Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi recently enjoyed the highest honors the US can offer a visiting leader. However, throughout his state visit, the looming presence of China, an uninvited guest, cast a shadow over Washington and the future of US-India relations.
The growing belief that the US and China are on a collision course is shaping the relationship between Washington and India. This is why President Joe Biden and Congress celebrated Modi, despite his government’s significant erosion of human, political, press, and religious freedoms, which seemingly contradicts Biden’s global push for democracy.
Biden sees India as crucial in preserving the Western-led global international order, which China is challenging. However, it remains uncertain whether India, while leveraging its warming ties with Washington, sees itself as a key player in US diplomatic strategy. It’s unclear whether India would fully support Biden in the event of a full-scale military or diplomatic standoff with China.
Modi’s visit coincided with a dispute over a Chinese spy balloon’s trip across US skies, highlighting why India’s growing strategic weight could be valuable to the US. Biden contrasted Washington’s ties with Beijing and those with India, emphasizing the mutual respect between the two democracies.
Biden’s decision to grant Modi one of his term’s rare state visits represents a continuation of a strategy initiated as far back as the Clinton administration to draw India into the Western orbit. This strategy was accelerated by Presidents George W. Bush, Barack Obama, and Donald Trump.
Despite the democratic backsliding in India, US officials insisted that the Modi visit was not about China. However, in Washington, everything seems to be about China these days. Florida Sen. Marco Rubio, a Republican, emphasized the overlapping economic and security interests between the US and India, particularly regarding the growing hostility of the Chinese Communist Party.
From Washington’s perspective, India appears a promising partner in its effort to counter China. Tensions and exchanges of fire across China’s long border with India have raised the question of whether New Delhi’s most dangerous foe is Beijing rather than Pakistan. India has also become a participating member of the Quad security forum, which also involves the leaders of Australia, Japan, and the US.
However, the world often behaves very differently than policy makers in Washington expect. While there was much talk of Biden supposedly compromising his principles on democracy, there was less attention this week on what kind of payoff the US can expect for an intense engagement with India. Could New Delhi, for instance, simply rack up significant wins while pursuing its own path?
Ashley Tellis, one of the architects of a civil nuclear energy cooperation deal with India in the Bush administration, warned last month that the US was making a “bad bet” with Modi. He argued that India values cooperation with Washington for the tangible benefits it brings but does not believe that it must materially support the United States in any crisis, even one involving a common threat such as China.
Such a view reinforces the idea that India and the US may have different ambitions and visions for their ever-tightening relationship, and the possibility that Biden could end up being disappointed in the returns for his attention on Modi. However, at a time when every foreign policy question eventually comes down to a broader confrontation with China, even incremental gains from this visit could benefit the US.