Amid rising security concerns in India over the recent Taliban takeover of Afghanistan and Beijing's claims of sovereignty on the South China Sea, Chief of Defence Staff General Bipin Rawat on Wednesday said that both the situations should not be viewed from the same prism.
However, the CDS emphasised that both pose a challenge but on different planes.
"I think the Indo-Pacific and the Afghan situation shouldn't be looked at from the same prism. They are two different issues. Yes, both pose challenges to security in the region but they are on two different planes. Those two parallel lines are unlikely to meet," said Rawat at an Observer Research Foundation event on "The India-US Partnership: Securing the 21st Century" here today.
Meanwhile, General Rawat said that support from countries would be welcome to fight the global war against terrorism.
"I think, if any kind of support can be forthcoming from the coordination, in at least identifying the terrorists and getting some intelligence input to fight this global war on terrorism, I think that would be welcome," he said.
General Rawat further said that India was concerned about what is happening anywhere in the region, pointing out that India's two neighbouring countries were nuclear powers, referring to China and Pakistan.
"It is not just northern neighbour, even our western neighbour has nuclear weapons systems. So we are surrounded by two neighbours that are armed with these strategic weapons," he said.
"We are evolving our strategies accordingly. Studying this intent of our neighbours, we have gone in for a Triad. We are evolving and developing our capabilities accordingly...Conventionally we are very strong, we are capable of dealing with adversaries with our conventional forces" Gen Rawat said.
The Indo-Pacific region is largely viewed as an area comprising the Indian Ocean and the western and central Pacific Ocean, including the South China Sea.
Beijing claims sovereignty over almost the entire South China Sea and has overlapping territorial claims with Brunei, Malaysia, the Philippines, Vietnam and Taiwan.
China's territorial claims in the South China Sea and its efforts to advance into the Indian Ocean are seen to have challenged the established rules-based system.
Meanwhile Gen Rawat said that in the backdrop of the Taliban overtaking Afghanistan, India was concerned that "terrorist activities from Afghanistan could overflow into India."
"To that extent our contingency planning was ongoing and we were prepared for it," he said.
"As far as Afghanistan is concerned, we'll make sure that any activity likely to flow out of Afghanistan & find its way into India will be dealt with in the manner in which we're dealing with terrorism in our country," he said.
( With inputs from ANI )
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