India-US firm up an alliance on emerging technologies

 Modi embarked on his first overseas since the pandemic beyond the immediate neighbourhood to the US on September 23^rd. Besides the imbued strategic significance, thanks to Modi regime’s proactive connect with the Indian diaspora and the soft power at play, Modi’s US visits have turned more consequential. Baring Indira Gandhi, Modi has thus far been the only Indian Prime Minister to have engaged with three American dispensations. This repository of experience and the continuity of the engagement with three different Presidents bestows Modi with a unique understanding of the expectations of the United States from India and vice-versa.

In a welcome departure form the string of the virtual bilateral summits which has become a norm the pandemic era, the in-person talks offered the leaders to build personal rapport. Rightly so, the warmth on display during the Modi-Biden bilateral at the White House had a lot to convey. Besides, dispelling the speculations of the current democratic regime being highly critical of India’s landmark legislations and spurious allegations on human rights, the interaction laid a strong foundation for collaboration and cooperation on new technologies.

The 21^st century global order is increasingly shaped and influenced by technologies. With a focus on seeking investments and technology, Modi held meetings with CEOs of five companies on the first day of his visit. These include a meeting with semiconductor and wireless technology manufacturer (Cristian Amon of Qualcomm), ed-tech giant (Shantanu Narayen of Adobe), solar panel manufacturer (Mark Widmar of First Solar) and World’s leading investment firm (Stephan Swarzmann of Blackstone Group)¹.

The bilateral meeting which commenced after the Quad summit, had the leaders lay a clear vision for the strategic partnership. Leaders affirmed enhanced cooperation on three Cs - Covid, Critical technologies and Combatting climate change. Significantly, Indo-US bilateral talks and the Quad agenda had many issues in common. India and the US shared similar views on Myanmar, UNSCR 2593 on Afghanistan and Indo-Pacific. Biden commended India’s presidency at UNSC and backed India’s permanent membership on a reformed UNSC and entry to Nuclear Suppliers Group (NSG).

Biden appreciated India’s announcement of resuming exports of Covid-19 vaccines to COVAX. Expressing shared commitment to combat Covid-19, leaders appreciated the finalization of MoU on Health and BioMedical sciences to bolster cooperation in global health, pandemic preparedness, biomedical research to reduce risk of future pandemics.

Biden accorded highest priority to climate change and globe trotting of special envoy John Kerry is a testament to this commitment. Hailing India’s domestic goal of 450 GW renewable energy by 2030, countries have agreed to accelerate clean energy development through Strategic Clean Energy Partnership (SCEP) and Climate Action and Finance Mobilisation Dialogue (CAFMD) under the Clean Energy Agenda 2030 partnership.

In lieu of the importance of critical and emerging technologies in strategic priorities and delivering growth, leaders agreed to revive High Technology Cooperation Group (HTCG) by early 2022 to catalyse high technology commerce. Along similar lines, countries decided to expand partnership in new domains of strategically important technologies- space, cyber, health, AI, semiconductors, 5G, 6G, block chain and advanced telecommunication technologies.

Calling for an early conclusion of Investment Incentive Agreement, India and the US looked forward to address trade concerns and identifying areas of specific areas of engagement to enhance bilateral trade. Again, in line with the Quad agenda, both countries discussed the need to set a sustainable and transparent framework to uplift the economies. Opaque trading practices of China have become a bane on international trade and supply chains. A well laid out roadmap to counter these mercantilist practices is a commendable move.

Biden affirmed unwavering commitment to India as major defense partner and welcomed the project to co-develop UAVs under Defense Technology and Trade Initiative (DTTI). Notably while India’s defense purchases from US have been on a rise, the concomitant surge in technology transfer (ToT) and co-production has been nominal. Instructively, the two last aspects have been the pillars of strong Indo-Russian partnership.

In the aftermath of the US pullback and looming terror threat from Af-Pak axis, leaders reaffirmed to stand together in the fight against global terrorism. Condemning cross border terrorism, leaders denounced use of any terror proxies and “emphasized the importance of denying any logistical, financial or military support to terrorist groups which could be used to launch or plan terror attacks”². To counter terrorism, leaders agreed to strengthen cooperation in intelligence sharing and law enforcement. The emphatic statement on terrorism certainly sounded hallow given America’s reluctance to sanction Pakistan the mothership of terrorism.

Further, Secretary of State Blinken’s remarks of “reiterating the importance of diplomatic engagement with Pakistan” in his meeting with Pakistan foreign minister Qureshi a day before scheduled Modi-Biden talks exposed the incongruities and lack of intent of Biden administration³.  Similarly, US’s vacillating stance towards China came to light after Blinken deleted tweets in support of Hongkong just days after announcement of security alliance AUKUS to counter China⁴. Indeed, these infirmities in walking the talk is further exacerbating looming trust deficit which US is trying to assuage.

Indeed, similar inconsistency featured in the presser after Modi-Kamala Harris meeting. Harris statement of calling upon “Pakistan to act against terrorist groups operation from its soil to ensure they don’t threaten the security of both the US and India” are figured in India’s release were missing in the White House statement⁵.

Reinforcing the import of Gandhiji’s message of non-violence during Modi-Biden talk, countries agreed to launch US-India Gandhi-King Development Foundation to advance cooperation on health, education and environment, countries.

By and large, the agenda of the Indo-US bilateral appeared to be a sub-set of Quad cooperation. In line with the global challenges of 21^st century, India and US have formalized an ambitious partnership framework with critical focus on technology, economic cooperation, health and climate. However, the productive bilateral agenda, critically missed on the hard power objectives mirroring America’s global retrenchment policy. This drastic shift in priorities demonstrated America’s defiance to identify an assertive and rising China as a threat to peace and stability.

For all the talks of shared responsibility to uphold democratic values and international law, amid a glaring paucity of promising cooperation on India’s two biggest security problems- China and Af-Pak axis, the only big gain for India from this comprehensive global strategic partnership is collaborating on emerging and critical technologies.

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