India follows 'befriend the far and attack the near' policy: China daily

An editorial in the Chinese newspaper -- People's Daily -- has said that powers that be in Beijing are not surprised or overtly troubled by 'India's hegemonistic designs' in the Asian region, attributing it to New Delhi's 'narrow-minded and intolerable response to outside criticism'.

"Given the country's history, hegemony is a hundred per cent result of British colonialism," the editorial claims in a report on its website.

It further goes on to analyse that in the British era, India as a country covered a vast territory including present-day India, Pakistan, Myanmar, Bangladesh as well as Nepal, and therefore, it was natural for India to take for granted that "it could continue to rule the large area when Britain ended its colonialism in South Asia."

The editorial also accuses authorities in New Delhi of turning a blind eye to the concessions that China has repeatedly made over disputed border issues.

"Many Indians didn't know that Jawaharlal Nehru, the first prime minister of India, had once said that India could not play an inferior role in the world, and it should either be a superpower or disappear. Although the pursuit of being a superpower is justifiable, the dream of being a superpower held by Indians appears impetuous," the editorial suggests.

"Throughout history, India has constantly been under foreign rule. The essence for the rise of India lies in how to be an independent country, to learn to solve the complicated ethnic and religious issues, to protect the country from terrorist attacks, to boost economic development as well as to put more efforts on poverty alleviation," the editorial patronisingly claims.

It warns India that its hegemonistic designs can be geo-politically harmful.

It says that China and other countries in the South Asian neighbourhood are disappointed with India pursuing "a foreign policy of befriend the far and attack the near".

"India, which vows to be a superpower, needs to have its eyes on relations with its neighbours and abandon recklessness and arrogance as the world is undergoing earthshaking changes. For India, easing of tension with China and Pakistan is the only way to become a superpower," the editorial concludes.