Relationship with India important, monitoring LAC very closely: US defense secretary

US defence secretary Mark Esper said the US is “monitoring it very closely and what’s happening along the Line of Actual Control (LAC)”. He said the US was “very pleased to see that both sides are trying to de-escalate the situation”. At a time when China is engaging in “systematic rule-breaking” and coercion, the US sees its growing security cooperation with India as “one of the all important defence relationships of the 21st century”, US defence secretary Mark Esper said on Tuesday. The exercise in the Indian Ocean between Indian Navy…