CNN
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Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi enjoyed the most lavish honors the US can bestow on a visiting leader. But for much of his state visit, the specter of an uninvited guest hovered over Washington and the future of US-India relations.
China – and the growing belief that the US is on a collision course with the Asian power – is driving the relationship between Washington and India. This helps explain why President Joe Biden and Congress feted Modi despite the fact that his populist Hindu nationalist government has presided over a significant erosion of human, political, press and religious freedoms in ways that seem to violate the push of the American leader for global democracy.
Biden made it clear that he sees India as vital to helping preserve the Western-led global international order, a rules-based set of principles and values that China seeks to challenge. But despite Thursday’s spectacle, there are deep questions about whether the Modi government, while seeking to use its warming ties with Washington to its own advantage, sees itself in the same role as a linchpin of the US diplomatic strategy. It is not clear, for example, whether India would throw its full weight behind Biden should any of the increasingly alarming US-China standoffs heat up into a full-scale military or diplomatic confrontation.
The backdrop to Modi’s visit, a row over a Chinese spy balloon’s trip over US skies earlier this year that had just reignited Biden’s public branding of Chinese leader Xi Jinping as a dictator, showed why the growing strategic weight of India could be so valuable for India. WE.
The president denied on Thursday that his comments, in the relaxed atmosphere of a Democratic Party fundraiser this week, had dented his efforts to rescue the disastrously poor relationship between the United States and China. He said he has no plans to stop calling things as he sees them. He also drew a contrast between Washington’s ties with Beijing and those with India.
“One of the fundamental reasons why I think the US-China relationship is not in the same space as the US-India relationship is that there is an overwhelming respect for each other because we are both democracies.” , Biden said.
Biden’s decision to grant one of the rare state visits of his tenure to Modi represented a doubling-down on a strategy to draw India into the Western orbit, which began with the Clinton administration and it was accelerated by Presidents George W. Bush and Barack Obama. and Donald Trump. Like most of his predecessors, he noted the political synergy in the systems of government in India and the United States, both under British colonial rule.
Biden’s embrace of Modi also put him in the odd position of drawing praise from some Republicans who are committed to an even tougher China policy and who often accuse him of going soft on Beijing. He effectively provided cover for Modi at a press conference in which the American side persuaded the Indian prime minister to take the unusual step of asking questions.
“We believe in the dignity of every citizen, and it’s in the DNA of the United States, and I believe in the DNA of India, that the entire world, the entire world, has an interest in our success, both of us, and in maintaining our democracies,” Biden said. “(This) makes us attractive partners and allows us to expand democratic institutions around the world.”
Meanwhile, Modi offered exactly the kind of words his American hosts wanted to hear, describing US-India relations as more important than ever and saying that together they could “succeed in improve fortresses around the world.”
Biden’s embrace of Modi exposed him to criticism that he trampled on his own calls to preserve global democracy, human rights and press freedom, given India’s democratic backsliding.
“To credibly advance these values on the world stage, we must apply them to friend and foe alike, just as we work to apply these same principles here in the United States,” a group of 70 lawmakers wrote democrats to the president about Modi’s visit.
Biden faced the same kind of criticism when he traveled to Saudi Arabia last year and slammed Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman after he promised on the 2020 campaign to make the kingdom a pariah over the columnist’s killing from the Washington Post Jamal Khashoggi in Saudi Arabia. consulate in Istanbul.
Biden’s broader goal is the preservation of the liberal international order that is under assault from China and Russia. That can insulate him from the criticism that erupts whenever an American president sets a moral foundation for U.S. foreign policy, and he inevitably faces criticism that he prioritizes raw geopolitical interests over core North American values. – Americans
Obama addressed that very conundrum in an exclusive interview with CNN that aired Thursday.
“Look, it’s complicated,” Obama told Christiane Amanpour. “The president of the United States has many shares. And when I was president, I was dealing in some cases with figures who were allies, who, you know, if I was pressed privately, run their governments and their political parties in a way that I would say is ideally democratic? I should say no.”
Modi visited Washington at a time when there is a near-universal belief on both sides that China’s rise poses a dangerous challenge to US power, influence and the entire Western-led system of economic and political rules. This takes precedence over concerns about democracy in India, which are becoming increasingly acute. In March, for example, main opposition leader Rahul Gandhi was kicked out of parliament after being convicted in a defamation case centered on Modi’s name that critics said was politically motivated. There have also been attacks on foreign and local media and growing faith-based oppression.
US officials insisted this week that Modi’s visit was not about China. But somehow in Washington these days, it’s all about China.
Florida Senator Marco Rubio, a Republican who has often spoken of the need to fight autocracy abroad, summed up the mood surrounding Modi’s visit in a statement.
“Our nations’ economic and security interests overlap on many of the most pressing issues, particularly the growing hostility of the Chinese Communist Party in the Himalayas and the Indian Ocean,” said the Vice Chairman of the Intelligence Committee. intelligence of the Senate.
From Washington’s perspective, India looks like a promising partner in its effort to counter China, which has seen the Biden administration strengthen the defense component of alliances with Japan and Australia and re-engage the Philippines in an initiative that will lead to more US troops stationed in the city. soil of a long-time ally that sometimes flirts with China. India’s economy is benefiting from Western governments’ desire to move away from Chinese supply chains. The Covid-19 pandemic and rising inflation underscored how painful over-reliance on a manufacturing base vulnerable to political confrontation could be.
Meanwhile, tensions and exchanges of fire across China’s long border with India have raised the question of whether New Delhi’s most dangerous enemy is Beijing rather than Pakistan. India has also become a participating member of the Quad security forum which also includes the leaders of Australia, Japan and the United States and which met in Japan recently.
In his speech to a joint session of Congress on Thursday, Modi moved towards the US position and was clearly referring to Beijing’s expansive sovereignty claims in the region that are not recognized under international law. He said India shared the US vision of a “free, open and inclusive Indo-Pacific” marked by freedom of navigation defined by international law and was against domination by any nation.
Even in the veiled language of international diplomacy, these comments represented a significant statement of alignment with the US position and a message to China.
Yet the world often behaves very differently from what policymakers in Washington expect. While there was much talk of Biden allegedly compromising his principles on democracy, less attention was paid this week to what kind of payoff the United States can expect for heavy engagement with India. Could New Delhi, for example, simply rack up meaningful wins while going its own way?
One of the most significant outcomes of that summit, for example, was an agreement that will see General Electric partner with an Indian company to build fighter engines after years of relying on Russian and Soviet weaponry. The deal sent a message to both Beijing and Moscow, America’s main adversaries.
No one in Washington expects India to become a formal US ally. It has always resisted being drawn into organized alliances and now positions itself as a leader in the developing world. Its policies also sometimes conflict with those of the US. He has been an eager customer, for example, of cheap Russian oil despite sanctions over Moscow’s invasion of Ukraine. And it is unlikely that, despite closer defense ties, India would side with the United States in a military confrontation with China over Taiwan or the South China Sea.
Ashley Tellis, one of the architects of a civil nuclear cooperation agreement with India in the Bush administration that was a platform for years of subsequent engagement with New Delhi, warned last month that the US was making a ‘bad bet’ with Modi.
“India’s significant weaknesses vis-à-vis China, and its inescapable proximity to it, ensure that New Delhi will never engage in any US confrontation with Beijing that does not directly threaten its own security,” he wrote. Tellis a Foreign Affairs.
“India values cooperation with Washington for the tangible benefits it brings, but does not believe it should in turn provide material support to the United States in any crisis, even one involving a common threat like China.”
This view reinforces the idea that India and the United States may have different ambitions and visions for their increasingly close relationship, and the possibility that Biden will end up disappointed with the returns on his attention to Modi.
But at a time when every foreign policy issue ultimately boils down to a broader confrontation with China, even the incremental gains from this visit could benefit the US.
