To those who wonder why Narendra Modi, India’s prime minister, was in distant Mongolia this week trying his hand at archery, playing a traditional fiddle and receiving the gift of a racehorse called Kanthaka (after Buddha’s mount), the short answer is: China.

Just as a resurgent China fears containment and encirclement by the US and its Asian allies, so New Delhi bristles at the rapid extension of China’s military and economic influence to the Indian Ocean and to India’s neighbours in Pakistan, Sri Lanka, Bangladesh and Nepal.

Mr Modi’s trip to Ulan Bator — the first official visit by any Indian prime minister to Mongolia — is the latest Indian attempt to turn the tables and show that it can play the same games in China’s backyard as China does in India’s, albeit on a more modest scale befitting its weaker army and an economy one-fifth the size.