India, May 17 -- China is well-known for categorising its bilateral relationships. It has an "all-weather strategic cooperative partnership" with Pakistan, announced during Communist Party of China (CPC) general secretary and Chinese President Xi Jinping's State visit in 2015. With India, it has a "strategic cooperative partnership" that was upgraded to "even closer partnership for development" in 2014. The US, however, is not seen as a partner but a country with which China seeks a "constructive relationship of strategic stability" - this is how Xi characterised it during his meeting with American President Donald Trump, who, last week, was on his first State visit to China in his second term.

China has called this a "new positioning" f...