-U.S. wants stronger India economic relations
19/10/2017 12:31
U.S. Secretary of State Rex
Tillerson said before a visit to India next week that the Trump
administration wanted to "dramatically deepen" cooperation with
New Delhi, seeing it as a key partner in the face of negative
Chinese influence in Asia.
Speaking on Wednesday, less than a month before President
Donald Trump is due to make his first state visit to China,
Tillerson said the United States had begun to discuss creating
alternatives to Chinese infrastructure financing in Asia.
In another comment likely to upset Beijing, he said
Washington saw room to invite others, including Australia, to
join U.S.-India-Japan security cooperation, something Beijing
has opposed as an attempt by democracies to gang up on it.
The remarks coincide with the start of a week-long Chinese
Communist Party congress at which President Xi Jinping is
seeking to further consolidate his power.
"The United States seeks constructive relations with China,
but we will not shrink from China's challenges to the
rules-based order and where China subverts the sovereignty of
neighboring countries and disadvantages the U.S. and our
friends," Tillerson told the Center for Strategic and
International Studies think tank.
"India and the United States should be in the business of
equipping other countries to defend their sovereignty, build
greater connectivity, and have a louder voice in a regional
architecture that promotes their interests and develops their
economies," Tillerson added.
The U.S. decision to expand relations with India almost
certainly will upset India's rival, Pakistan, where Tillerson
also will stop next week, said a senior State Department
official, speaking on condition of anonymity.
Pakistan was the main U.S. ally in South Asia for decades,
but U.S. officials are frustrated with what they charge has been
Pakistan's failure to cut support for the Taliban insurgency in
Afghanistan, where the administration wants India to play a
bigger role in economic development.
As part of a South Asia strategy unveiled by Trump in
August, Tillerson is expected to press Islamabad, which denies
aiding the Taliban, to take stronger steps against extremists
and allied groups and intensify efforts to pressure them to
agree to peace talks with Kabul.
"We expect Pakistan to take decisive action against
terrorist groups based there that threaten its own people and
the broader region," Tillerson said.
Trump has threatened further cuts in U.S. aid to Pakistan if
it fails to cooperate.
China, a strategic rival to the United States and India, is
also vital to Trump's efforts to roll back North Korea's efforts
to create nuclear-armed missiles capable of reaching the United
States, an issue expected to top the agenda in Trump's Nov. 8-10
Beijing visit.
A senior State Department official defended the timing of
the speech, saying Tillerson also said he wanted a constructive
relationship with China.
"For many decades the United States has supported China's
rise," said the official. "We've also supported India's rise.
But those two countries have risen very differently."
Tillerson did not say what he meant by creating an
alternative to Chinese infrastructure financing, but said the
Trump administration had begun a "quiet conversation" with some
emerging East Asian democracies at a summit in August.
He said Chinese financing was saddling countries with
"enormous" debts and failing to create jobs.
"We think it's important that we begin to develop some means
of countering that with alternative financing measures."
"We will not be able to compete with the kind of terms that
China offers, but countries have to decide what are they willing
to pay to secure their sovereignty and their future control of
their economies and we've had those discussions with them as
well," he said.
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