World News | White House official says some provocative measures by Beijing on India-China border

WASHINGTON, March 31 (PTI) – A senior White House official said some steps taken by Beijing along the India-China border are provocative, while reiterating that the US is destined to work more closely with New Delhi

Kurt Campbell, US deputy assistant to the president and coordinator for Indo-Pacific affairs, told a Washington think tank that India is not an ally of the US and never will be.

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“But that doesn’t mean we won’t be close partners and share a lot. That’s how we need to understand the role India will play as a great power on the global stage.

“We want to encourage and support that and deepen this relationship, which is already very strong, probably the strongest people-to-people relationship of any country that the United States has on the global stage,” he said.

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The Center for a New American Security, a think tank, said in a report that incursions and clashes along the India-China border have become more frequent and could lead to a full-scale conflict.

The increased likelihood of border hostilities between India and China has implications for the United States and its Indo-Pacific strategy between the two Asian powers, the report said.

According to the report, Indian officials believe that China is trying to contain India, forcing it to devote more resources to defending both its western border with Pakistan and its eastern border with China, and weakening its willingness and ability to challenge China’s ambitions to dominate the region.

“Some of the steps China has taken along this expansive 5,000-mile border are provocative and are of deep concern to India’s partners and friends,” Campbell told the think tank.

The think tank’s report, written by Lisa Curtis and Derek Grossman, makes several recommendations to help deter and counter further Chinese aggression along the India-Pakistan border.

Prominent among these is that the U.S. should elevate India’s territorial dispute with China on a par with Beijing’s assertiveness toward other U.S. allies and partners in the Indo-Pacific region, and ensure this is reflected in all national security-related documents and speeches .

It also suggested that the United States provide India with cutting-edge military technology needed to defend its borders, initiate joint production and joint development of military equipment, and assist India in strengthening its maritime and naval capabilities.

The think tank also urged the United States to conduct a joint intelligence review with India to fine-tune its assessment of China’s plans and intentions along the Line of Actual Control (LAC) and to increase coordination with Indian officials on contingency planning in the event of a future India-China conflict.

It asked the US to criticize Beijing’s “turf grabbing” in multilateral forums including the UN, Shangri-La Dialogue, G20 and East Asia Summit, and to be ready to fully support India in another border crisis or incident. conflict.

Send a message to Pakistan and enlist the help of other key partners to convey a similar view of the need for neutrality in the event of a future conflict on the India-China border, the report said.

Campbell said the India-US relationship “is America’s most important bilateral relationship in the 21st century”.

“I believe we are destined to work more closely together. I believe our human bonds are strong and alive in a relationship that becomes deeper, richer and more strategically important.”

In response to a question, he said that participation in almost every field has grown exponentially.

“We just wrapped up discussions in a format called ICET, in which the Indian national security adviser brought the highest-level group of Indian technologists ever to come to the United States to discuss how to cooperate in the field going forward,” Campbell said.

“We’re doing more work on people-to-people defense-related issues. We want more Indian students in our universities. We want more American students in Indian universities. We want more people-to-people Collaborations between, university partnerships more generally, and health partnerships. We just announced a collaborative effort in space. So the agenda is very rich. Ambitious,” he added.

(This is an unedited and auto-generated story from a Syndicated News feed, the content body may not have been modified or edited by LatestLY staff)