The meeting comes at a critical juncture, with India and the US facing the same urgent challenges, which include tensions with China over Beijing’s military assertiveness in the South China Sea (called the East Sea in Vietnam) and border rows with India.

US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and Secretary of Defence Mark Esper hope to expand cooperation to boost stability and prosperity in the Indo-Pacific.

Ahead of the India trip, the US Defense Department outlined four topics to be discussed at the dialogue – regional security cooperation, defense information sharing, coordination between the two armies, and defense trade.

Cooperation in developing a vaccine against COVID-19 will be another important topic of the dialogue.