By changing the nation's name from India to Bharat, would this landmass overnight lose the emotional and cultural linkage that had been built over generations, centuries and millennia, asks N Sathiya Moorthy.
Pompeo explains how the Donald Trump administration succeeded in bringing India on board the Quad grouping.
'No Cold War should be reignited and no Ukraine-style crisis should be repeated in Asia'
US President Joe Biden and his Chinese counterpart Xi Jinping on Monday held their first in-person meeting in Bali, with both leaders underscoring the need to manage their differences and prevent a conflict, amid Beijing's coercive military posturing against Taiwan and in the strategic Indo-Pacific region.
The top diplomats of Quad nations on Friday denounced as "inadmissible" any use or threat of use of nuclear weapons in the Ukraine war and strongly opposed any "unilateral actions" that seek to change the status quo in the South and East China Seas, a region that has witnessed increasing Chinese military offensive.
Blinken will also attend a meeting of the foreign ministers of the Quad grouping and will hold bilateral talks with his Indian counterpart S Jaishankar in Delhi.
"This trip will advance the Biden-Harris administration's rock-solid commitment to a free and open Indo-Pacific," White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki said in Washington, DC on Wednesday.
'We will stand with friends, partners and allies to advance our shared prosperity, security and values in the Indo-Pacific region'
Shanghai on Monday reported 425 confirmed and 8,581 asymptomatic domestically transmitted cases, the highest daily increases since the latest outbreak, bringing the total number of COVID-19 infections in the city to over 60,000.
The official told the reporters during a conference call on Friday, ahead of the next week's 2+2 India-US Ministerial in New Delhi, that the Trump administration was providing support to India through defence sales, joint military exercises and information sharing.
China claims nearly all of the disputed South China Sea, though Taiwan, the Philippines, Brunei, Malaysia and Vietnam all claim parts of it. Beijing has built artificial islands and military installations in the South China Sea. Beijing is also involved in a maritime dispute with Japan over the East China Sea.
Ahead of the Quad summit on Friday, China said exchanges and cooperation between countries should contribute to mutual understanding rather than "targeting" a third party and refrain from "pursuing exclusive blocs".
China has been an aggressor against India along the Himalayan border, a top American diplomat nominated by President Joe Biden as his next envoy to Beijing has told lawmakers, stating that the US must hold the Chinese government accountable for failing to play by the rules.
Kurt Campbell, the White House Asia Coordinator, said that in his view India is the most important bilateral relationship for the United States in the 21st century.
Biden on Friday opened the first Quad Leaders' Summit held virtually and attended by Prime Minister Modi, Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison and Japanese Prime Minister Yoshihide Suga.
The Quad has come of age and its agenda covering areas like vaccines, climate change and emerging technologies makes it a force for global good, Prime Minister Narendra Modi said at the first summit of the coalition. In his opening remarks, he also talked about shared values and promoting a secure, stable and prosperous Indo-Pacific.
Xi said the entire military should devote all its energy to carry out all its work for combat readiness, enhance its capability to fight and win, and effectively fulfill its missions and tasks
China and Pakistan have agreed to step up their defence and counter-terrorism cooperation amidst 'challenging times', as Pakistan Army chief General Qamar Javed Bajwa held wide-ranging talks with the Chinese military leadership to further cement their all-weather strategic partnership.
The coming together of the Quad and the Australia-UK-US grouping would be a formidable adversary, moving toward the creation of a 'thousand ship navy' that reins in the PLA navy in the Indo-Pacific.
The sale of 10 AGM-84L Harpoon Block II air-launched missiles is estimated to cost $92 million (Rs 699 crore), while 16 MK 54 All Up Round Lightweight Torpedoes and three MK 54 Exercise Torpedoes are estimated to cost $63 million (Rs 478.8 crore), the Defence Security Cooperation Agency said on Monday in two separate notifications to the Congress.
'These tactics are particularly evident in China's pursuit of its territorial and maritime claims in the South and East China Seas as well as along its border with India and Bhutan'
The annual threat assessment of the US Intelligence Community released by the Office of Director of National Intelligence (ODNI) also said that the 'expanded military posture by both India and China along the disputed border elevates the risk of armed confrontation between two nuclear powers that might involve direct threats to US persons and interests and calls for US intervention'.
China, which has territorial disputes with many countries in the strategic Indo-Pacific region, has been opposing the Quad alliance since its formation.
The US House of Representatives and the Senate on Tuesday passed the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA), which included key components of Indian-American Congressman Raja Krishnamoorthi's resolution language urging the Chinese government to end its military aggression against India along the LAC.
The Fujian was launched at a brief ceremony held at the Shanghai shipyard, the official media reported from the eastern metropolis.
The United States will continue to support India with equipment and other things it needs along the Line of Actual Control (LAC) with China, a top American admiral has told lawmakers, asserting that Washington and New Delhi share a 'tremendous partnership'.
China is engaged in hotly contested territorial disputes in the South and East China Seas. Beijing has also made substantial progress in militarising its man-made islands in the past few years, which it says it has the right to defend.
'They talk about their 2021 centenary goal, their 2035 goal, and their 2049 goal. They're accelerating. There's also been this unfortunately bashing of nationalism inside the People's Republic of China by the government'
He said that "the state of the border will determine the state of the relationship, that's natural".
'Our record and our actions and stances is fairly clear and by criticising it repeatedly, it doesn't make us less credible'
The US "Indo-Pacific Strategy" is bound to be a failed strategy, Wang said in the comments posted by the Chinese foreign ministry on its website.
'Under General Secretary of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) Xi Jinping, Beijing has stepped up its aggressive foreign policy toward New Delhi. Since 2013, China has engaged in five major altercations with India along the Line of Actual Control (LAC),' said a brief issued by US-China Economic and Security Review Commission.
The remarks of White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki came ahead of the 14th round of military-level talks between India and China on the 20-month row in eastern Ladakh.
The statement of Commander of US Indo-Pacific Command Admiral John Aquilino on Wednesday came ahead of the 15th round of high-level military talks between India and China on March 11.
A popular Chinese blogger, detained earlier this year for his comments regarding military casualties of Galwan valley clash with India, has been sentenced to eight months in prison.
In the opinion piece after the summit, the leaders said the cooperation, known as "the Quad," was born in crisis. It became a diplomatic dialogue in 2007 and was reborn in 2017.
Four-nation grouping Quad on Tuesday launched a major new initiative for the Indo-Pacific that allows the partner countries to fully monitor the waters on their shores and help ensure peace and stability in the region, a move that comes amid China's increasingly intimidatory behaviour.
The research, published in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, found that a significant portion of this ocean plastic debris is expected to make its way onto either beaches or the seabed within three to four years.
He said that following a build-up of troops, multiple transgressions and attempts to unilaterally change facts on the ground by China, there have been several levels of talks and a fair amount of communication to ensure that the matter can be resolved through negotiation and diplomacy.
Brinkmanship in the Taiwan Strait will not only be a recipe for disaster to both China and Taiwan, but also to international peace and stability, warns Rup Narayan Das.
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