Indian External Affairs Minister Dr. S.Jaishankar with US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo in Tokyo on October 6, 2020
New Delhi: In interviews to Fox News, and The Guy Benson Show after returning home from the Quad group meeting in Tokyo where he met his counterparts from Japan, India and Australia, US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo acknowledged deployment of over 60,000 Chinese soldiers were deployed on India’s Northern border.
“The Indians are seeing 60,000 Chinese soldiers on their northern border, Pompeo said at The Guy Benson Show in an interview on Friday. He added: “I was with my foreign minister counterparts from India, Australia, and Japan a format that we call the Quad, four big democracies, four powerful economies, four nations, each of whom has real risk associated with the threats imposed attempting to be imposed by the Chinese Communist Party. And they see it in their home countries too.”
He told Fox News that while the Quad countries “slept on this (China’s threat) for too long…They absolutely need the United States to be their ally and partner in this fight.” He went on to add that “for decades, the West allowed the Chinese Communist Party to walk all over us”.
He further added: “”But they’ve all seen it, whether it’s the Indians, who are actually having a physical confrontation with the Chinese up in the Himalayas in the northeastern part of India, the Chinese have now begun to amass huge forces against India in the north whether it’s the Australians who did the simple thing of saying the Chinese screwed this deal up with the virus, and we’d like to understand what happened and said we ought to have a full investigation, and in exchange for that, the Chinese Communist Party began to extort, coerce, bully the Australians.”
Pompeo had had a detailed meeting with Indian External Affairs Minister S. Jaishankar in Tokyo on October 6, which the latter had termed as “productive”. Jaishankar had then tweeted: “Began my Tokyo visit with a bilateral meeting with @SecPompeo. Pleased to see the progress of our partnership in so many fields. Will work together for stability and prosperity in the Indo- Pacific.” In a series of tweets, the Indian External Affairs Minister had then informed about the discussions at the Quad meeting on connectivity and infrastructure development, terrorism, cyber and maritime security and stability and prosperity in the region, as well as the commitment to “upholding the rules-based international order, underpinned by the rule of law, transparency, freedom of navigation, respect for territorial integrity & sovereignty and peaceful resolution of disputes”.
The Ministry of External Affairs had then in an official release stated that the Foreign Ministers had exchanged views about regional issues of mutual interest, and issues related to connectivity; humanitarian assistance and disaster relief; maritime safety and security; health security, and counter terrorism. “They reaffirmed their collective vision of maintaining a free, open and inclusive Indo-Pacific. They reiterated their firm support to ASEAN centrality and highlighted their readiness to work towards realizing a common vision for the Indo-Pacific. Appreciating the value of these consultations, they agreed to hold them regularly,” the official statement said.
– globalbihari bureau
