Morgenthau next looked at the “position and the prospective policies of China.” China, he wrote, “is the most powerful nation on the Asian continent.” He downplayed the importance of ideology in Chinese foreign policy. There has been, he explained, a “striking contrast between the ideological claims and the actual policies pursued” by China. Communist China’s foreign policy moves since 1949, he wrote, have been based on the fundamental national interests of China. Whether it was the frontier with India, the question of Tibet, or the response to U.S. military moves near the Yalu River or in Southeast Asia, Mao’s China acted no different than China would have acted under Chiang Kai-shek.