The Biden administration will roll out the red carpet for Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi, who arrives in Washington on Wednesday. The White House hopes the trip will strengthen U.S.-India ties in the face of China’s rising aggression in the Indo-Pacific.
Mr. Modi, who received an especially warm reception in 2019 from then-President Trump in Houston, will be treated to a state dinner by President Biden and first lady Jill Biden at the White House on Thursday. He’ll also address a joint meeting of Congress on Thursday afternoon and hold a private meeting with members of the Indian American diaspora.
The state visit will be just the third of Mr. Biden’s presidency, following French President Emmanuel Macron and South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol.
The Biden administration will seek during the visit to emphasize India’s importance to wider U.S.-led efforts to counter China’s increasing assertiveness on the international stage. They will also discuss India’s relations with Russia, in particular New Delhi’s historic links to Russian military suppliers.
Analysts say Mr. Modi will push for an expansion of trade. The Biden administration wants the Indian prime minister’s help in diversifying U.S. supply chains and manufacturing bases for high-tech products, including microchips, away from China.
While India ranks eighth on the list of U.S. foreign trading partners — lagging well behind China, which is third — the Indian economy is among the world’s biggest and fastest growing. Meanwhile, India this year is on track to surpass China as the world’s most populous country.
A White House spokesperson said the Modi visit “will strengthen our two countries’ shared commitment to a free, open, prosperous and secure Indo-Pacific and our shared resolve to elevate our strategic technology partnership, including in defense, clean energy and space.”
Nearly 3 million Indian immigrants are in the U.S., and a million more have Indian heritage. Two 2024 Republican presidential candidates, former South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley and entrepreneur Vivek Ramaswamy, have Indian heritage.
Mr. Modi is slated to address an invitation-only gathering of 850 influential Indian Americans at the Ronald Reagan Building and International Trade Center in Washington on Friday, according to New Delhi Television.
During talks earlier in the week, Mr. Biden and Mr. Modi are expected to focus on their countries’ commitment to a free and secure Indo-Pacific region, as well as on their technology partnerships, including in clean energy and space, according to the White House.
The Russia factor
U.S.-India relations were burdened by mutual suspicion during the Cold War era, when India maintained a defense partnership with the Soviet Union. The relationship between New Delhi and Washington has shifted as the two democracies have aligned more closely amid the rise of Communist Party-ruled China.
However, Russia remains India’s biggest supplier of military hardware. A report by Reuters noted that successive U.S. administrations have sought to wean India away from its defense partnership with Moscow, although New Delhi has increased its purchase of cheap Russian oil in the aftermath of the invasion of Ukraine.
U.S.-India relations in the Biden era have been warm, but marked by complexity.
Some regional analysts suggest the administration has ignored the Modi Hindu nationalist government’s human rights record. “Ever since Narendra Modi became the Indian prime minister nine years ago, India’s status as a democracy has become increasingly suspect,” argues former State Department official and U.S. Institute of Peace Senior Advisor Daniel Markey.
“The ’world’s largest democracy’ has seen an upsurge in violence directed at its Muslim minority, often whipped up by prominent politicians. It is trying to strip citizenship from millions of Muslim residents. It is muzzling the press and silencing opposition figures,” Mr. Markey wrote last week in Foreign Affairs. “The Biden administration, having cast itself as a vocal champion of democratic ideals, therefore finds itself on shaky ground whenever it characterizes the United States’ partnership with India as one of shared values.”
“Yet even as the two countries’ shared values have grown weaker, their shared material interests have only gotten stronger,” Mr. Markey wrote. “India and the United States now have a clear, common geopolitical foe in China, and each understands that the other can help it win its competition against Beijing.”
Since coming to office, Mr. Biden has run with the former Trump administration’s push to invigorate the “Quad,” an informal but increasingly deep partnership linking the U.S., Australia, India and Japan. The grouping has aligned to counter China’s economic pressure against smaller nations in the Indo-Pacific.
It has also sought to rally the world against Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. Unlike the other Quad countries and nearly every other major U.S. ally, however, India has not imposed sanctions on Russia and has offered only limited criticism of its invasion of Ukraine.
• This story is based in part on wire service reports.
• Guy Taylor can be reached at gtaylor@washingtontimes.com.
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