‘China free to set Asia policy’

BEIJING: China should follow its own path and positive agenda for the Asia-Pacific region despite recent steps by the United States to enlist others to encircle it, according to a China expert.

“China is one of those few countries in the international system which is in control of its own destiny,” Sourabh Gupta, a senior fellow at the Washington-based Institute for China-America Studies, said. “If it can attain the potential it has inside, it doesn’t have to depend on or wait for any country, including the US.”