CHINA’S rise has not been improvised; it reflects a coherent grand strategy aimed at diluting US' primacy over time. That strategy is geographically phased – focused first on Eurasia and the maritime approaches that sustain China's economy, not on peripheral land wars. Seen in this light, the Himalayan frontier with India is a secondary theatre. A large-scale war there would do little to advance Beijing's core objectives and could, in fact, set them back.AdvertisementAuthoritative Chinese texts reveal this hierarchy as much by omission as by emphasis. China's National Defense in the New Era (2019), the 2015 Military Strategy guideline, the…