This view is structurally and strategically flawed, as Chellaney’s parameter focuses on the “diluted” Quadrilateral Security Dialogue (QSD), or Quad, per his selective reading of President Joe Biden's Indo-Pacific strategy, especially on the Quad.

Yet, how the Quad must hang tightly together, with Australia, India, Japan and the United States functioning as one and the same, is the countervailing mechanism to the purported revisionism of China in the “Himalayas and the South China Sea”. The two areas Chellaney has flagged ignore one critical factor.

It was India that chose not to aggrandize their Russian partner by abstaining from condemning the actions of President Vladimir Putin in the special emergency session on the “Unity for Peace” resolution of the United Nations General Assembly in early March.

Somewhat ironically, India's stance at the emergency session, which had been convened for only the 10th time since the UN was founded in 1945, mirrored that of China.

On the contrary, the "war" in Ukraine, more precisely the Russian aggression, was the fault of the West, as John Mearsheimer has put it. But such folly by Putin, Mearsheimer argues, would be the best way yet to wreck Russia.

China, acutely aware of this warning, has pivoted to playing the role of "mediator" to save Putin.