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| US SecDef: Ash Carter |
By Laurent BARTHELEMY
US Secretary of Defense Ashton Carter headed Saturday to India and the Philippines for talks on increasing regional defense cooperation, after calling off a planned trip to China amid tensions over Beijing's expansionist ambitions in the South China Sea.
Carter will fly out of Washington and travel to India and the Philippines for his Asian tour, followed by Middle East stops in the United Arab Emirates and Saudi Arabia.
China lays claim to almost all of the contested South China Sea, which is important for international shipping and is believed to hold valuable mineral and energy deposits.
Neighboring countries and Washington fear China could impose military controls over the entire South China Sea, and Beijing has in recent months built massive structures including radar systems and an airstrip over reefs and outcrops.
The Philippines is among several other regional countries that also have claims to the strategic zone.
"Almost all the nations there are asking us to do more with them... bilaterally and multilaterally," Carter told the Council on Foreign Relations think tank in New York on Friday.
"Many of those countries are reaching out anew to the United States to uphold the rules and principles that have allowed the region to thrive."
In India, where Carter will stay through Wednesday, he will discuss new partnerships and modernizing old alliances, according to the Pentagon.
"We are now doing things that could not have been imagined 10 years ago," a senior US defense official said.
Read the full story at SpaceDaily