On August 27, Chief of Naval Operations Admiral Mike Gilday of the United States stated that India will be an important ally for the United States in the future and play a significant part in containing China.
Gilday claimed that India presents China with a two-front dilemma when speaking at a session held by the Heritage Foundation in Washington, according to Nikkei Asia.
He stated that as a result, China is now required to look not only toward the east, toward the South China Sea and the Taiwan Strait, but also at India.
Because I view India as a potential strategic partner for us in the future, I have spent more time there than anywhere else, he continued.
In reference to his five-day trip to India in October of last year, he added, “For us, the battlespace in the Indian Ocean is becoming more crucial. It’s strategically significant that China and India are currently engaged in a small conflict along their shared border.”
He voiced his worry that the border clashes between China and India in the Himalayas, which have been increasing momentum, constitute a two-front dilemma for Beijing.
Earlier in June, at a conference of the Quad (the US, Japan, India, and Australia) in Japan, veteran Pentagon official Elbridge Colby had stated that while India would not directly participate in a local conflict over Taiwan, it may attract China’s attention to the Himalayan border.
Colby explained that for China to have a significant second-front issue, “the United States and Japan need India to be as powerful as feasible in South Asia and effectively capture Chinese attention.”
Meanwhile, India gains the same advantages from China’s challenges in dealing with a robust US-Japan alliance around Taiwan, he claimed.