China’s ‘aggressive behaviour’ should push like-minded countries to work together, says US

Ahead of the 2+2 ministerial meet in Delhi next week, the Trump administration says Quad is neither an alliance nor an exclusive grouping.

The Chinese flag | Representational image | Pixabay

New Delhi: Ahead of the 2+2 ministerial meet, the US has said “like-minded countries” should work together in the face of China’s “aggressive behaviour” even as the Trump administration believes that the Quad is “not” an exclusive grouping.

Speaking to the media on condition of anonymity, a senior US administration official said, “Given China’s increasingly aggressive behaviour across the Indo-Pacific from the Himalayas to the South China Sea, it’s more important than ever that we work with like-minded partners such as India.”

India and the US will hold their third round of the 2+2 ministerial meeting in the national capital on 27 October. External Affairs Minister S. Jaishankar and Defence Minister Rajnath Singh will meet their American counterparts US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and Defence Secretary Mark T. Esper.

The last 2+2 meeting took place in Washington in 2019 while the first one took place in India.

The latest round is happening at a time when the Donald Trump administration is headed for a bitter election battle and India is seeking a “comprehensive disengagement” from all friction areas with China at the Line of Actual Control (LAC) in Ladakh and diffusing the standoff that began in May.

“So we as a government are covering the situation in the Himalayas closely, and understandably. And we certainly want to ensure that the situation doesn’t escalate… Certainly, we are providing support, whether through defence sales, exercises which I talked about earlier, as well as information sharing – these are all areas where we cooperate with the Indians on, and not just as it relates to the tensions in the Himalayas,” the official said.

According to another Trump government official, in the event of a new administration taking charge after the US presidential elections next month, the US will continue to support India against China.

“I fully expect… have no reason to believe that in the event of there being a new administration following the upcoming elections here in the United States that the policy with regard to India would change. I think both parties are largely aligned on their interest in supporting and deepening the partnership,” the official said.

‘Quad not an exclusive grouping’

According to the US officials, the Quad, or the Quadrilateral Security Dialogue, is “not an exclusive grouping” and other countries can also join the “informal arrangement”.

“It’s not an exclusive grouping by any means. We are more than… all four countries are interested and eager in welcoming other countries to the table for individual elements of cooperation that we do, some of them under the Quad framework but not all of them. That’s for sure,” said the first official quoted above.

“And it’s something… so it’s something that’s flexible and that reflects our common values and our common interests, and I think is really for the long term,” the official said.

Both the officials also added that the Quad is “not an alliance”.

“There’s nothing about the Quad that is an alliance. It doesn’t have… it is not formalised. There’s no reciprocal obligation among the countries who are involved. It’s not an organisation that solicits membership. So it isn’t a question of expanding it,” the official said.

These comments come within days of the Quad’s last meeting that took place in Tokyo on 6 October between India, Australia, Japan and the US.

These four countries will now hold a joint maritime drill under the Malabar 2020 exercise, elevating the setup to a major defence cooperation between their navies.

“And as the United States, Japan, Australia, and India are getting together to cooperate on one issue or another, if there are other countries that want to participate in those discussions or those activities, the door is always open…” said the official.

“The ministerial meeting that we had in Tokyo in October just demonstrated the strong ties among Indo-Pacific democracies. I would say it’s a grouping of countries who are interested in strengthening a rules-based order in which all nations are sovereign, strong, and prosperous,” the official added.

“It’s an opportunity to… for us to carry out continued dialogue and to work towards mutually agreed-upon outcomes. It’s a grouping of countries that’s driven by shared interests and values rather than binding obligations. That’s an example of effective multilateralism at best… at its best,” the official added.

Both Pompeo and Esper will also hold separate bilateral talks with their respective counterparts on the margins of the 2+2.

This will be the second in-person meeting between Pompeo and Jaishankar within the span of a month. The two met earlier this month in Tokyo for the Quad meeting.

2+2 meet agenda

The biggest takeaway from this year’s 2+2 meet will be the signing of the last of the three US defence foundational pacts — Basic Exchange and Cooperation Agreement (BECA).

The pact will enable India to avail US expertise on geospatial intelligence and sharpen the accuracy of weapons and automated hardware systems used for military purposes.

While the draft agreement on BECA was readied in March this year in Washington, the process of finalising it got delayed due to the pandemic.

“We’ve made significant progress towards concluding the last foundational defense enabling agreement, the Basic Exchange and Cooperation Agreement, or the BECA. This agreement will allow for expanded geospatial information sharing between our armed forces,” said the second official.

The officials added that the 2+2 meet will seek to expand secure communication capabilities between the two militaries as well as between both the foreign and defense ministries.

A discussion on defence trade, with the US selling fighter planes and UAVs to India, is also on the agenda.

India and the US have already signed two key US foundational pacts — Logistics Exchange Memorandum of Agreement (LEMOA) and Communications Compatibility and Security Agreement (COMCASA) — to deepen defence and strategic ties.

During the last 2+2 meet, which was held in December 2019 in Washington DC, both sides had also signed the Industrial Security Annex (ISA) to the India-US General Security of Military Information Agreement (GSOMIA) that eased transfer of high-level technology from the US to India and safeguarding of classified military information.

The ISA also seeks to ease participation of US defence firms in ‘Make in India’ projects via the India-US Defence Technology and Trade Initiative that was established in 2012.