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Before becoming Indian Prime Minister in 2014, Narendra Modi was unable to obtain a visa to visit the US due to claims of communal violence in his home state of Gujarat.
US lawmakers gave Modi several standing ovations this week as he joined the small group of leaders, along with Nelson Mandela and Winston Churchill, who have addressed Congress more than once.
The reception, one of the high points of Modi’s three-day state visit, marks a seismic shift in US-India relations that has taken place over the past 25 years – and which has accelerated under President Joe Biden.
“In the last few years, there have been many advances in AI-artificial intelligence,” Modi joked to members of Congress. “At the same time, there have been even more significant developments in other AI – in the US and India.”
For a country that co-founded the Non-Aligned Movement in 1961 at the height of the Cold War, and whose diplomats today use every opportunity to voice New Delhi’s policy of neutrality, Modi’s visit has a vision and Saar was both extraordinary.
The two sides signed defense and technology deals, including a deal to sell US drones to New Delhi and co-produce fighter jet engines in India. He also struck deals to help jump-start India’s budding semiconductor industry, train Indian astronauts at NASA, and open US consulates in India’s IT capital Bengaluru and Ahmedabad.
But one of the most telling lines in Modi’s speech was a veiled reference to what experts say is India weakening its traditional non-aligned position and slowly but surely moving into the US orbit. Has been: China.
Modi declared, “The dark clouds of coercion and confrontation are looming over the Indo-Pacific region.” “The stability of the region has become one of the central concerns of our partnership.”
An Indian soldier holding a gun near the border with China. The US-India strategic alignment is being driven by commercial and defense imperatives related to Beijing © Arun Shankar/AFP/Getty Images
Tanvi Madan, an India expert at the Brookings Institution in Washington, describes that part of the speech as the “Voldemort section”, a reference to Harry Potter’s archenemy whose name is rarely said out loud.
She says, “In the Cold War, India could take a middle ground because it did not have major conflicts with the US or the Soviet Union and played against each other.” Can’t do that.”
Officials and analysts say the nascent US-India strategic alignment is driven by commercial and defense imperatives related to Beijing.
Washington and New Delhi are attempting to compete with China in emerging areas of high tech, including chips, quantum computing and AI. They also want to deter Chinese military aggression, particularly in New Delhi’s case near the India-China border in the Himalayas.
Indian officials insist that the country’s neutrality on defense is sacrosanct, but they have been more clear about the need to cooperate with the US to capture critical technologies where China has an edge. India overtook China as the most populous country this year, but it was unable to match it in most areas of manufacturing and high technology.
In his speech, Modi said that when he first addressed Congress as US prime minister in 2016, India was the world’s 10th largest economy, today it is the fifth largest and “soon to be the third largest”. “.
Highlighting efforts on technology, guests at a state banquet hosted by Biden for Modi included Indian-origin chief executive of Google, Sundar Pichai, who has a large presence in India, and Apple CEO, Tim Cook, who has diversified his field. are bringing Supply chain by moving parts from China to India.
Former Indian foreign secretary Shivshankar Menon says, “This is primarily about India’s transformation.” “I don’t understand how we can have a modern, developed economy without working with America.”
strictly neutral
In its official pronouncements, India takes pains to emphasize its neutrality, which is also part of its appeal to other developing countries who have long been suspicious of the US.
Non-alignment has been the cornerstone of India’s policy and national ethos since independence. Historian Ramachandra Guha wrote that it was adopted by Jawaharlal Nehru, India’s first leader after independence, in the hope that “a third faction could act as a beneficial restraining influence on the arrogance of the great powers”.
In January, Modi hosted a “Voice of the Global South” summit, which included participants from Algeria, Azerbaijan and Venezuela, and aimed to provide a forum for the concerns of developing countries whose economies and people have been worst hit by Covid. Kind of affected. The -19 pandemic and the inflation that followed Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
India’s commitment to buy armed MQ-9B SeaGuardian drones, made by US contractor General Atomics, is a sign of stronger ties between Washington and New Delhi © Yoann Vallat/EPA-EFE/Shutterstock
Next month he will chair an online leaders’ summit of the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation, a Eurasian multilateral grouping that includes China, Russia and Central Asian countries but does not belong to the US and other Western countries.
India has also been a major buyer of Russian oil since Russia invaded Ukraine, and has not joined the US in condemning the invasion.
But India has been moving steadily closer to the US and other Western countries on arms purchases and defense ties over the years, and officials say the momentum is picking up.
“At the beginning of the century, we were strangers to defense cooperation,” Modi said in Thursday’s address. “Now, the United States has become one of our most important defense partners.”
In 2018 the US granted India the so-called Strategic Trade Authorization-1, easing US export controls for high-tech sales, becoming the third Asian country after Japan and South Korea to receive the status.
One factor focusing the minds of Indian policy makers is the friction with China along their country’s nearly 3,500 km long border.
In 2020, India suffered casualties during clashes in and around the Galwan Valley in eastern Ladakh, when at least 24 soldiers, mostly Indians, were killed. The Chinese military has now pushed India out of at least two areas where they used to patrol earlier.
In December, there was another clash between Indian and Chinese troops in India’s remote north-eastern state of Arunachal Pradesh, in which both sides suffered injuries. In talks with China aimed at de-escalating the standoff, India has made it clear that it will not resume normal relations until status quo ante is restored at the border.
India has also taken a stand against Chinese technology, banning dozens of Chinese apps in India, including TikTok, for security reasons. This came as the Modi government pushed forward a comprehensive industrial policy, offering generous government subsidies to investors to help build domestic tech industries, including mobile phone production, semiconductors and advanced batteries.
Today India conducts more joint military exercises with the US than any other country. In 2022, it conducted a high-altitude exercise with US troops near the border in its northern Uttarakhand state, which China protested. In 2021, both sides conducted a similar joint exercise in Alaska.
“The US and India have very good relations and it is getting deeper by the day,” says Sujan Chinoy, director general of the Manohar Parrikar Institute for Defense Studies and Analyzes in New Delhi. Not normal, but our argument is that this is none of China’s doing.”
He added, “The US and India can engage on mutually beneficial topics – training, joint exercises, weapons training, our shared values – just as China has engaged with other countries, including Russia and Pakistan.”
Analysts say the war in Ukraine has pushed India further towards the US as it has disrupted Russia’s arms supplies and servicing of existing weapon systems. In January this year, the US and India unveiled an initiative on critical and emerging technology, covering cooperation in defence, technology and space.
Defense deals agreed during Modi’s state visit include an agreement under which General Electric will co-produce fighter jet engines in India with state-owned Hindustan Aeronautics Limited. This will give HAL the core technology required in its Mk2 Light Combat Aircraft programme. India has also committed to buy armed MQ-9B SeaGuardian drones manufactured by US contractor General Atomics.
“A strong India preserves the balance of power in the Indo-Pacific, which has been upset by the tremendous rise of China,” says Dhruv Jaishankar, head of the Observer Research Foundation US think-tank. beneficial to America.
right bet?
Jaishankar was responding to the view of some in Washington who are asking whether Biden is making a smart investment in a partner who is unlikely to join the US in a conflict with China over Taiwan.
In a widely discussed article published in Foreign Affairs last month, Ashley Tellis, an India specialist at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, said Washington was making a “bad bet” on New Delhi.
He said the US and India have “different ambitions for their security partnership”, and New Delhi “will never involve itself in any US confrontation with Beijing that does not directly threaten its own security”. .
US National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan says he spoke to Tellis about the article and stresses that the Biden team was not using it as some sort of metric for success. “We’re not betting on a future war, and also on whether or not we’re fighting each other,” says Sullivan.
The long-term trajectory of the two countries’ ties, he says, “is built on the notion that two democracies with shared value systems should be able to work together, both internally to nurture their own democracies and To be able to fight for shared values on a global scale.” ,
many Democratic lawmakers reprimanded Biden who have made promotion of democracy a central part of their foreign policy for not criticizing the Modi government’s human rights record, especially on religious minorities, arguing that the US “should not sacrifice human rights at the altar of political gain” “.
The second question is to what extent India is willing to move away from Russia, where there is little convergence between US and Indian geostrategic interests. In his speech, Modi said that “the world must do what we can to stop the bloodshed and human suffering” in Ukraine, echoing India’s policy since the invasion, which has been to seek peace without blame. calls upon.
Lisa Curtis, an Indo-Pacific expert at the Center for a New American Security think-tank in Washington, says, “While US-India interests may converge when it comes to China, when it comes to Russia So there’s still a tremendous inconsistency.” “There is no indication that Modi is moving to the American orbit when it comes to Russia.”
At the same time that they welcome the American embrace, many Indians have more modest hopes for what the countries can and will do together.
“We are allies in every way except in name,” says Menon, a former Indian official. “America is not going to come and fight for every inch of Indian territory, but we will do everything we can to protect each other. can do.”
Before becoming Indian Prime Minister in 2014, Narendra Modi was unable to obtain a visa to visit the US due to claims of communal violence in his home state of Gujarat.
US lawmakers gave Modi several standing ovations this week as he joined the small group of leaders, along with Nelson Mandela and Winston Churchill, who have addressed Congress more than once.
The reception, one of the high points of Modi’s three-day state visit, marks a seismic shift in US-India relations that has taken place over the past 25 years – and which has accelerated under President Joe Biden.
“In the last few years, there have been many advances in AI-artificial intelligence,” Modi joked to members of Congress. “At the same time, there have been even more significant developments in other AI – in the US and India.”
For a country that co-founded the Non-Aligned Movement in 1961 at the height of the Cold War, and whose diplomats today use every opportunity to voice New Delhi’s policy of neutrality, Modi’s visit has a vision and Saar was both extraordinary.
The two sides signed defense and technology deals, including a deal to sell US drones to New Delhi and co-produce fighter jet engines in India. He also struck deals to help jump-start India’s budding semiconductor industry, train Indian astronauts at NASA, and open US consulates in India’s IT capital Bengaluru and Ahmedabad.
But one of the most telling lines in Modi’s speech was a veiled reference to what experts say is India weakening its traditional non-aligned position and slowly but surely moving into the US orbit. Has been: China.
Modi declared, “The dark clouds of coercion and confrontation are looming over the Indo-Pacific region.” “The stability of the region has become one of the central concerns of our partnership.”
An Indian soldier holding a gun near the border with China. The US-India strategic alignment is being driven by commercial and defense imperatives related to Beijing © Arun Shankar/AFP/Getty Images
Tanvi Madan, an India expert at the Brookings Institution in Washington, describes that part of the speech as the “Voldemort section”, a reference to Harry Potter’s archenemy whose name is rarely said out loud.
She says, “In the Cold War, India could take a middle ground because it did not have major conflicts with the US or the Soviet Union and played against each other.” Can’t do that.”
Officials and analysts say the nascent US-India strategic alignment is driven by commercial and defense imperatives related to Beijing.
Washington and New Delhi are attempting to compete with China in emerging areas of high tech, including chips, quantum computing and AI. They also want to deter Chinese military aggression, particularly in New Delhi’s case near the India-China border in the Himalayas.
Indian officials insist that the country’s neutrality on defense is sacrosanct, but they have been more clear about the need to cooperate with the US to capture critical technologies where China has an edge. India overtook China as the most populous country this year, but it was unable to match it in most areas of manufacturing and high technology.
In his speech, Modi said that when he first addressed Congress as US prime minister in 2016, India was the world’s 10th largest economy, today it is the fifth largest and “soon to be the third largest”. “.
Highlighting efforts on technology, guests at a state banquet hosted by Biden for Modi included Indian-origin chief executive of Google, Sundar Pichai, who has a large presence in India, and Apple CEO, Tim Cook, who has diversified his field. are bringing Supply chain by moving parts from China to India.
Former Indian foreign secretary Shivshankar Menon says, “This is primarily about India’s transformation.” “I don’t understand how we can have a modern, developed economy without working with America.”
strictly neutral
In its official pronouncements, India takes pains to emphasize its neutrality, which is also part of its appeal to other developing countries who have long been suspicious of the US.
Non-alignment has been the cornerstone of India’s policy and national ethos since independence. Historian Ramachandra Guha wrote that it was adopted by Jawaharlal Nehru, India’s first leader after independence, in the hope that “a third faction could act as a beneficial restraining influence on the arrogance of the great powers”.
In January, Modi hosted a “Voice of the Global South” summit, which included participants from Algeria, Azerbaijan and Venezuela, and aimed to provide a forum for the concerns of developing countries whose economies and people have been worst hit by Covid. Kind of affected. The -19 pandemic and the inflation that followed Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
India’s commitment to buy armed MQ-9B SeaGuardian drones, made by US contractor General Atomics, is a sign of stronger ties between Washington and New Delhi © Yoann Vallat/EPA-EFE/Shutterstock
Next month he will chair an online leaders’ summit of the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation, a Eurasian multilateral grouping that includes China, Russia and Central Asian countries but does not belong to the US and other Western countries.
India has also been a major buyer of Russian oil since Russia invaded Ukraine, and has not joined the US in condemning the invasion.
But India has been moving steadily closer to the US and other Western countries on arms purchases and defense ties over the years, and officials say the momentum is picking up.
“At the beginning of the century, we were strangers to defense cooperation,” Modi said in Thursday’s address. “Now, the United States has become one of our most important defense partners.”
In 2018 the US granted India the so-called Strategic Trade Authorization-1, easing US export controls for high-tech sales, becoming the third Asian country after Japan and South Korea to receive the status.
One factor focusing the minds of Indian policy makers is the friction with China along their country’s nearly 3,500 km long border.
In 2020, India suffered casualties during clashes in and around the Galwan Valley in eastern Ladakh, when at least 24 soldiers, mostly Indians, were killed. The Chinese military has now pushed India out of at least two areas where they used to patrol earlier.
In December, there was another clash between Indian and Chinese troops in India’s remote north-eastern state of Arunachal Pradesh, in which both sides suffered injuries. In talks with China aimed at de-escalating the standoff, India has made it clear that it will not resume normal relations until status quo ante is restored at the border.
India has also taken a stand against Chinese technology, banning dozens of Chinese apps in India, including TikTok, for security reasons. This came as the Modi government pushed forward a comprehensive industrial policy, offering generous government subsidies to investors to help build domestic tech industries, including mobile phone production, semiconductors and advanced batteries.
Today India conducts more joint military exercises with the US than any other country. In 2022, it conducted a high-altitude exercise with US troops near the border in its northern Uttarakhand state, which China protested. In 2021, both sides conducted a similar joint exercise in Alaska.
“The US and India have very good relations and it is getting deeper by the day,” says Sujan Chinoy, director general of the Manohar Parrikar Institute for Defense Studies and Analyzes in New Delhi. Not normal, but our argument is that this is none of China’s doing.”
He added, “The US and India can engage on mutually beneficial topics – training, joint exercises, weapons training, our shared values – just as China has engaged with other countries, including Russia and Pakistan.”
Analysts say the war in Ukraine has pushed India further towards the US as it has disrupted Russia’s arms supplies and servicing of existing weapon systems. In January this year, the US and India unveiled an initiative on critical and emerging technology, covering cooperation in defence, technology and space.
Defense deals agreed during Modi’s state visit include an agreement under which General Electric will co-produce fighter jet engines in India with state-owned Hindustan Aeronautics Limited. This will give HAL the core technology required in its Mk2 Light Combat Aircraft programme. India has also committed to buy armed MQ-9B SeaGuardian drones manufactured by US contractor General Atomics.
“A strong India preserves the balance of power in the Indo-Pacific, which has been upset by the tremendous rise of China,” says Dhruv Jaishankar, head of the Observer Research Foundation US think-tank. beneficial to America.
right bet?
Jaishankar was responding to the view of some in Washington who are asking whether Biden is making a smart investment in a partner who is unlikely to join the US in a conflict with China over Taiwan.
In a widely discussed article published in Foreign Affairs last month, Ashley Tellis, an India specialist at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, said Washington was making a “bad bet” on New Delhi.
He said the US and India have “different ambitions for their security partnership”, and New Delhi “will never involve itself in any US confrontation with Beijing that does not directly threaten its own security”. .
US National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan says he spoke to Tellis about the article and stresses that the Biden team was not using it as some sort of metric for success. “We’re not betting on a future war, and also on whether or not we’re fighting each other,” says Sullivan.
The long-term trajectory of the two countries’ ties, he says, “is built on the notion that two democracies with shared value systems should be able to work together, both internally to nurture their own democracies and To be able to fight for shared values on a global scale.” ,
many Democratic lawmakers reprimanded Biden who have made promotion of democracy a central part of their foreign policy for not criticizing the Modi government’s human rights record, especially on religious minorities, arguing that the US “should not sacrifice human rights at the altar of political gain” “.
The second question is to what extent India is willing to move away from Russia, where there is little convergence between US and Indian geostrategic interests. In his speech, Modi said that “the world must do what we can to stop the bloodshed and human suffering” in Ukraine, echoing India’s policy since the invasion, which has been to seek peace without blame. calls upon.
Lisa Curtis, an Indo-Pacific expert at the Center for a New American Security think-tank in Washington, says, “While US-India interests may converge when it comes to China, when it comes to Russia So there’s still a tremendous inconsistency.” “There is no indication that Modi is moving to the American orbit when it comes to Russia.”
At the same time that they welcome the American embrace, many Indians have more modest hopes for what the countries can and will do together.
“We are allies in every way except in name,” says Menon, a former Indian official. “America is not going to come and fight for every inch of Indian territory, but we will do everything we can to protect each other. can do.”
