India, US, Japan cooperation in Indian Ocean and Pacific regions necessary to face China: Scholars

Cooperation between India, the United States and Japan is necessary to face the Chinese assertiveness in the strategic Indian Ocean and Pacific regions, a group of Indian and American scholars have said.

The scholars during a day-long conference here on Friday agreed that cooperation between the two countries, as well as with Japan, "will determine the parameters of security" in the Indian Ocean and Pacific regions in the face of an assertive China.

China has taken an increasingly hardline stance in its territorial disputes in the East China Sea, the South China Sea and over Taiwan, which Beijing claims as its own.

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The subject was discussed at the conference on the future of US-India relations under the Trump administration, organised by the Hudson Institute and the New Delhi-based Vivekananda International Foundation (VIF).

The two conservative thinktanks have close ties with the Trump administration and the Modi government respectively. The discussion, closed for the media, focused on India-US strategic ties in both the security and economic realms.

In the security arena, participants discussed ways to boost cooperation in the Indo-Pacific region, including East Asia, South Asia and the Middle East.

In the economic field, the deliberation focused on potential policies from both sides to boost trade and cooperation, a media release said. The conference was inaugurated by Kenneth Weinstein, President and CEO of the Hudson Institute and former Indian Army chief Gen (retd) NC Vij, Director of the Vivekananda International Foundation (CIF).

In addition to Gen Vij, the VIF delegation comprised former foreign secretary and Dean of the Centre for International Relations and Diplomacy, at the VIF, former Deputy Chief of the Army Staff Lt Gen (retd) Ravi Sawhney, Lt Gen (retd) Davinder Kumar and Harinder Sekhon. Hudson scholars included Michael Pillsbury, Husain Haqqani, Eric Brown, Douglas Feith and Aparna Pande.