New 'strategic partnership' against China
By Mahmud Ali BBC News
Ships, aircraft and submarines from four countries begin week-long war games in the Bay of Bengal on 4 September.
It is the first flexing of muscles by the newly-formed "Quadrilateral Initiative", which brings together the US, Japan, India and Australia.
Many analysts see the manoeuvres as efforts by a democratic coalition to "contain" rising Chinese power.
Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe arrived in Delhi, offering substantial economic and commercial assistance if India agreed to anchor "an Asian arc of freedom" stretching across the Indian and Pacific Oceans and providing a democratic bulwark - presumably against non-democratic powers.
Defence papers issued by all four governments have described China as a potential threat, and that combined with the launch of the Quad suggest a pattern of alliance-building activities that China cannot ignore.
Perhaps as a sign of things to come, 1,600 Chinese troops travelled to Russia's Ural mountains to join several thousand mostly Russian troops in "Peace Mission 2007" manoeuvres in August.
Story from BBC NEWS:http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/pr/fr/-/2/hi/south_asia/6968412.stm
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