‘Beijing Is Acting Repressively At Home And Aggressively Abroad'

On his first visit to India, US secretary of state Antony Blinken sat down for a conversation with Indrani Bagchi on the Quad, the future of Afghanistan and the US-India priorities going forward. Excerpts from the interview:

- Indrani Bagchi

Where are we on the Quad? What have we accomplished with working groups?

Well, first, we had the first-ever leaders-level meeting of the Quad. That was in and of itself very significant because it just underscored the importance that the four countries — India, the United States, Japan, and Australia — attach to it. And what we’ve achieved already is bringing together four like-minded democracies with common purpose to deal with some of the most important problems and challenges facing our countries, and in fact, facing the region, and even the world, starting with Covid-19. And a commitment to work together to finance, produce and distribute millions of vaccines.

Has there been any progress on the vaccine front?

Yeah, I think we are making progress, and when the leaders get together next they will be able to assess that. Since the first virtual leaders meeting, the second wave hit India. I’m proud that the United States was able to come to India’s assistance as India came to our assistance early during the pandemic when we had real challenges.

How do you see the China challenge?