US President-elect Joe Biden's pick for Secretary Of State makes first statement about India, says this about China

Antony Blinken, a close aide of US President-elect Joe Biden, has said that India has to be a key partner in combating China.

Antony Blinken, a close aide of US President-elect Joe Biden, on Tuesday (November 24) said that India has to be a key partner in combating China.

"We have a common challenge which is to deal with an increasingly assertive China across the board, including its aggression toward India at the Line of Actual Control," Blinken said.

It is expected that Blinken is set to become the new US Secretary of State. Blinken's statement comes at a time when India and China are engaged in simmering border tension along Line of Actual Control (LAC) in Eastern Ladakh since May. 

Responding to a question from Richard Verma, the former US Ambassador to India, Blinken said that Biden would work closely with India after taking charge as US President to renew democratic relations between the two counties. Blinken calls India a close partner of the US and said that Biden administration would work closely with New Delhi.

"During the Obama-Biden administration, we worked very hard to establish India as a key contributing member of the Indo-Pacific strategy. And that includes India's role in working with like minded partners to strengthen and uphold a rules-based order in the Indo Pacific, in which no country, including China, can threaten its neighbours with impunity," Blinken said.

"That role needs to extend even beyond the region as vast as it is to the world at large. In a Biden administration, we would be an advocate for India to play a leading role in international institutions and that includes helping India get a seat on a reformed United Nations Security Council. We would work together to strengthen India's defence, and also add its capabilities as a counterterrorism partner," he added.