China’s latest aggression against India is yet another reminder of strong India-US ties, top US lawmakers said. “China’s latest aggression in Arunachal Pradesh is yet another reminder of why a strong security partnership with India is critical to the national security of the United States and our allies,” the India committee co-chairs said in a statement. “This event represents another threat from the People’s Republic of China (PRC) to Indian territory, including China’s premeditated aggression on the Line of Actual Control in 2020 that killed around 20 Indian soldiers,” the co-chairs said.
“As co-chairs of the India Committee, we have worked for years to deepen the bilateral relationship between the US and India. The India Committee followed up on this progress by including the Khanna-Sherman-Schweikert amendment in the House-passed FY23 NDAA, highlighting the imminent and serious threats to India’s regional borders from China,” the statement said.
The Co-Chairs applauded the inclusion of Section 1260 in the FY23 Final Conference Report to strengthen military cooperation in critical areas such as intelligence gathering, fifth-generation aircraft, and emerging technologies to deter Chinese aggression and penetration in the Indo-Pacific region. “The US and India share a unique bond as the world’s oldest democracy and the world’s largest democracy, and as Co-Chairs of the Caucus, we will continue to strengthen our security engagement and bilateral ties,” the statement said.
Indian and Chinese troops engaged in a fresh clash in the Yangtze area of Arunachal Pradesh’s Tawang sector on December 9, the first such major flare-up since the deadly June 2020 hand-to-hand combat in the Galwan Valley in June 2020, which marked the most. serious military conflict between the two sides in decades.
