The Chinese military’s aggressive activities in the region as “destabilising”, US Secretary of Defence Mark Esper on Tuesday said America was “very closely” monitoring the situation between India and China along the Line of Actual Control.

Esper also highlighted the “increased” military cooperation with India and called it as “one of the most important defence relationships of the 21th century.”

He made the remarks during his interaction with London-based think-tank International Institute for Strategic Studies amid China”s renewed military assertiveness in eastern Ladakh as well as in the South China Sea.

“We are obviously monitoring the situation between India and China very closely, what”s happening along the Line of Actual Control and we are very pleased to see both sides are trying to de-escalate the situation,” Esper said in response to a question on the tension between the two neighbours.

Asserting that the People’s Liberation Army”s activities in the region are “destabilising”, he said that it “continues its aggressive behaviour in the East and South China Seas.”

In the midst of India”s border row with China, a US Navy carrier strike group led by nuclear-powered aircraft carrier USS Nimitz carried out a military drill with a fleet of Indian warships off the coast of Andaman and Nicobar Islands on Monday.

China is engaged in hotly contested territorial disputes in both the South China Sea and the East China Sea. Beijing has built up and militarised many of the islands and reefs it controls in the region.

Relations between the US and China have taken a turn for the worse in recent months over Beijing’s handling of the coronavirus pandemic. Fresh concerns over China”s crackdown of its Uygur Muslim community in Xinjiang and Beijing imposing a controversial national security law in Hong Kong have also raised tensions.

source : INDIA.COM

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