OPINION / VIEWPOINT By Long Xingchun Published: Apr 01, 2021 04:08 PM China India Photo: GTA view in New Delhi's strategic circle argues that China benefited greatly from its engagement with the US from 1972 to around the year 2000, and thus, India should learn from China to use the US chariot to achieve its own development. There is no problem at all for New Delhi to strengthen its economic ties with Washington, as the US remains the world's largest economy today. But there is a big difference between the India-US proximity now and China and the US moving close back then. First, Beijing and Washington began their cooperation partly to jointly confront the Soviet Union during the Cold War era. The US almost had no economic exchanges with its then-rival, the Soviet Union. But now the Cold War has been long over, and China is not the new Soviet Union. China is still quite close with the US, especially economically. The large scale of trade between the two countries is self-evident.