With China increasingly asserting its presence in the Indo-Pacific, India and the US in their first 2+2 dialogue have discussed engagement with Japan, Australia and ASEAN nations to secure the seas and the skies in the region, a senior Trump administration official has said.
External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj and Defence Minister Nirmala Sitharaman held the crucial talks with US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and Defence Secretary James Mattis in New Delhi on September 6.
While China claims almost all of the resource-rich South China Sea, Vietnam, the Philippines, Malaysia, Brunei and Taiwan have counter claims over the area.
China recently deployed anti-ship cruise missiles and surface-to-surface missile systems in the disputed South China Sea amid frequent forays by US naval and surveillance aircraft over the region to assert the freedom of navigation.
In a conference call with reporters on Monday, Alice Wells, the Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for South and Central Asia, said during the discussion, China's reference came up "most in the context of the vision the two nations (India and US) have for the Indo-Pacific region, which excludes no nation."
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