US proposes naval coalition with India, Australia and Japan to balance China’s expansion

New Delhi: The chief of the US Pacific Command has proposed reviving an informal strategic coalition made up of the navies of Japan, Australia, India and the United States, an experiment that collapsed a decade ago because of diplomatic protests from China.

Admiral Harry Harris’s proposal on Wednesday was the latest in a series of US overtures to India, a country wary of forming strategic alliances, to become part of a network of naval powers that would balance China’s maritime expansion.