WASHINGTON: US national security adviser Jake Sullivan’s visit to New Delhi from Jan. 5-6 is expected to include discussions with Indian counterparts about the impact of Chinese dams, a senior US official said late on Friday.
Washington and its Western allies have long viewed India as a counter to China’s rising influence in Asia and beyond.
“We’ve certainly seen in many places in the Indo-Pacific that upstream dams that the Chinese have created, including in the Mekong region, can have really potentially damaging environmental but also climate impacts on downstream countries,” a senior US official said ahead of Sullivan’s visit.
The official added that Washington will discuss New Delhi’s concerns in the visit.
The Indian government says it has conveyed its concerns to Beijing about China’s plan to build a hydropower dam in Tibet on the Yarlung Zangbo River which flows into India. Chinese officials say that hydropower projects in Tibet will not have a major impact on the environment or on downstream water supplies.
The construction of that dam, which will be the largest of its kind in the world with an estimated capacity of 300 billion kilowatt-hours of electricity annually, was approved last month.
Washington also expects that topics such as civilian nuclear cooperation, artificial intelligence, space, military licensing and Chinese economic overcapacity will be brought up in the visit, the US official said.
American officials will not be meeting the Dalai Lama during the visit, another US official said.
Washington and New Delhi have built close ties in recent years with occasional differences over issues like minority abuse in India, New Delhi’s ties with Russia amid Moscow’s invasion of Ukraine and alleged assassination plots against Sikh separatists on US and Canadian soil.

SEOUL: South Korea’s political leadership was in uncharted territory Saturday after the sitting president resisted arrest over a failed martial law decree days before the warrant expires.
In scenes of high drama on Friday, Yoon Suk Yeol’s presidential guards and military troops shielded the former star prosecutor from investigators, who called off their arrest attempt citing safety concerns.
The South Korean president was impeached and suspended last month after the bungled martial law declaration — a political move swiftly overturned by parliament — with a separate warrant later issued for his arrest.
“There was a standoff. While we estimated the personnel blocking us to be around 200, there could have been more,” an official from the investigation team said Friday on condition of anonymity.
“It was a dangerous situation.”
Yoon faces criminal charges of insurrection, one of a few crimes not subject to presidential immunity, meaning he could be sentenced to prison or, at worst, the death penalty.
If carried out, the warrant would make Yoon the first sitting president ever arrested.

Since his impeachment, Yoon has holed up in his presidential residence in the capital Seoul, where he has refused to emerge for questioning three times.
The unprecedented showdown — which reportedly included clashes but no shots fired — left the arrest attempt by investigators in limbo with the court-ordered warrant set to expire on Monday.
Officials from the Corruption Investigation Office (CIO), which is probing Yoon over his martial law decree, said there could be another bid to arrest him before then.
But if the warrant lapses, they would have to apply for another from the same Seoul court that issued the initial summons.
The Constitutional Court slated January 14 for the start of Yoon’s impeachment trial, which if he does not attend would continue in his absence.
Former presidents Roh Moo-hyun and Park Geun-hye never appeared for their impeachment trials.
Yoon’s lawyers decried Friday’s arrest attempt as “unlawful and invalid,” and vowed to take legal action.
Experts said investigators could wait for greater legal justification before attempting to arrest the suspended president again.
“It may be challenging to carry out the arrest until the Constitutional Court rules on the impeachment motion and strips him of the presidential title,” Chae Jin-won of Humanitas College at Kyung Hee University told AFP.

South Korean media reported that CIO officials had wanted to arrest Yoon and take him to their office in Gwacheon near Seoul for questioning.
After that, he could have been held for up to 48 hours on the existing warrant. Investigators would have needed to apply for another arrest warrant to keep him in custody.
Yoon has remained defiant despite the political impasse he initiated with his December 3 decree.
He told his right-wing supporters this week he would fight “to the very end” for his political survival.
By the time investigators attempted to execute the warrant for Yoon’s arrest, he had layered his presidential compound with hundreds of security forces to prevent it.
Around 20 investigators and 80 police officers were heavily outnumbered by around 200 soldiers and security personnel linking arms to block their way after entering the presidential compound.
A tense six-hour standoff ensued until early Friday afternoon when the investigators were forced to U-turn for fear of violence breaking out.
The weeks of political turmoil have threatened the country’s stability.
South Korea’s key security ally, the United States, called for the political elite to work toward a “stable path” forward.
National Security Council spokesman John Kirby reaffirmed Washington’s commitment to maintaining bilateral ties and readiness to respond to “any external provocations or threats.”
Outgoing US Secretary of State Antony Blinken is scheduled to hold talks in Seoul on Monday, with one eye on the political crisis and another on nuclear-armed neighbor North Korea.