Will push back against China in every domain: US

NEW DELHI: The US will push back against China’s aggressive actions, including its “outsized” territorial claims on the border with India, even as it eyes the possibility of formalising the Quadrilateral Security Dialogue or Quad as an alliance, a senior state department official said.

Deputy secretary of state Stephen Biegun said China has been “picking a fight right now on virtually every front” and “exploited every opportunity they can from technology theft to assertion of national sovereignty over the territory and territorial waters of other countries”, and the US is in a “concerted effort to push back on all fronts”.

“Our strategy is to push back against China in virtually every domain. We’re doing it in the security area. We’re doing it in terms of outsized demands to claim sovereign territory, whether it’s in the Galwan Valley of India on the India-Chinese border, or whether it’s in the South Pacific. We’re also doing it economically,” he said.

Biegun made the remarks during a conversation with Richard Varma, former US envoy to India, at a leadership summit organised by the US-India Strategic Partnership Forum (USISPF) late on Monday. Asked about China’s aggressive actions on the disputed border with India, in Hong Kong and across the IndoPacific, Biegun said the Donald Trump administration is focused on countering the “predatory practices from the Chinese economy” and is working to “balance out the US-China economic relationship”.

China was welcomed into global institutions such as the World Trade Organisation (WTO) two decades ago in order to help the country transition to a more rules-based order, but this “experiment has failed across all the domains”, he said.

He said that China “grew so quickly at the beginning of this century” that its “outsized influence in those institutions is instead seeking to transform those institutions to China’s interests”.