“India will have to craft a new China policy in this changed context where engagement will have to be shaped amidst strategic compulsions,” says Sujit Dutta, senior fellow at the Vivekananda International Foundation. The anti-China bloc has taken concrete shape as US-China ties take a deep downward dive. “US-China rivalry means that India has a strategic ally. The closer India gets to the US, the more integrated it is within the American system of partners and allies, the more access it has to American technology and intelligence, all of which will build India’s capabilities,” says Aparna Pande of the Washington-based Hudson institute. “Fourteen months after PLA entered Indian territory, for the fourth time in eight years, India-China border discussions are at an impasse. New Delhi still rests its hopes that rounds of high-level diplomatic and military negotiations will convince Beijing that the two can…find a compromise that gives India a face saver. Indian leaders are reluctant to admit that China’s ‘two step forward, one step back’ policy has resulted, over the years, in loss of critical territory. They are also yet to acknowledge that China plays by different rules and that India needs to up its game on multiple fronts.”