The US and India have held talks about conducting joint naval patrols that a US defense official said could include the disputed South China Sea, a move that would likely anger Beijing, which claims most of the waterway.
Washington wants its regional allies and other Asian nations to take a more united stance against China over the South China Sea, where tensions have spiked in the wake of Beijing’s construction of seven artificial islands in the Spratly archipelago (Nansha Islands, 南沙群島).
India and the US have ramped up military ties in recent years, holding naval exercises in the Indian Ocean that last year involved the Japanese navy, but the Indian navy has never carried out joint patrols with another country.
An Indian naval spokesman said that there was no change in the government’s policy of only joining an international military effort under the UN flag.
He pointed to India’s refusal to be part of anti-piracy missions involving dozens of countries in the Gulf of Aden and instead carrying out its own operations there since 2008.
The US defense official said that the two sides had discussed joint patrols, adding that both were hopeful of launching them within the year.
The patrols would likely be in the Indian Ocean, where the Indian navy is a major player, as well as the South China Sea, the official said in New Delhi on condition of anonymity.
The official gave no details on the scale of the proposed patrols.
There was no immediate comment from China.
China accused Washington this month of seeking maritime hegemony in the name of freedom of navigation after a US Navy destroyer sailed within 12 nautical miles (22km) of a disputed island in the Paracel Islands (Xisha Islands, 西沙群島) late last month.
The US Navy conducted a similar exercise in October last year near one of China’s artificial islands in the Spratlys.
The issue of joint patrols came up when Indian Minister of Defense Manohar Parrikar visited the US Pacific Command in Hawaii in December last year, an Indian government source said.
“It was a broad discussion, it was about the potential for joint patrols,” said the source, who declined to be identified because of the sensitivity of the matter.
India has a long-running land border dispute with China and has been careful not to antagonize its more neighbor, instead focusing on building economic ties, but it has stepped up its naval presence far beyond the Indian Ocean, deploying a ship to the South China Sea almost constantly, an Indian navy commander said, noting this was not the practice a few years ago.
The commander added that the largest number of Indian naval ship visits in the South China Sea region was to Vietnam.
Still, the idea of joining the US in patrols in the region was a long shot, the officer added.
The Philippines has asked the US to do joint naval patrols in the South China Sea, something a US diplomat said was a possibility.
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