India, US talks to focus on China, uneasiness in the South China Sea

New York: Kurt Campbell, assistant secretary, Bureau of East Asian and Pacific Affairs, is leading a US push to coordinate with India on Asia in unprecedented ways. Campbell will meet his counterparts from the foreign ministry in New Delhi on Tuesday to discuss tensions in the South China Sea, Myanmar’s by-elections that saw Aung San Suu Kyi’s party win 43 seats in parliament and a failed North Korean rocket launch. “Part of the US’s approach to the Asia-Pacific region is a deeper dialogue with India and encouraging India’s “Look East” strategy, and so we will be talking about specific initiatives that we will be taking with Delhi to support that effort as part of our Asia-Pacific consultations with them,” Campbell told reporters. [caption id=“attachment_277896” align=“alignleft” width=“380” caption=“PTI”] [/caption] Given constant distractions from Pakistan and China, the fast-growing South East Asian region was largely ignored till India launched its “Look East” policy in the early 1990s. India initially had a hard job clawing its way back into parts of Asia to its east. India’s “Look East” policy linked its own liberalizing economy to the dynamic “tigers” of Southeast Asia. This process has been slow, but India inked a free trade agreement with the 10-member Association of Southeast Asian Nations (Asean) in 2009. These economic linkages are leading to military cooperation with Singapore, Vietnam and Indonesia. Those governments see India as, in the words of a Singaporean diplomat, “a useful balance to China’s heft.” This is all the more important as the Obama administration appears to be paying more attention to Asia even as China is increasingly asserting itself. India’s increasing role in the Asia-Pacific has been supported by the region’s premier naval power, the US. Since 2001, the US and India have conducted over 40 joint military exercises. In 2007, Singapore, Japan and Australia joined the US and India in “Malabar 2007,” which was one of the largest multilateral naval exercises ever held in the Bay of Bengal, prompting Beijing to issue demarches to all five participating countries. According to defence experts, from China’s point of view, the coming together of these five navies marked the beginning of a loose anti-China naval barrier in the Indian Ocean region. It is no secret that the US is keen on a strategic partnership with India and policy coordination on regional affairs in the Asia region, which is a diplomatic euphemism for shared concerns over China’s growing power. Lalit Mansingh, former foreign secretary and ex-ambassador to the US, told the Mint newspaper that India’s focus at Tuesday’s dialogue “will be on China, increased Chinese activities in the Indian Ocean region, and tensions in the South China Sea.” India’s external affairs minister S M Krishna and China’s foreign minister Yang Jiechi just discussed their disputes over the South China Sea on the sidelines of the Russia-India-China trilateral conference in Moscow on Friday. China has previously warned India away from exploration projects in the South China Sea. Much to China’s annoyance, India’s Oil and Natural Gas Corp., plans to drill for oil in the international waters and India has signed joint agreements with Vietnam on energy projects in the South China Sea. “Acording to the Indian government’s assessment, China’s unease stems from India having taken up exploration activity in an area close to Hainan, where a Chinese nuclear submarine base is located,” reported Mint. India’s “Look East” policy has clearly met with success and the US is encouraging India to play a broader role in Asia. India and the US will also discuss counter terrorism cooperation during a meeting on Friday between the union home secretary R.K Singh and Jane Holl Lute, deputy secretary of American homeland security.