If the aim is to become a player with some strategic space of its own, not just in the Indian Ocean region but also in the adjoining region, then greater interaction with China is desirable, even necessary.
Defence Minister Nirmala Sitharaman had a brief conversation with Chinese soldiers during her maiden visit to the Nathu La border post in Sikkim and was even seen teaching them how to say 'Namaste'.
The government must figure out what the Chinese game plan is and thwart the endgame before it is upon us, possibly in early winter, advises David Devadas.
Of late, war films -- particularly those that tell stories of the 1971 War and Kargil -- have been produced.
'The notion of a single unarmed town challenging the might of the People's Republic is a little absurd,' says Mihir Sharma.
'But unlike Bond who killed an individual, Israel is killing a nation.'
The photo published by the People's Liberation Army Air Force showing a long-range strategic bomber flying within visible range of Yushan, Taiwan's highest mountain, has caused great concern in Taiwan amid debate about whether the mainland will reunify the island by force, state-run Global Times reported.
The onus today is on China, but it also requires a little diplomatic finesse from India, backed by a modernised armed force, argues BJP MP Subramanian Swamy in this excerpt from his new book, Himalayan Challenge: India, China And The Quest For Peace.
'The Chinese can't be trusted hence the need to verify and re-verify.'
'The intrusion in Chumar, during and beyond the Chinese president's visit, is unprecedented and has qualitatively changed the tone of the India-China relationship,' says Jayadeva Ranade, a member of the National Security Advisory Board.
Why is China's supreme leader promoting Han Chauvinism so aggressively, asks Claude Arpi.
In anticipation of a verdict to be delivered by the International Tribunal of the Permanent Court of Arbitration in The Hague on Tuesday, China has orchestrated a worldwide campaign to defuse its findings.
'The meeting marks the first tentative step in the effort to understand whether the two largest Asian nations can co-exist peacefully while realising their aspirations.' 'Caution and watchful wariness will dominate the effort of both sides,' says Jayadeva Ranade, former RA&W officer and China expert.
'The government must provide more funds to enable the armed forces to fight and win tomorrow's wars,' states Brigadier Gurmeet Kanwal (retd).
'J P Dutta's clownish treatment of history and hard-earned triumph demeans the efforts and sacrifices of real-life martyrs and bravehearts with its pompous ideas of valour, clunky writing and a cadre of lacklustre actors,' says Sukanya Verma.
'A participant in many rounds of the border talks with China once told me that China seemed not interested in resolving the border issue as it wanted to keep it as a ready excuse to intervene in the sub-continent,' says Colonel (retd) Anil A Athale.
'Today, our vast green pastures where local herders used to take their cattle to graze have been taken over by the Chinese.' 'The people in the Galwan Valley have lost their lands where their cattle used to graze.'
Right from conducting nuclear deterrence patrols in 2015 to its destructive space programme, from its back-tracking on economic commitments to its hardened positions on Sino-India border deal -- its approach with India spells Adversarial with a capital A, says Shehzad Poonawalla
A visit by Indian journalists, sponsored by the Chinese government, on Monday turned into a propaganda exercise by the Chinese Army for delivering its message on the prolonged standoff between troops of the two countries in Doklam near Sikkim.
'Given the way in which the PLA operates today, I don't believe local commanders were necessarily acting without approval of higher levels.' 'They were acting in a way which they believed they were carrying out the intent of the higher levels.'
Though the Chinese find it necessary to oppose the visits of Indian leaders to Arunachal Pradesh, they want to keep the objections at a moderate level lest it cast a shadow on Narendra Modi's visit to China in May, says D S Rajan.
We bring you a collection of some of the best photographs taken in the week gone by.
Building relations in the Indian Ocean, New Delhi has gifted naval vessels to Mauritius, the Maldives and Sri Lanka, even as China eyes the same locales.
The IAF chief also said Pakistan has become a pawn of Chinese policy and its dependence on China would increase further in future. He said India needs to understand the interplay of some major events in its vicinity that would impact the security scenario of the region.
'China wants to change the status quo of India's Northern Border and proves that it can do whatever it wants in what it perceives as its own territory,' states Claude Arpi.
'It is nobody's contention that uncomfortable questions regarding national security should not be raised. But that is a topic for another day and another time when the immediate threat has faded,' argues Vivek Gumaste.
Despite vast differences in the way the media operates in the two countries, an India-China media forum will go a long way in improving understanding between the two countries, says Srikanth Kondapalli.
On the title page of the Top Secret Report, Henderson-Brooks quotes the Chinese tactician Sun Tzu: 'Know yourself, know your enemy: A hundred battles, a hundred victories', says Claude Arpi, highlighting where the Indian Army and government failed to counter the Chinese attack in 1962.
Major General Sujan Singh Uban, a legendary veteran of the Second World War, was a natural choice to raise, train and command the Special Frontier Force and mould them into a well oiled fighting machine, recalls his son Inspector General Gurdip Singh Uban (retd), who led SFF troops during the Kargil War.
'The one thing India has over these two States, whose toughness awes us, is our ability to embrace diversity with ease. 'The way ahead lies in learning from Vajpayee's method, not in Xi Jinping's,' says Shekhar Gupta.
India has the ability in all respects to be a great power and address our security challenges in the best national interests, says Commodore Venugopal Menon (retd).
Indian ranks fifth in the world according to a report that ranks the strength of 20 countries according to weaponry, including tanks, aircraft, helicopters and submarines.
Samdong Rimpoche's visit to China materialised against the backdrop of strained India-China relations consequent to the face-off between Indian and Chinese troops at Doklam, says former RAW officer Jayadeva Ranade.
China on Wednesday accused India of "trampling" on the Panchsheel principles and asked New Delhi to "correct its mistakes" as soon as possible by pulling back troops.
'The last ten months show that India is not going to trust China.' 'Our military commanders are not going to believe that all is well till it actually is.'
Initial information from a reliable police source said that the two women killed in the blast were Chinese nationals and may have been the target of the blast.
He called for delineation of the 3,488-km Line of Actual Control (LAC) which China has refused earlier.
