The United States has welcomed India's engagement with Myanmar, saying that it believes the ties with Yangon on a whole host of issues will be positive.
"We really welcome the engagement of India with Burma (Myanmar). India and the United States have long had very similar aspirations and goals for Burma, though we've often had very different policy approaches to it," Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for South and Southeast Asia, Asian and Pacific Security Affairs Vikram Singh said yesterday.
During a Congressional hearing, Singh said: "We believe that overall, India's re-engagement with Burma on a whole host of issues will be positive. I would say that we will probably have disagreements about specifics about what that looks like."
"So, for example, moves into arms and other things will be things that we might be concerned about," he replied in response to a query from Indian-American Congressman Ami Bera.
"Obviously, Burma sits at a very critical juncture, you know, between an emerging relationship with India and offers some critical access to trade routes and so forth. But from a military perspective, it certainly sits at a critical juncture," Bera said.
"It does look like India is increasing some of its military sales to Burma as well as offering assistance and so forth at a similar time that China, obviously, is providing a lot as well. How do you see this playing out in terms of -- vis-a-vis some of the relationships between India and China as well," Bera asked.
Singh said it is incredibly important for Burma to start interacting with militaries other than those that have been their traditional partners and suppliers, and with governments that have been other than their traditional partners.
"So we welcome that development," he said.
"We believe China will try to maintain a relationship with Burma, and Burma is finding itself having, for the first time in many years, to actually figure out where it wants to place its bets, where it wants to put its cards, who it wants to deal with," Singh said.
"We'd like to shape the kinds of choices that Burma makes through how we go through this delicate process of re-engagement with supporting reform at the center of how we approach things," the top Pentagon official said.
