In a candid assessment, foreign secretary Vijay Gokhale said that China was “making headway” in infrastructure projects in South Asia and its “far greater” capacity to take up these undertakings are a “constant concern” for India. Gokhale’s remarks were made to the Parliamentary Standing Committee on External Affairs at a hearing on February 16. These were reproduced in the latest report of the standing committee on the Ministry of External Affairs’ budget, which was tabled last week.