Analysis: PM Modi, President Biden express trust in each other, deepen ties

With Prime Minister Narendra Modi and US President Joe Biden coming out with two joint statements within a span of three months, India and US bilateral relations have soared to new heights as both leaders have expressed trust in each other.

The decisions taken during PM Modi’s state visit to the US in July and reflected in the joint statement are being speedily implemented unlike in the past on the basis of shared interest and objectives. The expression of deep trust between the two leaders as reflected in the meeting on Friday evening will have ramifications for India’s competitors and rivals of QUAD. That President Biden has agreed to attend the QUAD meeting in January 2024 reveals the cementing of relationships for common global economic and security goals.

While India and the US have decided to realign their bilateral relationship with the rapidly changing world, it is a belligerent China that is inadvertently pushing the convergence by laying cartographical claims to Taiwan, the South China Sea, Arunachal Pradesh and part of East Ladakh on the basis of a rejected 1959 line proposed by then Premier Chou En-Lai. The reiteration of the nine-dash line, rejected by Hague in 2016, has also raised the hackles of ASEAN countries who are at the centre of QUAD’s Indo-Pacific expression.

Although in the past it normally would take years to implement decisions taken by India-US leaders, the new relationship has pushed for speedier implementation with the US Congress already approving the GE-414 manufacturing in India within three months of announcement of the deal. The Indian Ministry of Defence has already sent the request for information for government to government acquisition of 31 MQ-9B high altitude long endurance drones which will be partly manufactured in Bharat and armed with air to surface missiles as per operational requirement. That Mazagon Dockyards Limited will now service US Navy’s forward deployed assets will not only hone the skills of Mumbai dockyards but also give them insight into advanced naval technologies.

With the initiative on Critical and Emerging Technologies (iCET) due for a mid-term review this month, the two leaders have to ensure that there is genuine manufacturing transfer of technology transfer in the case of GE-414 engines and there is forward movement recorded in US companies building small modular nuclear reactors without fearing the garroted by the legally complex liability clause framed buy India. The manufacturing of GE-414 engine and the percentage of transfer of technology to HAL by GE will be a test case of India-US manufacturing relationship. If this happens, then nothing can stop the two natural allies from achieving bigger objectives in future.