India hit by ‘very significant challenges’ from China: WH

THE REPORT on US’s Indo-Pacific Strategy, released on Friday, outlines President Joe

Biden’s vision to firmly anchor the country’s position in the Indo-Pacific, strengthen the region and support India’s rise and regional leadership.

Washington, Feb. 12: India faces “very significant challenges”, in particular from China and its behaviour in the Line of Actual Control, the White House has said, as it unveiled the Biden administration’s first regionspecific report on the strategic Indo-Pacific.

The report on US’s IndoPacific Strategy, released on Friday, outlines President Joe Biden’s vision to firmly anchor the country’s position in the Indo-Pacific, strengthen the region and support India’s rise and regional leadership.

“We will continue to build a strategic partnership in which the United States and India work together and through regional groupings to promote stability in South Asia; collaborate in new domains such as health, space, and cyberspace; deepen our economic and technology cooperation; and contribute to a free and open Indo-Pacific,” the White House said.

“We recognise that India is a like-minded partner and leader in South Asia and the Indian Ocean, active in and connected to Southeast Asia, a driving force of the Quad and other regional fora, and an engine for regional growth and development,” the White House statement added.

At a White House background briefing, a senior administration official, on condition of anonymity, pointed out that India was facing “significant challenges”.

India, the senior official said, is in a very different place, in many ways than Australia and other countries.

The border standoff between India and China in eastern Ladakh erupted on May 5, 2020, following a violent clash in the Pangong lake area. —