Trump says eager to ‘help’ resolve China-India dispute

US President Donald Trump has expressed eagerness to “get involved and help” resolve the persisting border dispute between China and India despite Washington’s escalating tensions against Beijing on multiple fronts.

“We stand ready to help with respect to China and India. If we can do anything, we would love to get involved and help,” Trump said Friday when asked about the dispute during a White House press briefing, adding that Washington was talking with both countries about what it could do to help defuse the situation.

Trump further asserted that the situation was “very nasty,” claiming that the world’s two most populous nations were “going at it much more strongly than a lot of people even understand.”

This is while a US government source in Washington was cited in a Reuters report as saying that Trump administration’s assessment is that neither China nor India appeared interested in pushing the conflict over the mountain border through the western Himalayas to the point that would lead to a war.

According to the report, Trump has offered to mediate between the two nuclear-armed nations in the past, but Beijing has rejected the need for a third-party mediation effort while New Delhi also appeared disinterested.

The development came a day after Beijing censured India’s move to ban numerous Chinese apps in response to the ongoing border conflict while suggesting that New Delhi took the anti-China measure under US pressure.

China’s foreign ministry implied on Thursday that India had imposed the ban on Chinese technology products under American influence, with spokesperson Hua Chunying warning against "short-sighted" participation in US restrictions against Chinese technology.

The ban was imposed after Beijing reacted strongly on Monday to earlier remarks by the Trump administrations’ National Security Adviser Robert O’Brien urging other countries to confront what he claimed to be the “challenges” of China and Russia and slamming Beijing for its political system and regional policies.

MG