China-India Ties Will Be Independent Of Ties With US
Improvement in ties between India and China will not be affected by the US Navy chief’s recent visit to India, which many see as the latest US move to woo the Asian giant to help it stabilize the Indo Pacific.
US Navy chief Admiral John Richardson met with his Indian counterpart Chief of Navy Sunil Lanba and Chief of the Air Chief Marshal B. S. Dhanoa, and the Defence Secretary, on Monday during his three-day visit to India,
Major issues discussed during the visit included operational imperatives, exercises, training interactions, information exchanges, capacity building and capability enhancement, the Indian Navy said.
Prior to Richardson’s trip, US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said at the Claremont Institute in California on Saturday that the US was “banding together with like-minded nations like Australia, India, Japan and South Korea to make sure that each Indo-Pacific nation can protect its sovereignty from coercion.”
This statement of has drawn adverse remarks from the Chinese. Qian Feng, a research fellow at the National Strategy Institute of Tsinghua University, said “Pompeo’s statement is a typical Cold War thinking narrative and does not align with the theme of peace and development in this region. US should discard the obsolete notion of Cold War thinking since China-US relations are deeply interdependent.”
Richardson’s visit to India came shortly after the Indian Navy for the first time joined the US Navy, the Japan Maritime Self-Defense Force, and the Philippine Navy for a sail-through of the South China Sea, as part of freedom of navigation. However the Chinese think that the US is trying to woo India to contain China for its own national interests.
The world must know that, India policies are decided in New Delhi only and are made keeping the Indian National Interest in mind. No bilateral relations will be at the expense of a third friendly party. We wish friendly relations with all but are ready to defend our Sovereignty and National Interests.
