Beijing looms large as Modi visits White House

Banned from traveling to the United States by the State Department until he became India’s prime minister in 2014, Narendra Modi entered the White House for the second time in as many years on Thursday amid praise from the US president. United, Joe Biden.

Standing next to Modi, who was denied US visas for his role as governor in Gujarat. 2002 anti-Muslim riots – Biden said the two were “trusted partners” who share the “fundamental principles” of democracy.

“Welcome, Mr. Prime Minister. Welcome back to the White House,” Biden said. The meeting, he added, was taking place at a “turning point” in world history that was forcing their countries together.

For his part, Modi bypassed anything past and travel bans.

He had only seen the exterior of the White House when he traveled to the country “as a common man” some 30 years ago. But not this time: “This grand welcoming ceremony at the White House today,” the prime minister said, “is an honor and a source of pride for India’s 1.4 billion people.”

“Thank you, Mr. President, for your friendship,” he added.

the specter of china

During the morning ceremony, neither Biden nor Modi betrayed the reasons for the embrace of their two countries.

But there were clues.

One was in the abundance of announcements that followed, headlined by a US$2.7 billion factory to be built in India by US microchip maker Micron, which was last month forbidden to sell in China in the midst of the current token war between the United States and Beijing.

There were also agreements for General Electric of the United States. to build fighter jet engines for the Indian Army as well as for the sale of Stryker armored vehicles and light long-range howitzers, which the Indian military currently places along its disputed Himalayan border with China.

The specter of China was also present during an evening press conference at the White House, in which Biden was asked his opinion on Modi’s position. repression of religious and press freedoms in the context of his recent public comments that Chinese President Xi Jinping is a “dictator.”

“We are honest with each other and we respect each other,” Biden said of Modi, without answering the reporter’s question.

“One of the fundamental reasons why I think the US-China relationship is not in the space that it occupies with the US-India relationship,” he said, “is that there is an overwhelming respect for each other. for the other”.

‘A rather amazing transition’

The personal bonhomie between Biden and Modi marks a dramatic shift in relations between the countries, with New Delhi long skeptical of American foreign policy goals and one of the chief architects of the Cold War era stridently neutral. Non-Alignment Movement.

A socialist republic according to the preamble to its 1950 Constitution, India, however, came much closer to the Soviet Union. In fact, the historical ties between Moscow and New Delhi, and India dependence in Russian-made weaponry – were widely seen as key to Modi’s recent reluctance to isolate Russia amid its invasion of Ukraine.

But that has changed as China, a longstanding rival to India and with which it shares a disputed border of 3,400 kilometers (2,100 mi) – has supplanted Russia as the main geopolitical challenger to the United States.

“In terms of security ties, we’ve really seen a pretty amazing transition in the last two decades,” said Richard M. Rossow, chair of US-India Policy Studies at the Center for Strategic and International Studies.

Rossow said in a call last week ahead of Modi’s visit that India’s longstanding policy of non-alignment in recent years had “switched to the language of strategic autonomy” and ended its long-standing reluctance to work too closely with states. Joined.

“That’s really not exactly true when we focus on the main strategic threat that we see and share in the Indo-Pacific region, which is China,” he said. “We have found that it is relatively easy to open doors that may have been closed 10 or 15 years ago.”

But that hasn’t meant any alliance with the United States, with Modi sometimes enthusiastic about American advances when he seemed threatened by China’s growing military power while touching his nose in other times.

“Trying to define what this relationship is,” Rossow said of US-India ties, “is like crossing a river feeling the stones with your feet.”

autonomous India

Yet from Washington’s perspective, a stronger but fiercely independent India can still help America’s foreign policy goals.

“As is well known in DC political circles, India will never be a treaty ally of the United States,” explained Milan Vaishnav, senior fellow at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace and director of its South Asia program. “However, American strategists see India playing a central role in their broader framework to deter China.”

Vaishnav told Radio Free Asia that even if they do not become official allies, “the United States and India see their future as inextricably linked” in technology, defense and the broader economy, because India offers an alternative to China as a manufacturing base.

Amid US-led efforts to “eliminate riskTo move supply chains away from reliance on Chinese manufacturers, Vaishnav said, US officials are interested, in particular, in helping India find “a foothold in the semiconductor market” and thereby establish an alternative source market in the long term.

Rossow of CSIS said the same logic applied to the Indian military and the need to “reduce reliance on Russia as the main military supplier.”

“We are really trying to go further… beyond what we have done for a country that is not an ally” in terms of sharing military technology,” he said, with the explicit goal of “helping India become more self-reliant.” ”. depends in some areas on the production of weapons”.

Speaking on condition of anonymity Wednesday night, a senior Biden administration official also alluded to China as a key factor bringing India militarily closer to the United States than ever before.

“I think some of the challenges they faced along their own borders have focused their attention and have led them to focus intensely both on further preparedness on the defense side and on seeking closer partnerships internationally,” he said. the official to the journalists.

The multipolar world

Ultimately, since India’s top priority is maintaining its autonomy, the point of its game is to take on other world powers to its advantage.

It’s a foreign policy shift forged by Modi’s foreign minister S. Jaishankar, a strategic realist who former US Secretary of State Henry Kissinger indicated in an interview with The Economist as “the practicing political leader who comes pretty close to my views.”

The author of the foreign policy treatise “The India Way: strategies for an uncertain world”, Jaishankar’s vision of the emerging world order is defined by a multipolarity of four major powers: China, Russia, India and the United States, which at best can be “enemies”.

New Delhi will not be constrained by any compromise for or against its “enemies”, the minister has made clear. In the meantime though, why not take what you can get without entering into alliances?

“We would like to have multiple options. And obviously try to make the most of it,” he told The Economist. “All countries would like to do that. Some may be limited by other obligations, others may not.

Edited by Malcolm Foster