India wants more business and closer engagement with ASEAN even as China's influence spreads in the region. Rediff.com's Sheela Bhatt, who is travelling with the prime minister on his visit to Brunei, reports from Bandar Seri Begawan, capital of the tiny oil-rich country.
China remains the elephant in the room and has to be tamed, which the United States alone is unable to do and therefore calls allies to come on board.
"In the flux and transition of our times, the most critical need in this region is to uphold and strengthen the rules and norms that must define our collective behaviour," he said.
On Tuesday, Pompeo and Esper will hold the 2+2 talks with External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar and Defence Minister Rajnath Singh, covering the entire expanse of defence and security ties as well as key regional and global issues.
The president and First Lady Melania Trump will travel to New Delhi and Ahmedabad during the visit.
Warning India against the increasing Chinese influence in the Indian Ocean region, a top American military commander on Wednesday stressed on the need to sign two key agreements between India and the US for joint tracking.
As India rises, creating niche areas for itself in the Asian landscape, China and India are bound to step on each other's vital areas of importance, says Srikanth Kondapalli.
On his recent visit to China, the President made eminently sensible suggestions to improve relations except that they can't work in the present atmosphere.
The joint statement issued after Prime Minister Narendra Modi and President Barack Obama's first-ever summit is high on intent and ambition. Notably missing from the statement is India's refusal to be America's partner in its war against ISIS.
The USS John Paul Jones acted like a dog marking the lamp post, observes Ambassador M K Bhadrakumar.
'The military aim in a future conflict, if it can't be avoided, should be to cause maximum damage to the adversary's war waging capability and capture limited amount of territory as a bargaining counter,' says Brigadier Gurmeet Kanwal (retd).
Last year, Chinese media sharply criticised the Malabar exercises.
The boats, two from China's southern Guangdong Province, were lost on Sunday as they attempted to navigate gales near the disputed islands called Xisha by China and Paracel by Vietnam Islands about 330 km from China's island province of Hainan, Chinese officials in Hainan said.
Hosted by Singapore, the exercise was held on land at the now renamed "RSS Singapura - Changi Naval Base" and at a sea phase in the South China Sea.
It is often said that the India-Indonesia relationship is overshadowed by mutual neglect.
The PM will have an audience with the Emperor of Japan and hold the annual summit meeting with his Japanese counterpart Shinzo Abe that could see a civil nuclear cooperation pact being inked.
'Neither will China -- at least for now -- because its troops are deployed in equal strength.' 'We are negotiating at equal terms right now and it's a game of patience.'
'There are reports of political dissent mounting on Xi Jinping's handling of the Wuhan fallout.'
Xi ordered the military to think about worst-case scenarios, scale up training and battle preparedness, promptly and effectively deal with all sorts of complex situations and resolutely safeguard national sovereignty, security and development interests, state-run Xinhua news agency reported, without mentioning any specific issues that posed a threat to the country.
There are signs of China's external behaviour becoming more aggressive in the coming years. If that happens, strategic implications for neighbours having territorial disputes with China can become deeper and imperatives can rise for the former to counteract, says D S Rajan
Analysts, however, predict it would be an uphill climb for export-reliant China's economy going forward as it faced intensified conflict with the US and the negative fallout on its external trade due to Beijing's increasingly aggressive policies towards countries like India resulting in bans of its products and services.
Demand bounces back but uncertainty over GST rate for jewellery casts a shadow over future.
Jiaolong, China's manned submersible, has descended to a depth of 3,117 meters in the northwestern Indian Ocean and collected variety of precious metals.
Defence Minister Arun Jaitley leaves for Tokyo on Sunday evening for a security dialogue with Japan, a visit that acquires huge significance after North Korea's hydrogen bomb test on Sunday morning.
'The numbers of troops on both sides are enormous.' 'They are about 50,000-60,000 soldiers facing each other in that sector -- that's about the total number of troops that both sides had in the 1962 War in all sectors.'
By jettisoning the vision of multilateral world in favour of a Han Empire, China has posed a major long term challenge to India. India must stand firm against Chinese expansionism but also keep a door open for future detente by making a clear distinction between Chinese people and the current Chinese leadership, observe Lieutenant General Ashok Joshi (Retd) and Colonel Anil Athale (Retd).
'As in the Panchatantra tale of the cat and the monkeys, it is possible for the clever swing State to play off the two competing powers.'
New Delhi is quietly reclaiming its space in Asia by forging alliances with China's neighbours. In a way, India is converting its much-talked about Act East Policy to Engage East practice.
"Whenever we do compromise those rights, the world is worse off," Pompeo said.
The two sides also decided on early operationalisation of the proposed hotline between the two armies as part of the confidence building measures, the defence ministry said.
The 8-km-long road show would start from the Ahmedabad airport and culminate at the Sabarmati Ashram.
A strong partnership with US would deter China from making any aggressive posture against India, said Puneet Ahluwalia, a member of the Trump's Advisory Committee on Asian Americans.
Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi will be visiting New Delhi on Sunday as a special envoy of President Xi Jinping to establish political contacts with the new Indian government amid hopes here of an upswing in bilateral ties due to Prime Minister Narendra Modi's familiarity with China.
'We must be careful because China has not given its design in Eastern Ladakh.'
India, China must further strengthen business ties for growth.
With the situation in Ladakh tense and no resolution in sight the trigger to take the India-US relationship to a transformational one is already there, observes Lieutenant General Syed Ata Hasnain (retd).
Describing Pakistan's North Western Frontier Province area as the "fountainhead" of terror activities in the region, India on Thursday said use of terrorism as state policy with deep roots in military establishment there is a major obstacle for peaceful bilateral ties.
'It is time we Indians stop our internal bickering and present a united front to Chinese machinations,' advises Colonel Anil A Athale (retd).
If the aim is to become a player with some strategic space of its own, not just in the Indian Ocean region but also in the adjoining region, then greater interaction with China is desirable, even necessary.
'You can see that in Chinese behaviour in the Yellow Sea, you can see it in their behaviour towards Taiwan, you can see it in their behaviour towards Hong Kong, you can see it on our border as well.'
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