US Defence
Secretary Lloyd Austin arrived India on Friday for the first face-to-face
meeting between New Delhi and Washington after President Joe Biden took
over the office in January. The key focus areas in talks between Defence
Minister Rajnath Singh and Loyd is expected to be China’s assertiveness in the Indo-pacific
region, AFP reported.

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The meeting comes at the backdrop of hostile talks between US Secretary of State Antony Blinken with top Chinese
officials in Alaska the previous day.

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However, Lloyd’s two-day visit plan to India includes a meeting with Prime Minister Narendra Modi, as well as Foreign Minister S. Jaishankar, Defence
Minister Rajnath Singh and Ajit Doval, a senior US official said.

Secretary Austin may raise the human rights issue in talks with India as well since Biden administration calls it an important part of the defense and foreign policy under new regime.

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According to Manoj Joshi from India’s Observer Research Foundation, Austin’s visit to India soon after the power change in US reflects the priority Washington is assigning to India.

“Our
relationship with the US on the military side has enhanced enormously and the
US has been helping us in our confrontation with China,” Joshi told AFP.

However, prior to India, Austin and Blinken visited Japan and South Korea, two other important partners in the Asia-Pacific region where China’s growing forceful domination has alarmed its neighbours.

India and US, both share prickly relation with Beijing. India’s ties with China went from bad to worse after the Ladakh face-off following territorial dispute in the region and the unfettered support to India’s arch rival Pakistan.

US-China ties on the other hand deteriorated with Biden’s predecessor Donald Trump’s open allegations of spreading coronavirus and breaching security and continued to go south when Biden disapproved of China’s human rights violation in Hong Kong and Xinjiang.