With China in mind, India and the UK will enhance security and strategic cooperation in the Indo-Pacific. The two nations will also ramp up coordination to fight against terrorism. National Security Advisor Ajit Doval and his UK counterpart Stephen Lovegrove discussed various issues related to the Indo-Pacific during which Beijing’s belligerence and other related security concerns figured, sources told The Daily Guardian Review. The two NSAs discussed regional security situation and ways to enhance cooperation between New Delhi and London in Indo-Pacific apart from other areas such as violent extremism and terrorism. NSAs also discussed the Chinese challenges in the Indo-Pacific, top sources said. The situation in Afghanistan was also one of the topics under focus during the talks between Doval and Stephen Lovegrove.
According to sources, India and the UK have agreed that there is a need for retaining
the strategic focus on the Indo-Pacific region. Lovegrove, who was in New Delhi, met Doval and discussed a wide range of issues of bilateral and global significance, sources said. The NSAs took forward the discussions between Prime Ministers Narendra Modi and Boris Johnson, and stressed the need to enhance cooperation in the technology and defence sectors with a focus on key objectives of the Atmanirbhar Bharat (self-reliant India) initiative.
Sources said that it was decided in the meeting that more high-level talks between security and diplomatic officials of India and the UK will be held to give further push to the Indo-Pacific strategy. The UK is said to be quite focused on the Indo-Pacific and is working hard, for that matter, to deter China in the region. What buttresses this point is the report that the United Kingdom is likely to deploy a fleet of nuclear submarines to Australia in a bid to thwart Chinese aggression in the Asia-Pacific region. Reports say that the British submarines could be based in Australia until 2040, operating within striking distance of China. Meanwhile, China’s government is said to be ramping up its campaign against Australia’s push to build nuclear submarines with the help of the UK and the US. Sources said that India is taking every single update on this development from the UK and the US.