Firstly, I have to clarify that my words only represent my personal view, which is neither in consistence with the public view of common chinese, nor with the official view. If I say : 'we```', it only means that 'I assume we````'.
So the first thing we want is leadership in Aisa, or better, leadership of aisa-africa. Can india abide that? If you can, we could form a US-canada relationship----assuming the potential of india, I think you would not agree.
Secondly, for our influence in SE,NE asia and our own energy security, the control over India occean and Southern china sea is essential for China. The basest level should be our own safe passage through the Malacca , the highest level should be the ability of denial to all other passage through the Occean if we dictated it so----Does not mean that we will ever do it, Just like the US, it is not about what you do, but what you can do.
Once that was achieved, NE nation, like Japan, korea will fall to our camp lilke the apple in autumn.
The first two points is a little bit too far away, but where is our confliction of interests now?
Lets we imaging every country has a globle of influence and a globle of interests. our globle of interests has reached far far to every corner in the world. The most important points is: 1 NE aisa, 2 MEest, 3 africa 4 N america 5 EU. But now our globle of influence are locked inside the NE by US and cannot go further away from our border. And no one outside our influence globle would dare to join us because US has every possible leverage to dictate them--from aid to embargo to invasion. So when the ultimate confliction between us and US came, they will certainly fall to their camp whether they like it or not.
NE, ME EU, NA all are the strongest fortress of US which we cannot take by conventional means. But for NE and ME, there is SE and SA, which has always been chaotic and weak in US influence and that is where we can take. SE asia and S asia connects the world energy pool to the world factory, everyone with the sanity would understand that dominance over these two area would neutralize the US dominance over NE and ME.
So, where is my point?
My point is: can india abide our dominance of south east aisa?
can india share the dominance of india occean with us?
can we trust india as the greater share holder of india occean?
can india trust us as the greater share holder of SE aisa?
can we cooperate to jam US out of these two area?
If we can, then we can be allies, and there can be two leaders in Aisa. But for now, I don t think you would agree, for china now is not yet strong enough to back our deal or threat.