'India, US should cooperate with China wherever possible'

India and the US should practice cooperating with China wherever they can as this will create the goodwill that makes crises easier to work out, suggests former US State Department official Anja Manuel.

In her new book "This Brave New World: India, China and the United States", published by Simon and Schuster, Manuel stresses on bringing China and India along as partners rather than alienating one or both.

"We should find joint projects together that help us all, such as the civil nuclear agreement between the US and India I had a small part in negotiating, or the climate change agreement China and US announced in December 2014.

"The civilian nuclear talks, for example, were difficult for both countries, but they taught us how to work closely together and helped unlock new cooperation in defence, counter-terrorism and other topics. It would be great for India and China to find a cooperative project," she told PTI in an interview.

Manuel is co-founder and partner with former Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, former National Security Advisor Stephen Hadley and former Secretary of Defence Robert Gates, in RiceHadleyGates LLC, a strategic consulting firm which assists CEOs and senior executives of major US companies to expand their business and meet regulatory challenges in key emerging markets such as China, India, Africa and the Middle East.

She says India and the US are closer partners than ever and this should be welcomed, adding, "However, we must continue to hold out an open hand to China as well because creating two hostile camps in Asia is in no one's interest." According to the Manuel, India and the US should both be clear with Beijing about where their lines are and enforce them consistently.

"The US is not always perfect at this, and it would be helpful to have our partners - such as India and Australia - help us. For example, the US should never have stopped our freedom of navigation exercises in the South China Sea, as it did for several years before recently restarting them. We should make these multilateral whenever possible.