U.S. working to draw India more to Asia Pacific region

The U.S. is working to draw India to the Asia Pacific region, a top Obama Administration official told lawmakers.

“One of the desires of the administration is to take a multi-faceted approach, deeper integration in regional diplomacy, in multi-lateral institutions, working with India, drawing India in more to Asian-Pacific region, working towards consequential diplomacy with China,” said Kurt Campbell, Assistant Secretary of State for East Asian and Pacific Affairs.

Campbell, who holds regular sub-dialogue with India on its ‘Look East Policy’, was responding to questions from U.S. Senators at a Congressional hearing on Korea organised by the Senate Armed Services Committee on Korean Peninsula.

At a separate discussion held at the U.S. Institute of Peace -- a Washington-based think-tank -- Campbell said India’s emergence, in Asia, has been a major development of the region in the last few years.

Responding to questions from anxious Senators about the increasing power of China, Campbell said this is not a relationship centre that the U.S. has much experience with.

“We’ve had a monochromatic kind of relationship in the past with the Soviet Union. That’s not what the relationship is like with China. It’s deep. It’s complicated.

“There are areas of cooperation, and there are areas of discord. How we manage that is going to be the primary diplomatic challenge of the U.S. over the course of the next generation,” he said.

Senator John McCain said China’s recent behaviour make it even harder to imagine how to formulate an effective strategy on North Korea.

“Rather than support the Republic of Korea, after the sinking of the Cheonan, acknowledge North Korea’s blame, and use its leverage with North Korea to change its behaviour, China has instead worked to water down the response of the UN, shielded North Korea from accepting culpability for its aggressive acts and even challenged the right of the U.S. and our allies to conduct joint exercises in international waters,” McCain said.

On this, Campbell said that the Cheonan incident made it clear that China had a very complex calculus that they look at on the Korean Peninsula.

“I think, at a strategic level, the U.S. and China share some things in common. We want to maintain peace and stability on the Korea Peninsula,” said the U.S. official.

“We seek a Korean Peninsula without nuclear weapons. But... they have a long historic relationship with N Korea.

They also have, in the last 10 to 15 years, built a very strong relationship with South Korea,” he said.