Trump's Visit To India Important To Counter Asia Pacific Axis Of China: Defence Expert Sehgal

Defence Expert PK Sehgal has said that US President Donald Trump's visit in India is exceedingly important for both countries to counter Asia Pacific Axis of China.

Speaking to ANI, Sehgal said, "This visit is exceedingly important from both US President Donald Trump and Prime Minister Narendra Modi and for both the countries economically, politically, diplomatically and strategically." "There are very many takeoffs that are going to take place, one of the major points of agenda would be mega defense deals, second is counter-terrorism and security and the third aspect would be Indo-Pacific, countering the Asia Pacific Axis of China, and fourthly is trade and energy security," he said.

Sehgal further said, "Each of these is very critically vital to us. As far as the US is concerned it wants us to open our market to certain American goods which we are resisting because it will make almost 100 thousand people unemployable. They will lose their businesses."

"Strategically, it is absolutely important both for India and US, as China is becoming increasingly aggressive and muscular both in the Indo-Pacific area, Asia Pacific area as well as the Indian Ocean region and it is very important to send a strong message to China that India is joining hands with the USA to ensure freedom of navigation, and to ensure rule of law prevails and China abides by international norms and rules. To an extent, it will also be countering the China-Russia axis," he said.

"As far as energy is concerned, we want to diversify from Gulf to America as America has now become the sixth-largest exporter to India in terms of oil and gas they want to strengthen this further," he said.

"Diplomatically it will send a very strong message to both Pakistan and China for the obvious reason that the world's most powerful democracy is standing with India shoulder to shoulder and would go flat out to ensure that terrorism comes to an end," he said.

"As far as political aspect is concerned, it is more important for Donald Trump, being an election year in the US, that he wants to carry conviction to the people of America that he is very popular in India and the Indians love him, hoping that the Indian diaspora votes for him and they could also contribute towards his election funds," he added. 

(ANI)