With Eyes On China, India To Hold Trilateral Talks With US And Japan Today

Foreign ministers of India, the United States and Japan will hold a trilateral meeting today to give momentum to their growing cooperation in an atmosphere of common concerns about China’s rise and its growing assertiveness.

External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj will hold the trilateral meeting with US Secretary of State Rex Tillerson and Japanese foreign minister Taro Kono today on the sidelines of the UN General Assembly, an Indian official said.

Swaraj will address the annual session of the UN General Assembly on 23 September. The minister is scheduled to have a series of meetings tomorrow including that with Tunisian Foreign Minister Khemaies Jhinaoui, Bhutanese Prime Minister Tshering Tobgay, Danish Foreign Minister Anders Samuelsen, Latvian Foreign Minister Edgars Rinkevics and her Bolivian counterpart Fernando Huanacuni Mamani.

Swaraj will also attend a high-level meeting on UN Reforms hosted by the US and chaired by its president Donald Trump.

China is engaged in hotly contested territorial disputes in both the South China Sea and the East China Sea. Beijing has built up and militarised many of the islands and reefs it controls in the region. China claims sovereignty over all of South China Sea. Vietnam, Malaysia, the Philippines, Brunei and Taiwan have counter claims. (PTI)