US and India need to cultivate strong ties to face Chinese threats, says Mike Pompeo

NEW DELHI: US secretary of state Mike Pompeo on Wednesday said India and US must cultivate strong ties to cope with threats posed by the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), while external affairs minister S Jaishankar felt common objectives could be better achieved if the US worked on more plurilateral arrangements which go beyond alliances of the past.
Both ministers were addressing the two-day India Ideas Summit organised by US-India Business Council (USIBC).

In what can be described as frank remarks Pompeo said it is important for India and USA to cultivate strong ties amid threats posed by the Chinese Communist Party (CCP). The last few weeks have witnessed strongest remarks by US leaders and Congressmen against China’s territorial ambitions.

On the India-China standoff at LAC, Pompeo said the US is deeply saddened with the killing of 20 Indian armed forces personnel and termed India “an important partner in the Indo-Pacific”.

“We both are great democracies, world powers and good friends,” said Pompeo and lauded India for banning 59 Chinese

The Indian minister who spoke ahead of Pompeo said, "I think the US really has to learn to work with a more multipolar world with more plurilateral arrangements, go beyond alliances with which it has grown up in the last two generations."

This comes close on the heels of his recent statement on the alliance concept. Jaishankar had said, “Non-alignment is an old concept today, but India will never be a part of an alliance system.” India has been advocating multipolarity as a key principle of its foreign policy.

“…For Indo-US relations, we need to think beyond trade. I learnt it a long time ago that these are bread and butter issues. This is how countries deal with each other," said the minister at the Wednesday’s event.

Speaking in a session titled: ‘Leading in Times of Crisis: Perspectives on US-India Cooperation’ attended by US Senator Mark Warner, Jaishankar said Washington and Delhi should focus on geopolitical basket and people-to-people ties as they have the potential to create a durable bilateral relationship. “There are two big baskets to the issue we should be looking at. These are two drivers of a stronger relationship — one is the geopolitical basket and the other is people-to-people ties," Jaishankar said.