China's main allies to counter the United States in South Asia include Pakistan and Russia while India figures among countries that want to be strategically placed against Washington in the region, a Bangladeshi strategic analyst said on Tuesday.

In the conference on Asian security and China, organised by the Institute of Defence Studies and Analyses in New Delhi, Mohammad Abdul Mannan, a foreign policy analyst at the Bangladesh Institute of International Strategic Studies, said, Beijing's 'periphery policy' [regarding Asian neighbours] was divided into three categories.

The first category, including Islamabad and Moscow, had countries favouring China's interest in building a regional order with multiple actors, at the same time recognising Beijing's importance as a 'strategic power and balancer'.

The second category consisting of India, among others, favoured preserving the status quo whereby China will not be a counterweight to the United States, he said.

Countries like the United States and Japan fell in the third category, Mannan said, who perceived China's rise as a challenge to regional and international order, and cooperate to build a multilateral arrangement in China's neighbourhood to prevent it from becoming a threat to this category's interests.

Stressing that American hegemony in world affairs had the Chinese leadership concerned, he said Beijing's strategy in the post-Cold War period reflected more economic content than political issues.

Outlining the economic content of Beijing's security thinking, Mannan said China sought to develop and maintain cooperation with South Asian countries in trade, investment and technology.

However, for pursuing these objectives, Beijing sought friendly relations not only with like-minded countries like Pakistan and Russia but also India, which belonged to the second category.

Mannan emphasised that Beijing did not support any secessionist movement and its 'backer' in the region.

He, however, also drew attention on India emerging as a power in the region, both in terms of its military capability and burgeoning economic might and the Chinese taking cognisance of it.

He said India's foreign policy was adjusting to post-Cold War exigencies, and the country is moving ahead with New Delhi's relations with its East Asian neighbours.

Since India had all the strategic importance that the United States needs, Washington is looking towards New Delhi as a major Asian actor to counter China, he said.

He said Bangladesh was a 'like-minded country of China' but Dhaka's interests were fundamentally different from the ones like Pakistan.

While Pakistan cultivated its relation with China vis-ŕ-vis its traditional foe India, Dhaka's relationship with Beijing was not directed against regional power, he said.

According to Mannan, Bangladesh was weary of the India-Pakistan rivalry and possible nuclear exchange. He said Dhaka would be relieved to see improved Sino-Indian relations as it could remove New Delhi's ‘suspicions' regarding Bangladesh's relationship with China.