US Congressman Ro Khanna says America’s ties with India ‘critical’ in dealing with China, Russia

Congressman Ro Khanna Pic/X

Indian-American Congressman Ro Khanna, on Tuesday, said that the United States' relationship with India is "critical" in dealing with its strategic adversaries - Russia and China, a PTI report stated. Khanna, who was speaking to radio show host Hugh Hewitt on Tuesday after his return from India, where he had led a bipartisan Congressional delegation.

He was quoted in a PTI report as saying, "China and Russia are clearly two strategic challenges, adversaries. That's why the relationship with India is going to be so critical in dealing with it. I think China and Russia aren't always going to march lockstep and there are opportunities there, but by and large, we should be clear-eyed about what they're doing."

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The Congressman opined it was unreasonable for the US to expect India to block the Strait of Malacca during a conflict with China. He added that New Delhi can be aggressive on its borders in Ladakh and Arunachal Pradesh to call a two-front war if Beijing invades Taiwan.

The Strait of Malacca connects the Andaman Sea (Indian ocean) and South China sea (Pacific ocean). It is the shortest sea route between India and China and is one of the most travelled shipping channels in the world.

Khanna, who is presently Co-Chair of the Congressional India Caucus, was in disagreement with Indian-American presidential candidate Vivek Ramaswamy who said on Tuesday that he would wish India to close Malacca Strait in case China invades Taiwan, stated the PTI report.

China sees Taiwan as a breakaway province that must be reunified with the mainland and Beijing did not rule out possible use of force to achieve the goal.
"We should be clear-eyed about what India will or will not do. I mean this is another important point. The idea that they're going to block the Malacca Strait is just unreasonable to expect. Japan and South Korea wouldn't go along with that in India," Khanna was quoted saying. He added, "From the conversations we had, we aren't going to go do that because you can bypass that through the Lombok or Sunda and you wouldn't get Asian support for that."

Lombok is an island in West Nusa Tenggara province, Indonesia. It forms part of the chain of the Lesser Sunda Islands, with the Lombok Strait separating it.

"What can we expect India to do? We can expect India to be aggressive at their borders in Ladakh and Arunachal Pradesh so that China then has a two-front concern. They have to worry about the borderline of control with India and not just put all of their resources into a Taiwan potential invasion and into deterring the freedom of the seas," he said.

He also said that understanding what the Indian partners are willing to do and where the US can actually deter China is critical to having coherent foreign policy. He further said that US delegation, during its meeting with External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar in Delhi, discussed India's purchase of arms from Russia as well. He said when pressed with the matter, the union minister pointed out that US had stopped supplying arms to India after 1965 in an attempt to normalise relations with China and Pakistan and thus began India's dependence on Russian arms.

Khanna said India was left with a border that was unsecured with China, with America not selling it any arms post-1965, and they had to go to the Russians to get arms both to defend themselves against China and Pakistan.

"That was almost a 40-year history. Now we're building the defence relationship, but he said, you can't expect a switch overnight. They want to switch. They understand our stuff is better and we need to work with that," he said.