India and the US on Saturday called for deepening of defence and security cooperation to meet “today’s and tomorrow’s challenges”, amid increasing Chinese aggression in the Indo-Pacific region.

Visiting US defence secretary Lloyd Austin, after bilateral talks with defence minister Rajnath Singh, described the partnership with India as a “central pillar” of the American policy for the Indo-Pacific.

“India, in particular, is an increasingly important partner amid today’s rapidly shifting international dynamics. And I reaffirmed our commitment to a comprehensive and forward-looking defence partnership with India as a central pillar of our approach to the region,” Austin said while reading out his statement at Vigyan Bhavan after the talks.

Austin said that as the Indo-Pacific region faced acute transnational challenges such as climate change and the need to ensure a free and open regional order, cooperation among like-minded countries was imperative to securing the shared vision for the future.

“Despite today’s challenging security environment, the partnership between the United States and India… the world’s two largest democracies… remains resilient and strong,” he said.

Austin’s is the first visit by a top member of US President Joe Biden’s administration to India as part of the efforts to forge an alliance of countries seeking to push back against China’s increasing assertiveness in the region. He had visited Japan and South Korea before arriving in India.

Austin had met Prime Minister Narendra Modi on his arrival on Friday and held talks with national security adviser Ajit Doval.

Responding to a query whether the US had ever believed over the past year that a war between India and China was imminent in view of the border standoff in Ladakh, Austin said: “To my knowledge, we have never considered that India and China were on the threshold of war.”

The Indian and Chinese armies have been involved in a border face-off in eastern Ladakh since May last year. Twenty Indian soldiers and at least four Chinese troopers were killed in a fierce clash in the Galwan Valley last June.

Asked what India and US could do together to counter the Chinese aggression in the Indo-Pacific, Austin said: “Working together with like-minded countries is the way to check any aggression in any region.”

In his statement the defence secretary said: “We discussed opportunities to elevate the US-India Major Defence Partnership… a priority of the Biden-Harris administration through regional security cooperation, military-to-military interactions and defence trade.

“In addition, we are continuing to advance new areas of collaboration, including: information-sharing, logistics cooperation, artificial intelligence; and cooperation in new domains such as space and cyber.”

Austin said he and Rajnath discussed engagement with like-minded partners through multilateral groupings such as the Quad and Asean.

“And I am confident that, together, we can build a partnership fit for today’s and tomorrow’s challenges,” Austin said.

In his statement Rajnath said: “Our discussions today focussed on our wide-ranging defence cooperation and expanding military-to-military engagement across services, information sharing, cooperation in emerging sectors of defence, and mutual logistics support.”

“We reviewed the wide gamut of bilateral and multilateral exercises and agreed to pursue enhanced cooperation with the US Indo-Pacific Command, Central Command and Africa Command. Acknowledging that we have in place the foundational agreements, LEMOA, COMCASA and BECA, we discussed steps to be taken to realise their full potential for mutual benefit.”

Rajnath also urged US industry to invest in India’s defence sector and take advantage of liberalised foreign direct investment (FDI) policies.

“India is committed to further consolidate our robust defence partnership with the United States,” the defence minister said.