President Donald Trump singled out India’s success story for praise on Friday as he spoke of the US forging a new partnership with countries in Asia to promote prosperity and a free and open Indo-Pacific region. He noted that countries in the broader region outside the APEC grouping were “making great strides in this new chapter for the Indo-Pacific”. Trump too is scheduled to attend the East Asia Summit, a key meeting between Asean and eight of its partners. The use of the term Indo-Pacific by Washington has coincided with reports of the revival of a quadrilateral alliance between the US, Japan, Australia and India as a counter-balance to the rise of China. Beijing has so far avoided wading into the question of referring to the region as the Indo-Pacific.

Source: Hindustan Times November 10, 2017 11:31 UTC