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ONLINE - International News Network
China's growing assertiveness, especially in the contentious South China Sea, and the volatile Afghan-Pak region would figure high in the bilateral defence and strategic cooperation talks between India and the US on Wednesday, Indian media reported on Tuesday.

India will also convey to US secretary of defence Leon Panetta, on his first visit to India after taking over from Robert Gates last year, that New Delhi is ready to seal more arms deals and boost defence cooperation with Washington but is not willing to ink the so-called foundational military pacts as of now.

Panetta, who will hold talks with PM Manmohan Singh, defence minister AK Antony, national security advisor Shivshankar Menon, has held that the US wants to "affirm" its interest in building "a strong security relationship" with India during the visit.

While Antony had expressed concern about China's huge military spending during last week's Shangri-La Dialogue at Singapore, Panetta too talked about shifting the bulk of the American naval fleet to the Asia-Pacific region by 2020.

In the backdrop of China's aggressive behaviour in South China Sea, impinging on the territorial claims of countries like Taiwan, Vietnam, the Philippines, Malaysia and Singapore, both Antony and Panetta also stressed the critical need to ensure the freedom of navigation and passage in international waters.

On the bilateral front, despite persistent prodding by the US, India continues to keep foundational pacts like the Logistics Support Agreement (LSA), Communication Interoperability and Security Memorandum Agreement (CISMOA) and Basic Exchange and Cooperation Agreement for Geo-Spatial Cooperation (BECA) firmly on the backburner.

But the US is going great guns as far as defence deals are concerned. India, for instance, is now close to inking $647 million contract for the acquisition of 145 M-777 ultra-light howitzers from the US in a direct government-to-government deal under the Foreign Military Sales (FMS) programme.

Moreover, Boeing is also set to bag the $1.4-billion contract to supply 22 missile-armed helicopter gunships to the Indian Air Force after its AH-64D Apache Longbow outperformed Mil Moscow Helicopter Plant's Mi-28N `Night Hunter' in the field trials, as reported by TOI earlier.

Despite having lost out in the almost $20 billion MMRCA (medium multi-role combat aircraft) project to supply 126 fighters to IAF, the US has notched up military sales worth over $8 billion to India over the last decade.

These include the big-ticket ones like $4.1 billion for 10 C-17 Globemaster-III strategic airlift aircraft, $2.1 billion for eight P-8I maritime patrol aircraft and $962 million for six C-130J "Super Hercules" planes. Negotiations are being finalized for acquiring six more C-130J as well as four more P-8I aircraft.