{"id":335291,"date":"2017-11-16T20:58:34","date_gmt":"2017-11-16T19:58:34","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/newswire\/indian-and-us-officials-discuss-chinese-influence-in-maldives-and-sri-lanka\/"},"modified":"2017-11-16T20:58:34","modified_gmt":"2017-11-16T19:58:34","slug":"indian-and-us-officials-discuss-chinese-influence-in-maldives-and-sri-lanka","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/newswire\/indian-and-us-officials-discuss-chinese-influence-in-maldives-and-sri-lanka\/","title":{"rendered":"Indian and US officials discuss Chinese influence in Maldives and Sri Lanka"},"content":{"rendered":"<div id=\"content\">\n<h3 class=\"nomargin\">\u00a0<\/h3>\n<h2>Indian and US officials discuss Chinese influence in Maldives and Sri Lanka<\/h2>\n<h5>\n<p>    By<br \/>\n    K. Ratnayake<br \/>\n    <br \/>16 November 2017<\/p>\n<\/h5>\n<p>According to Indian media reports, Atul Keshap, the US ambassador to Sri Lanka and Maldives, recently held talks with Indian Foreign Secretary S. Jaishankar over \u201cISIS threats\u201d and Chinese influence in the South Asia region. The pair reportedly discussed ways of scuttling China\u2019s economic weight in Maldives and Sri Lanka.<\/p>\n<p>Sri Lanka and Maldives, only 983 kilometres apart, sit astride strategic Indian Ocean sea lanes, from the Strait of Hormuz in the west to the Malacca Strait in the east. The US regards both straits as choke points that could be used to block vital energy supplies and other imports to China in a war.<\/p>\n<p>Emphasising the importance of its alliance with India, Washington, which previously referred to the \u201cAsia-Pacific\u201d to describe its efforts to isolate China, now says its operations cover the \u201cIndo-Pacific.\u201d US National Security Advisor H. R. McMaster declared last week in Beijing: \u201cIf you look at the geography and trade routes, the routes flow east and west across the Indo-Pacific region.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>In response to Washington\u2019s increasingly provocative moves, China is stepping up its One Belt, One Road (OBOR) and associated Maritime Silk Road projects to ensure the free movement of its imports and exports. The US regards OBOR as a threat to its global hegemony.<\/p>\n<p>After decades of \u201cnon-alignment,\u201d Prime Minister Narendra Modi has transformed India into a \u201c<a href=\"https:\/\/www.wsws.org\/en\/articles\/2017\/03\/07\/inus-m07.html\">frontline state<\/a>\u201d in Washington\u2019s moves against Beijing.<\/p>\n<p>Reporting on high-level discussions between US Ambassador Keshap and Indian officials, a November 6 article by the <em>Times of India<\/em> <em>\u2019s<\/em> diplomatic editor Indrani Bagchi declared: \u201cMaldives is a matter of particular concern&#8230;.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.wsws.org\/en\/articles\/2017\/11\/16\/usin-n16.html\">Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>\u00a0 Indian and US officials discuss Chinese influence in Maldives and Sri Lanka By K. Ratnayake 16 November 2017 According to Indian media reports, Atul Keshap, the US ambassador to Sri Lanka and Maldives, recently held talks with Indian Foreign Secretary S. Jaishankar over \u201cISIS threats\u201d and Chinese influence in the South Asia region. The [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2526,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[519],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-335291","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-newswire"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/335291","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2526"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=335291"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/335291\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=335291"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=335291"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=335291"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}