With United States President-elect Donald Trump taking aim at China in recent days, a Beijing newspaper suggested on Tuesday that the next US administration could look to build "a quasi-alliance with India to restrict China".

CHINA RATTLED BY TRUMP'S ACTIONS

While Trump was seen as the favored candidate by many Chinese as a supposedly pragmatic deal-maker as opposed to the supposedly more ideological Hillary Clinton, the Chinese media have been somewhat rattled by his phone call with Taiwan President Tsai Ing-wen and his tweets attacking China on trade and the South China Sea.

A commentary published Tuesday in the Communist Party-run Global Times, a hawkish tabloid, suggested the President-elect may look to build alliances with Asian countries, and India in particular, to restrict China. The commentary struck a somewhat different note from earlier Chinese arguments that a more insular America under Trump might give China a freer hand in Asia.

"In view of the rapid growth of Chinese influence in the Asia-Pacific region, Trump will take advantage of US relationship with India as a balance against China," said Li Haidong, professor with the Institute of International Relations at China Foreign Affairs University.

INDIA NOT TO RECIPROCATE?

At the same time, he suggested that India might not readily join such a "quasi-alliance" because "the country owns an independent diplomatic tradition".

The commentary suggested that India-US relations "will become an important part of Trump's diplomacy". "With the purpose of stabilising the external situation and straightening out problems at home, the Trump administration will seek an improving relationship with India," Li suggested.

Yet the scholar countered that India "due to its own domestic problems" could only "play a limited role in assisting the US in solving headaches" which could lead the Trump administration to eventually reconsider roping Delhi into an Asian alliance.

"As a global power sticking to non-alignment diplomacy, India probably will not set a goal of allying with the US in suppressing China as the US hopes. Therefore, there are unbridgeable differences between American intentions for developing a close relationship with India to balance China and India's concept of developing independent diplomacy toward the US and China," Li wrote. As as result, Li suggested that "the intensive US-India security cooperation during the Obama administration will be changed due to Trump's adjustment in diplomacy, easing off the pressure on China".

He argued that Trump's "economic nationalism" could also lead to some divergences with India. The US President-elect has already spoken of curtailing visas and pledged to limit the loss of American jobs to India and China.

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