PM Modi's US visit was NOT about leveraging India to be counterweight to China, says John Kirby | Watch
PM Modi's US visit: Reacting to a question on India's role with respect to Washington's China policy, Kirby said, "We are not viewing India as a counterweight to China. We weren't approaching the state visit as some sort of messaging opportunity to China."
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FollowJohn Kirby, a top official of the White House on Friday (June 23) said that the United States does not consider India as a counterweight to China and emphasised that Prime Minister Narendra Modi's State Visit was not centered around Beijing.
John Kirby, US National Security Council spokesman, said the United States-India relationship stands on its own merit and is about the Indian and American people. While acknowledging India's challenges with China, Kirby said that India deals with them independently.
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Addressing a press conference, John Kirby said, "This wasn't -- this state visit wasn't about China. And, look, India has challenges with China as well, right on their doorstep, but also more broadly in the region. And, clearly, the challenges presented by the PRC to both our nations were on the agenda yesterday, no question about that."
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Reacting to a question on India's role with respect to Washington's China policy, Kirby said, "But this wasn't about leveraging India to be some sort of counterweight. India is a sovereign independent state. They have their own foreign policy that they have to manage. And they live in a -- in a tough neighbourhood. They are becoming an increasing exporter of security, which we welcome. And you can see a lot of that -- that -- our desire to improve the defence cooperation on hand yesterday in some of the deliverables, whether it's co-production of jet engines, whether it's their purchase of MQ-9 drones. There is a lot we can do in the security front together, and that's really what we're focused on."
The US National Security Council spokesman stressed that PM Modi's visit was about sending the message to the American and Indian people about how important this bilateral relationship is and people around the world.
On Friday, PM Modi met with US and Indian technology CEOs in Washington, the final day of a state visit marked by pledges of deeper US-India cooperation in areas including space, artificial intelligence and quantum computing.
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