24-07-2021, 01:07 PM
WASHINGTON, July 23 (Reuters) - U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken will travel next week to India, an important partner in U.S. efforts to counter China and in vaccine diplomacy that is hobbled by its own COVID-19 crisis.
It will be Blinken's first visit to the world's largest democracy as President Joe Biden's secretary of state and he will meet on Wednesday with Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Foreign Minister Subrahmanyam Jaishankar.
Blinken will also visit Kuwait at the end of his July 26-29 trip.
Washington sees India as helping in U.S. efforts to stand up to China's increasingly assertive behavior in Asia and beyond. Blinken's trip will follow a visit by Deputy Secretary of State Wendy Sherman to China and coincide with one to Southeast Asia by Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin.
On Blinken's agenda will be "Indo-Pacific engagement, shared regional security interests, shared democratic values, and addressing the climate crisis" as well as the response to the coronavirus pandemic, the State Department said.
Blinken is also likely to discuss plans for an in-person summit of the so-called Quad. The grouping of India, Japan, Australia and the United States is seen as a counter to China's rising influence.
The meeting - which diplomats and others said could coincide with the late-September U.N. General Assembly, pandemic travel permitting - is expected to focus on ways to develop regional infrastructure in the face of China's Belt and Road Initiative.
The United States hosted a virtual Quad summit in March at which the countries agreed Indian drugmaker Biological E Ltd would produce at least a billion coronavirus vaccine doses by the end of 2022, mainly for Southeast Asian and Pacific countries, which have seen COVID-19 surges and where Washington has been competing in vaccine diplomacy with China.
https://www.reuters.com/world/us-top-dip...021-07-23/
It will be Blinken's first visit to the world's largest democracy as President Joe Biden's secretary of state and he will meet on Wednesday with Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Foreign Minister Subrahmanyam Jaishankar.
Blinken will also visit Kuwait at the end of his July 26-29 trip.
Washington sees India as helping in U.S. efforts to stand up to China's increasingly assertive behavior in Asia and beyond. Blinken's trip will follow a visit by Deputy Secretary of State Wendy Sherman to China and coincide with one to Southeast Asia by Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin.
On Blinken's agenda will be "Indo-Pacific engagement, shared regional security interests, shared democratic values, and addressing the climate crisis" as well as the response to the coronavirus pandemic, the State Department said.
Blinken is also likely to discuss plans for an in-person summit of the so-called Quad. The grouping of India, Japan, Australia and the United States is seen as a counter to China's rising influence.
The meeting - which diplomats and others said could coincide with the late-September U.N. General Assembly, pandemic travel permitting - is expected to focus on ways to develop regional infrastructure in the face of China's Belt and Road Initiative.
The United States hosted a virtual Quad summit in March at which the countries agreed Indian drugmaker Biological E Ltd would produce at least a billion coronavirus vaccine doses by the end of 2022, mainly for Southeast Asian and Pacific countries, which have seen COVID-19 surges and where Washington has been competing in vaccine diplomacy with China.
https://www.reuters.com/world/us-top-dip...021-07-23/
