‘India, US must look for OBOR alternative’

Smita Sharma

Tribune news service

New Delhi, October 18

Days ahead of his visit to New Delhi, US Secretary of State Rex Tillerson effectively called for India and the US to forge an alternative to the grand “One Belt, One Road (OBOR)” Chinese project, without naming it. China’s financing models, especially in the Indo-Pacific region, on mind, he called for India and the US to be in the business of “equipping other countries” and providing them alternative finance mechanisms to “protect their sovereignty” for a louder voice in regional security architecture.

“It is time to expand transparent, high standard regional lending mechanism-tools that will actually help nations, instead of saddling them with mounting debt,” said Tillerson. He was addressing the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington DC on “Defining our relationship with India for the Next Century.”

Focusing on the strategic alliance with India, he called it important to ensure that Indo-Pacific stayed “open and free” and did not become “a region of disorder, conflict and predatory economics.” He further warned: “We cannot compete with China and match their terms, but countries must decide what is the price they are willing to pay for their sovereignty.”

He said during the East Asia Summit in August, the US had begun a quiet conversation on alternative finance mechanism needs of the regional members. He stressed there was room for Australia to join the India-US and Japan trilateral in the region.

‘Pak must rein in terrorists’

On Pakistan , in what could be read as a return to the past hyphenation policy, Tillerson hoped to help ease tensions on the India-Pakistan border so that Islamabad could help stabilise Afghanistan. He urged Islamabad to further act on terrorism. “We expect Pakistan to take decisive action against terrorist groups based within their own borders that threaten their own people and the broader region,” he said.