As Pallavi Aiyar, a foreign correspondent in Beijing for several years, says, ‘Foreign affairs and China’s international relations remains a subject controlled by the government and independent writings on the topic are forbidden…Writings on [such subjects] in Chinese media therefore almost always have official sanction even if they do not always reflect the government’s official position.’

Using state-controlled media to send signals to other countries is an old trick. In this case, it allows the Chinese government to make  threats, yet claim to honour commitments under its 2002 agreement with ASEAN, where the parties pledged to ‘undertake to resolve  territorial and jurisdictional disputes by peaceful means, without resorting to the threat or use of force, through friendly consultations and negotiations by sovereign states directly concerned.’

China has hardened its position on disputed maritime boundaries with Southeast Asian countries, just like it did in 2006 over its land boundaries with India. It is no surprise that China is working to settle the maritime boundaries dispute in the South China Sea through bilateral negotiations with each of the numerous claimants. In doing so, China not only ensures that it can prevail over its smaller, weaker neighbours one-by-one, but also undermines the claim that ASEAN is a geopolitical entity. Nevertheless, what really makes Beijing apoplectic is when the US takes ASEAN’s side, as it did last month, so as to check China’s dominance.,

But the US approach has some natural limitations.  Acting on its own, an overstretched US cannot balance China everywhere. Even after recovering from the latest of its periodic bouts of declinism and self-doubt, it does not have the resources to check the expansion of Chinese power in theatres like East Asia, Afghanistan-Pakistan, Central Asia, the Middle East and Africa. Washington will be forced to prioritise where it will challenge China and where it will concede. Of these, East Asia presents the US with a conundrum: formal and informal alliance commitments require the US to stay in the region, where China is, relatively at its strongest. The sensible strategy of contesting where you are relatively strong and conceding where you are not, is not an option unless the US throws away its alliances with Japan, South Korea and Taiwan.

This is a serious problem because other regions continue to demand US attention. Even if the US relies less on Middle Eastern oil, the region is important because both China and its allies depend on it. It can’t easily abandon Israel either.

So where can the US retreat from?  Africa, Central Asia or, most importantly from the Indian perspective, Afghanistan-Pakistan?

Beyond President Obama’s deadline for the beginning of a US military withdrawal from Afghanistan, it is possible the US may strategically exit the region, allowing China to take over. It might be the geopolitical equivalent of a poison pill strategy, but it means that India will have to contend with a China-Pakistan axis across its western, northern and eastern borders. India’s neighbourhood could turn hostile.

It makes sense for India to look East beyond Singapore, the psychological limit of its current Look East policy. India must be part of the security equilibrium in East Asia. Its strategic power projection will not be unwelcome in South East Asia. It will also enable the US to remain engaged in Afghanistan-Pakistan by freeing up resources that might otherwise be employed in the Western Pacific. Also, regardless of what the US does, an Indian strategic commitment in East Asia will strengthen its overall negotiation position with China.

During the middle years of this decade, the countries of the region were looking askance at New Delhi, wondering if it was prepared to balance China’s growing power. Unfortunately, successive cabinet ministers visiting the region repeated the cliché ‘that India didn’t believe in balancing’. The first preference of small countries that want to safeguard their independence is to encourage bigger powers to be in balance. Failing this, their second preference is to join the side they think will prevail. Since both the US and India appeared to be disinterested in the region, several South East Asian countries came to believe that they were better off jumping on the Chinese bandwagon.

Whatever the cause of China’s bullying, it has opened another window of opportunity for India to engage with the region. Pre-occupied as it is with the game in the north-western part of the subcontinent, it is unclear if New Delhi sufficiently realises that the seas east of Singapore hold the key to the lands west of the Indus.

India must vastly increase its economic, diplomatic and military presence in and beyond Southeast Asia. Doing so might cause the Global Times to fire some editorial salvos in India’s direction too.

Nitin Pai is founder and fellow for geopolitics at the Takshashila Institution and editor of Pragati – The Indian National Interest Review, a publication on strategic affairs, public policy and governance. He also blogs at The Acorn and is active on Twitter.