AFTER Mao Zedong’s disastrous tenure in China, during which the Great Leap Forward (1958-62) and its famine caused tens of millions of deaths, followed by the Cultural Revolution, which killed millions, Deng Xiaoping became the country’s paramount leader in 1978. His reforms set China on the road to prosperity. Deng also advocated taoguang yanghui: hide your strength and bide your time. The question for India is: when did that time arrive?

The answer is 2015, marked by seminal developments. Xi Jinping’s ‘Chinese Dream’ increasingly came to be understood as an overarching grand strategy. Western analyses, including debates in the International Affairs and the Council on Foreign Relations’ Grand Designs: Does China Have a Grand Strategy? (2017), examined how Beijing was integrating economics, trade, diplomacy, the Belt and Road Initiative, technology and military power into a coherent national project. This meant an enormous westward reach across Eurasia and the Indian...