GUWAHATI: The United States said it favoured China settling disputes with its neighbours amicably by following international norms and not through “coercion”.
“What is worrying about Chinese behaviour is that China is using coercion to settle disputes rather than following established international norms,” US Consul General in Kolkata, Craig Hall, told reporters in Guwahati on Tuesday in response to a query on India’s border disputes with China over Arunachal Pradesh.
The diplomat said the US policy since 1960s had been that it recognised the McMahon Line as the border between the two nations. New Delhi and Beijing have been for long mired in a bitter border dispute. Beijing calls Arunachal as South Tibet and claims it as part of its territory. The frontier state shares a 1,080 km border with China.
On the South China Sea dispute, Hall said: “Our goal is to ensure the freedom of the seas and sky, and insulate sovereign nations from external coercion”.
On the India-US partnership, he said, “The United States and India are working bilaterally, and in cooperation with other like-minded partners like Japan and Australia, to advance our shared vision for the Indo-Pacific -- a region that is open, prosperous, and secure. Our goals are to support good governance and liberty and promote market-based economics”.
A team of the US diplomats, which also had Brigadier General David E. Brigham, Defence Attaché at the US Embassy in New Delhi; is currently on a “familiarization” trip to Northeast.
As part of the outreach, the team plans to meet defence, law-enforcement, security and government officials besides civil society leaders in the region.