President Barack Obama and Prime Minister Narendra Modi, aided by a personal chemistry that “by all accounts appears warm and genuine”, may have set US-India relations on a “deeper, perhaps even revolutionary, path”, says the influential New York Times. While the biggest takeaways from the just-concluded Obama visit may have been the breaking of the civil nuclear logjam and expanding the bilateral defence cooperation, the paper focuses on the US-India joint strategic vision statement for the Asia-Pacific and Indian Ocean Region.
“Both see the other as a crucial partner in offsetting China’s increasingly assertive role in Asia,” The Times says in an editorial comment, noting that the joint statement has effectively chided Beijing for provoking conflict with neighbours over the South China Sea and “expressed interest in playing a greater role in the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation forum, in which India could help balance China’s influence”.
Commenting that Modi shares “concerns about China’s growing economic and military strength and has shown remarkable confidence in striking a new path”, the NYT notes: “The trick for Mr Obama and Mr Modi will be to stand firm in support of a stable, rules-based order in Asia while not provoking China.” Affirming the importance of safeguarding maritime security and ensuring freedom of navigation and overflight throughout the region, especially in the South China Sea, the joint document called on all parties to avoid the threat or use of force and instead pursue resolution of all territorial and maritime disputes through peaceful means in accordance with international law and UN Convention on the law of the Sea.
Meanwhile, former US Army General James N. Mattis, appearing before the Senate Armed Services Committee, made the case for developing a strategy to counter-balance China’s “bullying role” in the South China Sea and elsewhere. “While our efforts in the Pacific to keep positive relations with China are well and good, these efforts must be paralleled by a policy to build the counterbalance if China continues to expand its bullying role in the South China Sea and elsewhere,” said Gen. Mattis, who retired as head of the US Central Command in 2013.
He expressed the view that the counterbalance strategy must deny China veto power over territorial, security, and economic conditions in the Pacific by building support for US diplomatic efforts. Another former General, John M Keane, spoke of China embarking on “a strategy of regional domination at the expense of US interests as a Pacific nation and decades of partnership with allied countries in the region”. “We should stress test US regional military defence to counter China’s threat and recognise that a change in regional defence strategy and capabilities is likely,” Gen. Keane said.