Indiamerica
Incredibly,?Antony Blinken’s trip to Beijing?was the?second?most important event in U.S. geopolitics this week. The most important was?Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s visit to Washington D.C., where he met with President Biden and gave a speech to Congress. You can watch the two leaders’?joint press conference here:
Or read?a transcript of Modi’s speech here.
This wasn’t just a courtesy call. The visit included a startlingly broad array of?economic and military agreements:
General Electric Co.?plans to jointly?manufacture?F414 engines with state-owned Indian firm?Hindustan Aeronautics Ltd.?for the Tejas light-combat aircraft…
Biden and Modi also announced new defense collaborations, including progress on an order for MQ-9B SeaGuardian drones made by?General Atomics, and an agreement that will allow American Navy ships to undertake major repairs at Indian shipyards…
“We are doubling down on our cooperation to secure our semiconductors, our semiconductor supply chains, advancing open RAN telecommunications networks, and growing our major defense partnership with more joint exercises, more cooperation between our defense industries, and more consultation and coordination across all domains,” Biden told reporters…
Applied Materials Inc.?will announce a new semiconductor center for commercialization and innovation. Chip manufacturer?Lam Research?is announcing a training program in India for up to 60,000 engineers…
Indian companies also plan more than $2 billion in projects in the United States, including a solar manufacturing facility in Colorado, steel plant in Ohio, and optic fiber facility in South Carolina…
The announcements…also include…efforts by the US to make visas easier for Indian workers to obtain.
The U.S. and India are also discussing strengthening ties between their militaries, including in logistics and intelligence-sharing, Pentagon officials said. U.S. ships could call more frequently at Indian ports, and the two militaries could hold more joint exercises, for example.
Modi also met U.S. business leaders like Elon Musk, who?expressed interest?in making big investments in India.
So basically, what we’re seeing here is:
Or read?a transcript of Modi’s speech here.
This wasn’t just a courtesy call. The visit included a startlingly broad array of?economic and military agreements:
General Electric Co.?plans to jointly?manufacture?F414 engines with state-owned Indian firm?Hindustan Aeronautics Ltd.?for the Tejas light-combat aircraft…
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Biden and Modi also announced new defense collaborations, including progress on an order for MQ-9B SeaGuardian drones made by?General Atomics, and an agreement that will allow American Navy ships to undertake major repairs at Indian shipyards…
“We are doubling down on our cooperation to secure our semiconductors, our semiconductor supply chains, advancing open RAN telecommunications networks, and growing our major defense partnership with more joint exercises, more cooperation between our defense industries, and more consultation and coordination across all domains,” Biden told reporters…
Applied Materials Inc.?will announce a new semiconductor center for commercialization and innovation. Chip manufacturer?Lam Research?is announcing a training program in India for up to 60,000 engineers…
Indian companies also plan more than $2 billion in projects in the United States, including a solar manufacturing facility in Colorado, steel plant in Ohio, and optic fiber facility in South Carolina…
The announcements…also include…efforts by the US to make visas easier for Indian workers to obtain.
The U.S. and India are also discussing strengthening ties between their militaries, including in logistics and intelligence-sharing, Pentagon officials said. U.S. ships could call more frequently at Indian ports, and the two militaries could hold more joint exercises, for example.
Modi also met U.S. business leaders like Elon Musk, who?expressed interest?in making big investments in India.
So basically, what we’re seeing here is:
These new agreements come on top of a vast array of other agreements and linkages that have grown up between the two nations in recent years. Tanvi Madan, a Brookings Institution fellow who studies the U.S.-India relationship, has?a Twitter thread with a great rundown. Key points of cooperation include?the Quad?(with Japan and Australia), various other?multilateral organizations, various?defense agreements?mostly aimed at countering China, sales of?military hardware, joint?military exercises, increased?trade?and?investment, and so on. I was especially struck by this graph of how trade in physical goods has skyrocketed since Covid, making the U.S. India’s largest trade partner:
Madan also mentions the large and fast-growing?Indian diaspora in the U.S., which now numbers over 4 million strong. That diaspora has rapidly become the?highest-earning?and?most-educated?ethnic group in the U.S., ahead of even Jewish and Chinese Americans. Indians and Indian Americans have become extremely prominent in business, technology, science, law, and medicine, and are making big inroads in politics and entertainment as well. America’s ever-present need for talent provides a powerful incentive for the U.S. to open up to Indian immigration, which in turn helps cement the broad-based bond between the two peoples. So I’m glad to see?expanded visa programs?among the things Biden and Modi discussed.
Should we call this increasingly deep and comprehensive partnership an “alliance”? International relations scholar Paul Poast?makes a convincing case?that the Russia-China partnership should be called an “alliance” even in the absence of a traditional mutual defense agreement, and one might be able to make a similar case for India and the U.S. If it was just a matter of military cooperation and policy toward China, I would make that case. But there are a couple of complicating factors here — India is still on fairly good terms with Russia, and the U.S. is still?trying to be friendly?with India’s old enemy Pakistan. So the two countries aren’t in complete alignment yet.
But it’s obviously headed in that direction. Biden called the partnership “one of the defining relationships of the 21st century”, while Modi declared that “even the sky is not the limit.”
The U.S.-India partnership seems like it’s about two things: economics, and China. Those are not independent; in the scramble to “de-risk” by moving manufacturing out of China, many companies are naturally looking toward India, with its equally vast labor force, as the natural alternative. On top of that, U.S. leaders realize that a richer India will be better able to balance China in Asia. But even if China weren’t a factor, the U.S. and India would still salivate over access to each other’s huge and lucrative markets.