Trump may move closer to India to balance China

The Indo-US relations will become an important part of President-elect Donald Trump's diplomacy to "suppress" China, but it will have limited impact on Beijing due New Delhi's resistance to a quasi-alliance" with Washington to retain an independent foreign policy, the Chinese state media said today.

The opinion piece titled 'Trump may be cool to alliance with Delhi' said, "With the purpose of stabilising the external situation and straightening out problems at home, the Trump administration will seek an improving relationship with India," an article in the state-run Global Times said today.

The commentary however said that India will not be able to assist the US much due to its own domestic problems, and US's enthusiasm thus to build a quasi-alliance will decrease.

It further said that India "as a global power sticking to non-alignment diplomacy" 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," the article said.

When dealing with global challenges such as climate change, nuclear proliferation and terrorism, the US may require India to make greater contributions to specific fields which only the US is concerned about, it said.

"His will reduce India's trust in the US, and weaken the basis for deepening bilateral cooperation to the level the US looks forward to," it said.

Detailing limitations of US-India relations under the Trump administration, the article said it will have a "limited impact on China".

"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," it said.

Chinese official media began attacking Trump after his tweets yesterday questioning for the first time after his election, China's currency devaluation and the Beijing's claims on South China Sea.