China continues its aggressive policies in the Indo-Pacific

NEW DELHI Beijing has been making efforts ever since it assessed it had an opportunity after the global economic downturn in 2008, to alter the present global world order.

- JAYADEVA RANADE

Chinese President Xi Jinping announced China's ambition quite openly at the 19th and 20th Party Congresses. He made it amply clear that China wants to be a "major power with pioneering global influence"-in other words it would have the capacity to influence and create international organisations something only the US presently has, by 2049.

It has accordingly begun building coalitions including by co-opting countries into the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) and BRICS. The Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) has facilitated China's efforts.

Simultaneously, the global configuration of power is changing. The two primary contenders today are the US and the challenger, China.

Chinese President Xi Jinping has invested a lot in Russia and Russian President Vladimir Putin. They incrementally advanced their common agenda during their two Summits by declaring a "no limits friendship". They also agreed on making the existing world order "more fair" and "equitable". China is today the largest country to sustain Russia's effort to withstand Western pressure and despite U.S. and Western sanctions remains Russia's largest trading partner with a trade volume of US$188 billion.