NEW DELHI: At the third 2+2 ministerial meeting this week, India and the U.S. signed the Basic Exchange and Cooperation Agreement for Geo-Spatial Cooperation (BECA) that gives access to extremely accurate geo-spatial data. On ‘Talking Point’, Ambassador Kanwal Sibal, Former Indian Foreign Secretary and Richard M. Rossow, Senior Adviser and Wadhwani Chair in U.S.-India Policy Studies, Centre for Strategic and International Studies, discuss the India-U.S partnership in the face of the Chinese Communist Party’s (CCP) belligerent foreign policy with StratNews Global Associate Editor Amitabh P. Revi.
The panel also analyses U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo’s subsequent whistle-stop visits to Sri Lanka, the Maldives, Indonesia and Vietnam where, while in Colombo, he described the CCP as a predator, announced a U.S. resident Ambassador in Malé and praised Jakarta for standing up to Beijing.