Afghanistan’s woes, Pakistan’s chaotic internal affairs and America’s discomfiture in the Af-Pak region are creating a power vacuum that Beijing is working diligently and with quiet focus to fill. As Chinese power seeps in, Delhi is watching nervously to assess whether Beijing will be a menace or a friend.

Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh is very keen to use President Barack Obama’s visit to Delhi in November to establish irreversible momentum towards warm and open relations with the US. In particular, the Indians see close business links with America as an essential path to economic growth and reduction of poverty. But there is concern that Beijing may see the ties as covert hostility to counter China’s ambitions for power in Asia.

In slow ominous steps China and India are moving towards tense diplomatic relations that could create potentially perilous problems for Obama. In his preoccupation with preventing humiliation for Democrats in the November elections, he might find that a graceful exit from the Afghanistan quagmire is harder because of Chinese presence in Pakistan and India’s alarm at Beijing’s maneuvers.

China is discreetly becoming an ally of Pakistan’s army and conservative anti-Indian politicians. It is doing so mainly to obtain secure and fast passage to new ports in South Pakistan and Afghanistan but Islamabad’s generals are starting to see strategic partnership with China as a way of relieving pressure from the US. China cannot replace the US as an aid giver for Pakistanis but it does provide a card worth playing when the US makes threats because of displeasure with the Generals for not doing enough to stop terrorists from crossing into Afghanistan.

Indians are starting to feel China’s hot breath because it is also working to obtain secure access to ports in Myanmar and Bangladesh. Approach roads to the western ports are being built through Tibet. In the east, they are being routed through China’s south eastern tip. Another road, more than half of which will be tunnels, is being built in Tibet from West to East across the Himalayan plateau and low mountains on the Chinese side. The terrains are very inhospitable and require tremendous feats of engineering. But the regions are among China’s least developed and poorest so the trade growth caused by the transport infrastructure will bring great benefits to the local economies.

All of this would cause little alarm were China not building more than a dozen military airfields from West to East very close to India, including a string of well equipped land army bases. It will be able to conduct lethal airstrikes with conventional weapons over almost all Indian territory but India has no riposte other than land-based medium and long distance missiles.

At the same time, Beijing is currying favor with Islamabad by refusing to treat the people of Kashmir as full Indian citizens and gives them travel visas on separate sheets of paper rather than on their Indian passports. Delhi sees this as wily interference in a vital national interest issue despite Beijing’s protestations of friendship.

Such happenings would simply be Sino-Indian matters of minor interest for Washington but Beijing is also raising red flags in other ways. It is increasingly assertive in relations with Japan over disputed islands in the north and claims very large swathes of the resource-rich South China Sea around islands near Vietnam and other regional countries. These activities have forced Secretary of State Hilary Clinton to restate US security and economic interests in the region at several recent meetings.

Far from backing down, Beijing has increased pressure although with typical Chinese symbolism and caution. From Afghanistan to Vietnam, Beijing is using pinprick pressure to see how far it can advance without provoking too much ire or a diplomatic crisis with Washington or Delhi. As the envelop gets pushed, both Washington and Delhi seem at a loss on how to draw red lines for China. But defining them is no less important for the region’s future than finding remedies for the Af-Pak quagmire.