Electronic Journal of Social and Strategic Studies Volume 1 Issue 2 Date of publication: 25 December 2020 Dec 2020-Jan 2021 https://doi.org/10.47362/EJSSS.2020.1205 215 US and India: Paving the road to ensuring peace and prosperity in the Indo-Pacific region Udita Banerjee* Abstract The Indo-Pacific regional construct has been at the helm of international strategic discourse in the recent decade. This region comprises of the whole of Asia-the hub of 21 st century commerce, eastern Africa and the key International Shipping Lanes and maritime chokepoints connecting the Indian and the Pacific Oceans. One cannot overstate the salience of this vast regional expanse for the maintenance of well-ordered maritime commerce and security. The formidable rise of China in international affairs causes tension and unease to the United States and India and brings them together to work in tandem at containing China’s expansionist rise which has the potential to jeopardize the transparency and inclusiveness underlying the Indo- Pacific Global Commons. The Covid-19 pandemic has put the world’s trust and confidence in China at an all-time low which provides the twin democratic nations with fresh opportunities to resolve outstanding irritants in their bilateral relationship and take a panoramic view of the road to cooperation in the Indo-Pacific region. This paper attempts to analyze the respective US and Indian Indo-Pacific regional approach to probe prospects for cooperation in securing the multilateral order in the region. Keywords Indo-Pacific region, maritime security, The Belt and Road Initiative, Infrastructure Connectivity, Covid-19, South China Sea, Counter-strategy, Debt trap, Predatory economics. * Ms. Udita Banerjee is a Research Candidate at UGC Centre for Maritime Studies, Pondicherry University, Puducherry, India.