China's president will kick off his first South Asia tour with a visit to Beijing's latest investment in Sri Lanka, a USD 1.4-billion port city development to include a marina and a Formula One track -- all just 250 kilometres from India's coast.
Xi Jinping's trip to the site, next to a major Chinese-funded commercial port, will provide a vivid reminder of Beijing's growing economic clout in India's backyard ahead of his maiden visit to New Delhi next week.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi has moved quickly to engage with traditional rival China after taking office in May, inviting Xi to India.
But he has also sought to stop India's neighbours falling further into China's embrace, choosing Bhutan and Nepal for his first foreign trips as prime minister and extending an olive branch to arch-rival Pakistan.
That may not worry China too much. Modi's close relationship with Tokyo, on the other hand, is likely to raise alarm bells in Beijing that analysts say he may be able to use to his advantage.
Modi enjoys a particularly warm friendship with his Japanese counterpart Shinzo Abe.
Both India and Japan are wary of what many see as Beijing's growing territorial assertiveness, and Washington is eager for them to step up their cooperation by way of counterweight to China.
Liu Jianchao, assistant minister of foreign affairs, said this week Xi would discuss investment in India's railways as well as nuclear cooperation during his visit.
Developing India's crumbling infrastructure is a key priority of the Modi government, which has said it will upgrade existing railways and build the country's first high-speed train line.
Liu also said the two sides would seek to push forward negotiations on their disputed border during Xi's visit.
While the frontier between China and India has never been formally demarcated, the two sides have signed accords, and analysts said Beijing was eager to maintain the peace with its western neighbour.
China offered reassurances ahead of the visit that it is not seeking to "encircle" India -- a long-held fear in some quarters given Beijing's closeness to neighbouring Pakistan and growing investment in Sri Lanka, Bangladesh and the Maldives.
"China sees India as a development partner," Liu told reporters in Beijing. "China has not and will not encircle India."
Relations between the nuclear-armed neighbours are still characterised by mutual suspicion, in large part as a legacy of a brief but bloody war in 1962.
