India, US share 'common outlook' in Indo-Pacific region, says report

The Pentagon on Saturday said that the strategic partnership between India and the United States has strengthened significantly during the past two decades, and asserted that both countries recognise the importance of the Indo-Pacific region for global trade and commerce and that both share a common outlook in the region.

In the first Indo-Pacific Strategy Report, the US Department of Defence said, "Both countries recognise the importance of the Indo-Pacific to global trade and commerce and acknowledge that developments in this region will shape the larger trajectory of the rules-based international order."

The region contributes two-thirds of global growth in the gross domestic product (GDP) and accounts for 60 per cent of global GDP.

The report underlined that India, through its "Act East" policy, continues to make significant security, economic and development investments to secure the vision of a free and open Indo-Pacific region.

The Indo-Pacific region includes the world's largest economies, namely the US, China, and Japan, and six of the world's fastest-growing economies, involving India, Cambodia, Laos, Burma, Nepal, and the Philippines.

"A quarter of the US exports go to the Indo-Pacific. Due to the availability of free and open trade routes through the air, sea, land, space, and cyber commons that form the current global system," the report said.

Stating that the Indian Ocean Region is at the nexus of global trade and commerce, with nearly half of the world's 90,000 commercial vessels and two-thirds of global oil trade traveling through its sea lanes, the report said that the region is home to a quarter of the world's population.

While the region offers unprecedented opportunity, it is also confronting a myriad of security challenges, including terrorism, transnational crime, trafficking-in-persons, and illicit drugs.

"To combat these challenges, the US seeks opportunities to broaden and strengthen partnerships with India, Sri Lanka, the Maldives, Bangladesh, and Nepal to respond to shared regional challenges," the report added.

The US and India maintain a broad-based strategic partnership, underpinned by shared interests, democratic values, and strong people-to-people ties, it said.

"The US-India strategic partnership has strengthened significantly during the past two decades, based on a convergence of strategic interests, and the United States and India continue to use their deepening relationship to build new partnerships within and beyond the Indo-Pacific," the report noted.

Noting that in June 2016, the US designated India a "major defence partner," a status unique to India, the Pentagon's report said the designation seeks to elevate the US' defence partnership with India to a level commensurate with that of the US' closest allies and partners.

"The establishment of the US-India 2+2 ministerial dialogue in September last year also serves as a tangible demonstration of our commitment to promoting the shared principles of a free and open Indo-Pacific," the report further stated.

The report also clarified that the Department of Defence, in partnership with other US government departments and agencies, regional institutions and regional allies and partners, will continue to diligently uphold a rules-based order that ensures peace and prosperity for all.