In politics, if you are criticized from all sides, it’s usually a sign you’ve reached a good compromise. So it was with Switzerland’s recently unveiled China Strategy: It was seen as either being too harsh or way too lax on China.
As China increases its power and moves westwards, Russia is looking more to the East. The Sino-Russia relationship is more than a partnership, but less than an alliance as both countries share an ideology based on the notion of sovereignty.
While China’s largest neighbor India is expected to overtake China by population within only a few years, it is struggling in most other areas to compete with the other giant emerging country.
China has responded to the call for investments in Africa like no other country since the end of the 1990s. Its relationships with African countries has also become ever more political.
In Cambodia and Laos, China is the largest source of development assistance and investment. Both governments maintain close relations with China, where its presence is more marked than anywhere else in Southeast Asia.
The Indo-Pacific being home to significant global trading routes is not only of strategic importance to China. Once again it has become the focus of a global contest for power.
