise missiles and other military hardware at “friendship prices” to Vietnam. The conclusion of free-trade agreements with Singapore, South Korea, Malaysia, Japan, and the ASEAN, coupled with New Delhi’s participation in multilateral forums such as the East Asia Summit and the ASEAN Plus Eight defense ministers’ meetings, have also reinforced strategic ties. India’s determination to strengthen its strategic partnership with Japan and Vietnam, commitment to pursue joint oil exploration with Hanoi in the South China Sea waters in the face of Chinese opposition, and an emphasis on the freedom of navigation are signs of India maneuvering to be seen as a counterweight to Chinese power in East Asia. New Delhi is also scaling up defense ties with Tokyo, Seoul, and Canberra.

The US-India partnership is also emerging as an important component of India’s strategy to balance China’s power. India seeks US economic and technological assistance. It helps this relationship that India’s longtime security concerns—China and Pakistan—also now happen to be the United States’ long-term and immediate strategic concerns as well. Both the Bush and Obama administrations have encouraged India’s involvement in a wider Asian security system to balance a rising China and declining Japan. Apparently, US weakness—real or perceived—invites Chinese assertiveness. Since the United States does not wish to see Asia dominated by a single hegemonic power or a coalition of states, India’s economic rise is seen as serving Washington’s long-term interests by ensuring that there be countervailing powers in Asia—China, Japan, and India, with the United States continuing to act as an “engaged offshore power balancer.”

The “India factor” is increasingly entering the ongoing US policy debate over China. Asia-Pacific is now the Indo-Pacific, a term underlining the centrality of India in the new calculus of regional power. The 2010 US Quadrennial Defense Review talked of India’s positive role as a “net security provider in the Indian Ocean and beyond.” India’s “Look East” policy, which envisions high-level engagement with “China-wary” nations (South Korea, Japan, Taiwan, Vietnam, Thailand, Indonesia, and Australia), dovetails with the US policy of establishing closer ties with countries beyond Washington’s traditional treaty partners to maintain US predominance. The US-Indian strategic engagement, coupled with India’s expanding naval and nuclear capabilities and huge economic potential, have made India loom larger on China’s radar screen. An editorial in a Shanghai daily last November lamented the fact that “India will not allow itself to stay quietly between the US and China. It wants to play triangle affairs with the duo, and will do anything it can to maximize its benefit out of it. Therefore, China will find it hard to buy India over.” The Chinese fear that the Indian-American cooperation in defense, high-tech R&D, nuclear, space, and maritime spheres would prolong US hegemony and prevent the establishment of a post-American, Sino-centric hierarchical regional order in Asia. This tightening relationship, and the possibility that what is presently a tilt on India’s part could turn into a full-fledged alignment, is a major reason for recent deterioration in Chinese-Indian relations.

Although these relations remain unstable and competitive, both have sought to reduce tensions. Despite border disputes, denial of market access, and harsh words against the Dalai Lama, leaders in both countries understand the dangers of allowing problems to overwhelm the relationship. Burgeoning economic ties between the world’s two fastest-growing economies have become the most salient aspect of their bilateral relationship. Trade flows have risen rapidly, from a paltry $350 million in 1993 to $70 billion in 2012, and could surpass $100 billion by 2015. Several joint ventures in power generation, consumer goods, steel, chemicals, minerals, mining, transport, infrastructure, info-tech, and telecommunication are in the works. Intensifying trade, commerce, and tourism could eventually raise the stakes for China in its relationship with India. On the positive side, both share common interests in maintaining regional stability (for example, combating Islamist fundamentalists), exploiting economic opportunities, and maintaining access to energy sources, capital, and markets.

Despite ever-increasing trade volumes, however, there is as yet no strategic congruence between China and India. As in the case of Sino-US and Sino-Japanese ties, Sino-Indian competitive tendencies, rooted in geopolitics and nationalism, are unlikely to be easily offset even by growing economic and trade links. In fact, the economic relationship is heavily skewed. The bulk of Indian exports to China consist of iron ore and other raw materials, while India imports mostly manufactured goods from China—a classic example of the dependency model. Most Indians see China as predatory in trade. New Delhi has lodged the largest number of anti-dumping cases against Beijing in the World Trade Organization. India is keener on pursuing mutual economic dependencies with Japan, South Korea, and Southeast Asian nations through increased trade, investment, infrastructure development, and aid to bolster economic and political ties across Asia that will counter Chinese power.

Even as a range of economic and transnational issues draw them closer together, the combination of internal issues of stability (Tibet and Kashmir), disputes over territory, competition over resources (oil, gas, and water), overseas markets and bases, external overlapping spheres of influence, rival alliance relationships, and ever-widening geopolitical horizons forestall the chances for a genuine Sino-Indian accommodation. Given the broad range of negative attitudes and perceptions each country has for the other, it is indeed remarkable that China and India have been able to keep diplomatic relations from fraying. How long this situation can last is more and more uncertain as each country is increasingly active in what would once have been seen as the other’s “backyard” and both engage in strategic maneuvers to checkmate each other.

Just as China has become more assertive vis-à-vis the United States, Indian policy toward China is becoming tougher. India’s evolving Asia strategy reflects the desire for an arc of partnerships with China’s key neighbors—in Southeast Asia and further east along the Asia-Pacific rim—and the United States that would help neutralize the continuing Chinese military assistance and activity around its own territory and develop counter-leverages of its own vis-à-vis China to keep Beijing sober.

At this point, the two heavyweights circle each other warily, very much aware that their feints and jabs could turn into a future slugging match.

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When Problems are so Big & Your Strength is no Longer enough to CaRRy them, Don't Give uP; Because where your Strength Ends the Grace of Almighty ALLAH Begins