China’s profession of friendship with India is suspected to be a tactical move in the wider strategic game of China’s rise as an East Asian and Pacific power, argues this paper.

India’s role in the Asia–Pacific is still circumscribed by a number of restraints that act to shape a ‘continental’ posture to its security—despite its ‘Look East’ rhetoric. Factors determining the continental posture include India’s difficult internal and border security environments; its large number of people still living in poverty; its strategy of ‘inclusive growth’, which...