white home – U.S. President Joe Biden and Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi underscored the energy of their nations’ partnership at a pomp-filled, packed day of talks Thursday on the White House.
The go to is designed by the administration to woo the world’s most populous nation amid battle with Russia and rising rigidity with China.
The U.S. and India are “collaborating on nearly every human endeavor,” Biden stated as he appeared alongside Modi at a joint news convention, a uncommon transfer for the Indian chief.
Key areas of cooperation, Biden stated, embrace well being diagnostic expertise, house exploration, clear power transition and mitigation of the local weather disaster. U.S. and India, Biden added, are harnessing “shared expertise” on important and rising applied sciences comparable to quantum computing and synthetic intelligence to keep away from their use as “tools of misinformation and oppression.”
The two international locations, Biden stated, are doubling down on cooperation to safe semiconductor provide chains, advance telecommunications networks and bolster protection partnership with extra joint workouts, elevated cooperation between protection industries, and extra army coordination throughout all domains.
President Joe Biden listens as India’s Prime Minister Narendra Modi speaks throughout a State Arrival Ceremony on the South Lawn of the White House, June 22, 2023, in Washington.
Biden stated he mentioned with Modi “shared efforts to mitigate humanitarian tragedies unleashed by Russia’s brutal war in Ukraine and to defend the core principles of the U.N. Charter on sovereignty and territorial integrity.”
India, a serious importer of Russian arms, has been reluctant to criticize President Vladimir Putin’s invasion of Ukraine.
Modi as a substitute acknowledged the unfavourable impact the preventing has had on the Global South.
“We believe that in order to resolve these problems, it is absolutely critical for all countries to unite,” he stated by way of an interpreter.
He added that India has pushed for dialogue and diplomacy to finish the battle.
“We are completely ready to contribute any way we can to world peace,” he stated.
Answering a query from a U.S. reporter, Modi pushed again in opposition to considerations from human rights teams that his authorities has discriminated in opposition to non secular minorities and sought to silence its critics.
“I’m actually really surprised that people say so,” Modi stated, insisting that democracy is “our spirit” and “runs in our veins.”
“There is absolutely no space for discrimination,’ he said, stating that his country is based on the principle of “Sabka Saath, Sabka Vikas, Sabka Vishwas and Sabka Prayas,” which means “collectively for everybody’s development, with everybody’s belief.”
Not all believe Modi’s rosy assessment of the state of his country, focusing on what they see as his role in India’s democratic backsliding.
Earlier this week, a group of more than 70 American lawmakers sent a letter to Biden urging him to talk to Modi about the need to protect human rights and democratic values.
India has “a vital relationship with the United States,” said Senator Ben Cardin, one of the signatories of the letter. “But we should wrap it in our values and India must do extra to guard the human rights of its personal residents,” he told VOA.
National security adviser Jake Sullivan told reporters Tuesday that Biden will raise U.S. concerns about democratic erosion under Modi’s Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party but will do so ‘in a way where we don’t seek to lecture or assert that we don’t have challenges ourselves.”
South Lawn welcome, congressional tackle
Earlier Thursday, Biden welcomed Modi on the White House South Lawn with a full honor guard ceremony and 21-gun salute, saying the U.S.-India relationship is “among the defining ones of the 21st century.”
As a present, the Bidens gave Modi an vintage American guide galley, a classic American digital camera, a print of George Eastman’s patent of the primary Kodak digital camera and a hardcover guide of American wildlife pictures. The first woman gave Modi a signed, first version copy of the Collected Poems of Robert Frost.
About 7,000 Indian Americans had been invited to the White House to witness the ceremony, together with Vice President Kamala Harris, whose mom, Shyamala Gopalan, left India in 1958 to review for her doctorate within the U.S.
Guests arrive earlier than President Joe Biden and first woman Jill Biden welcome India’s Prime Minister Narendra Modi throughout a State Arrival Ceremony on the South Lawn of the White House, June 22, 2023, in Washington.
Later within the Oval Office forward of their bilateral assembly, Biden spoke about his first go to with Modi 10 years in the past as vice chairman, when he stated that Washington and New Delhi must construct a relationship small step by small step.
‘Over the previous 10 years, these small steps have reworked into massive progress,’ Biden stated.
Thursday afternoon, Modi is to handle a joint assembly of the House and the Senate, one of many highest honors the U.S. authorities affords to overseas dignitaries. While his predecessors, Manmohan Singh, Indira Gandhi and Jawaharlal Nehru have additionally delivered such a speech to American lawmakers, Modi would be the solely Indian chief to take action twice.
Denied entry in 2005
The respect and pageantry afforded to Modi is exceptional contemplating that in 2005 he was denied a U.S. visa over allegations associated to spiritual mob violence.
Biden has no less than two causes to roll out the purple carpet for Modi, they usually each need to do with U.S. geostrategic pursuits: to bolster India’s position within the area to counterbalance China and to wean it off Russian arms.
India is the one nation that previously decade has engaged in open battle with China, alongside the three,400-kilometer contested border, the place each side are ramping up militarization.
The U.S. administration is supporting New Delhi’s army modernization. Some deliverables of the go to embrace a $3 billion deal for India to buy greater than two dozen armed Predator drones for surveillance alongside its border with China and Pakistan, and an settlement for American firm General Electric to co-produce fighter jet engines with state-owned Hindustan Aeronautics Limited in India.
Another key space of cooperation is the Initiative on Critical and Emerging Technology, or iCET, introduced final yr. It allows enhanced collaboration in high-technology areas with a deal with addressing regulatory boundaries and aligning export controls for smoother commerce and “deeper cooperation” on delicate, important and rising applied sciences comparable to synthetic intelligence and quantum computing.
This contains an funding of no less than $1 billion by American firm Micron Technology to ascertain a semiconductor packaging plant in India – a deal blessed by the administration because it seeks to diversify the availability chain of chips away from China.
Wednesday evening, Modi loved a non-public dinner with Biden and the primary woman on the White House and exchanged items. Earlier Wednesday, Jill Biden took Modi for a tour of the National Science Foundation and a dialogue with college students and lecturers from the U.S. and India.
The administration reportedly will make it simpler for Indians to dwell and work within the U.S. through the H-1B visa program.
Thursday’s occasions culminate with a state dinner on the White House, the place Modi was to be handled to a lavish vegetarian meal created by a star chef.
Chris Hannas contributed to this report.