India, May 25 -- For much of the past decade, it appeared that China was invincible. From conceiving and operationalising the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) to sending signals of military predominance in the vicinity, from continuing on a trajectory of high economic growth to becoming a political player in countries across South Asia, Africa and Latin America, from seeking more space in international governance structures to cracking down on Hong Kong, Tibet and Xinjiang, and from managing to keep Covid-19 numbers extraordinarily low in the early period of the pandemic to creating a web of economic interdependencies, Xi Jinping was presiding over a new, assertive, and successful China....