EAM S Jaishankar to meet US defence secretary on Friday; China, Covid-19 on agenda

China’s continued belligerence along its Line of Actual Control (LAC) with India is likely to be on the agenda of External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar’s meeting with the United States Secretary of Defence Lloyd Austin in Washington DC on Friday.

Jaishankar will also have meetings with United States Trade Representative Katherine Tai, apart from holding talks with his counterpart Secretary of State Anthony Blinken during his stay in Washington DC

Austin and Jaishankar will continue the discussion they had in New Delhi in March, when the United States Secretary of Defence had visited India, Pentagon Press Secretary John F Kirby said in Washington DC, adding that they would exchange views on the “robust bilateral defence and security relationship” between India and the US.

Jaishankar’s is first high-level visit from India to the US after Joe Biden succeeded Donald Trump as the American President. Austin, who was on a visit to New Delhi from March 19 to 20, was the first top US official to travel to India after the change of guard in the White House. Biden’s special envoy for climate, John Kerry, too visited New Delhi early last month.

A source in New Delhi said that India’s “current security challenges” would come up for discussion during the meeting between the External Affairs Minister and the US Secretary of Defence.

The stand-off between the Indian Army and the Chinese People’s Liberation Army (PLA) in eastern Ladakh is still continuing, although more than a year passed since it started in the wake of a unilateral move by the communist country to alter the status quo along the LAC. The two sides earlier this year withdrew front-line troops from the northern and the southern banks of the Pangong Tso lake, but could not yet agree on similar disengagement on several other face-off points along the de facto boundary between the two neighbouring nations in the western sector.

As New Delhi’s ties with Beijing hit a new low over the military stand-off along the LAC, the strategic convergence between India and the US, particularly in the Indo-Pacific region, grew over the past few months. Biden, Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Prime Minister Yoshihide Suga of Japan and Prime Minister Scott Morrison of Australia had a virtual summit on March 12 to elevate the ‘Quad’, which the four nations had revived in 2017 to build a coalition of democracies to counter the hegemonic aspirations of China. Jaishankar and Austin are expected to discuss the future course of the Quad, apart from exchanging views on the Indo-Pacific region, a source in New Delhi said.

Jaishankar is also likely to thank Austin for the role the US Department of Defence played to deliver oxygen concentrators, cylinders and medicines provided by the American Government earlier this month to help India respond to the devastating second wave of the Covid-19 pandemic.

The proposal originally mooted by India and South Africa and now co-sponsored by 60 other nations at the World Trade Organization for waiving the Intellectual Property Rights protection on the anti-Covid-19 vaccines and drugs will figure prominently when the External Affairs Minister would meet he United States Trade Representative. The US of late extended its support to the proposal, albeit after its proponents agreed to revise it to address the concerns of the opponents that its scope was too broad. The negotiation on the revised proposal is likely to commence at the WTO TRIPS Council, which governs the Agreement on Trade Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights.

Jaishankar is expected to request Blinken to speed up the process for sending to India the anti-Covid-19 vaccines developed by AstraZeneca plc in collaboration with the Oxford University and available with the US. Since the vaccine developed by AstraZeneca plc is unlikely to be used in the US, the Biden Administration of late decided to send out 60 million doses of the jab to other countries.

India is hoping to get a large share of the vaccines the US would send out to foreign countries – not only the AstraZeneca’s, but also the ones developed by the Pfizer-BioNTech, Moderna and Johnson & Johnson’s. Amid the shortage of vaccines in India, the External Affairs Minister is likely to stress on early delivery of the vaccines to India during his discussion with the US Secretary of State.