Obama Admin to consult India on its Burma policy

I / Washington October 22, 2009, 12:12 IST

As the Obama Administration moves ahead with its new policy of engaging the Burmese military junta, a top US official today said it will actively consult India along with China on its new strategy.

Assistant Secretary of State for East Asia and Pacific Affairs, Kurt Campbell, told US lawmakers that he would be travelling to India in coming week, to discuss with its leaders the objectives of the new Burma policy of restoration democracy in the country and protecting human rights.

Campbell was in Beijing last week and met senior Chinese officials, Their talks focussed on Burma.

"I think it would be fair to say — to characterise those discussions first by saying that the Chinese are intensely interested in our proposed dialogues. They see that the US is stepping up its overall engagement in Southeast Asia. They are watching that carefully," he said during a hearing on Burma by the House Committee on Foreign Affairs.

"I asked specifically for Chinese assistance particularly in terms of establishing a dialogue with internal parties in advance of the 2010 elections, and I asked for China's overall support for the US policy of engagement," Campbell added.

"The Chinese, in turn, indicated that they thought that sanctions were unhelpful and that the US should be prepared to move quickly on this. I was very clear that the US approach would be that nothing along these lines could develop in any way unless we saw concrete steps on the ground," he said.

"I promised our Chinese interlocutors that we would continue a dialogue going forward, and I will have a similar discussion with Indian friends in the weeks to come," the Assistant Secretary of State added.

The top Obama Administration official said as the US looked at the strategic situation and particularly developments over the last decade, one of the inescapable conclusions that they came to was that the engagement of China, India and other countries in Southeast Asia.

"We thought it was absolutely critical as part of this review to look at this context," he said.

Responding to a question, Campbell said in his judgment the three largest trading partners, probably in no corresponding order, would be China, Thailand and substantial growth in recent years in India.

"But other countries in Southeast Asia play a critical role in the financial system there — Singapore and others.

And there are a number of other states that are deeply involved in the energy sector, particularly some European states, as well," he added.