‘China Using Sino-India Border Situation to Their Advantage,’ Says US State Secy Mike Pompeo | Earth Indian

New Delhi: China is using its “tactical situation” like the one at Sino-India border to make threats against Washington, the United States Secretary of State Mike Pompeo alleged on Sunday evening.

Tensions have failed to subside between India and China at the Line of Actual Control (LAC) near Ladakh, while both the countries declined the US President Donald Trump’s offer to mediate.

“The Chinese Communist Party has been on this effort, on this march, for an awfully long time. They’ll certainly use a tactical situation on the ground to their advantage. But each of the problems that you identified there are threats that they have been making for an awfully long time,” Pompeo said during an interview with a leading news agency in the US.

He said that the Asia giant was using its aggressive behaviour on the Sino-India border and the South China Sea, which posed a ‘real’ threat.

“Threats like the one that is happening on its border with India, they have been making for an awfully long time,” the Secretary of State said and added, “With respect to the Chinese Communist Party’s military advances, they are real.”

Pompeo alleged that Chinese President Xi Jinping was intent on building out his military capabilities for if it sees any threat from the Indian side. “Our Department of Defence is doing everything it can to make sure it understands this threat,” he said.

“I am confident that under President (Donald) Trump, our Department of Defence, our military, our national security establishment will keep us in a position where we can protect the American people, and indeed we can be good partners with our allies from India, from Australia, from South Korea, from Japan, from Brazil, from Europe, all around the world.

“We can be good partners alongside them and ensure that the next century remains a Western one modelled on the freedoms that we have here in the United States,” Pompeo asserted.

Last week, the Chinese ministry said that the situation could be resolved through communications mechanisms. However, it didn’t directly comment on its stance on US President Donald Trump’s offer to intervene in the matter.

The tensions escalated between India and China following a number of confrontations between soldiers of both armies. Troops of India and China were engaged in two face-offs in Eastern Ladakh and North Sikkim along the disputed Line of Actual Control (LAC), where troops from both sides suffered injuries early this month.

India maintained that the Chinese military was hindering normal patrolling by its troops along the LAC in Ladakh and Sikkim and strongly refuted Beijing’s contention that the escalating tension between the two armies was triggered by trespassing of Indian forces across the Chinese side.

By Shivam Urkude || Earth Indian