Press Briefing: Previewing State Visit of India’s Prime Minister Narendra Modi

Alex Kisling:  Well, good morning, everyone. My name is Alex Kisling, and I’m the vice president of communications here at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington. And it’s a pleasure to have all of you joining us today for this press briefing previewing the upcoming state visit of Prime Minister Narendra Modi. We have a terrific group of CSIS experts with us on the call today, each of whom will weigh in on the agenda and expectations for the state visit.

First to share his insights and analysis will be my colleague Rick Rossow, who serves as CSIS senior advisor and chair in U.S.-India policy studies. Rick has more than a decade and a half of experience working to strengthen the partnership between the United States and India in various roles, including serving as deputy director of the U.S.-India Business Council and director for South Asia at McLarty Associates, where he led the firm’s work for clients in India and the neighboring region.

Rick will be followed by Donald Camp, a nonresident adjunct fellow with our India chair, and a retired senior foreign service officer, who was most recently senior advisor on South and Central Asia at the U.S. mission to the United Nations. He also previously served as senior director for South and Central Asia at the National Security Council, and as director of the Office of India, Nepal, and Sri Lanka at the State Department, among other positions throughout East and South Asia.

And finally, we’ll hear from Neelima Jain, senior fellow and deputy director of the CSIS India Chair. Neelima has nearly two decades of experience working across India and internationally on energy efficiency, sustainable development, and environmental issues. She has also been recognized as one of the most influential people in U.K.-India relations.

So we have a great lineup. Each of these experts is going to provide opening remarks and then we’ll open it up to Q&A for the remainder of the call. We’ll have a transcript of this call available later today, which we’ll send around to everybody who RSVPed. And we’ll also post it online this afternoon.

So with that, Rick, why don’t you get us kicked off?

Richard M. Rossow:  Great. Thanks, Alex. I’ll offer a bit of a scene setter, looking at two elements of the relationship – looking at the state of our security partnership as well as the state of U.S.-India commercial ties. On security ties, we’ve really seen a pretty amazing transition in the last couple of decades. India still publicly declares, you know, at that time nonalignment. Today it’s kind of shifted to language of strategic autonomy. But that really is not exactly true when we focus on the main strategic threat that we both look at and share in the Indo-Pacific region, which is China.

On China, we found relatively easy to open up doors that may have been closed 10-15 years ago, and to begin to initiate a much deeper level of security cooperation than we’ve ever had in the past. India is still reluctant in some of the forums that we all follow – of course, this visit is taking place not long after the Quad had their leader’s summer on the sidelines of the G-7. And I know when we look at Quad and other regional initiatives, India has been one of the main reasons they’ve kind of avoided on having any kind of overt security partnership.

So you still see India a little reluctant to engage on security matters multilaterally but bilaterally, if you look at recent joint statements and, I think, a lot of the expectations for the upcoming summit defense and security are really kind of central to what we expect to see achieved next week in the visit.

It is – I would say, trying to define what this relationship is is like crossing the river by feeling pebbles with your feet. India is not nor do we expect anytime is going to become a treaty ally of the United States.

So you won’t have necessarily an overt security partnership but what you – what you will have is a new type of relationship where we’re trying to push the envelope as fast as we can in areas like cooperation with India in terms of operational issues, sharing critical technology and intellectual property related to defense equipment development.

We’re really trying to push the envelope in new and novel ways beyond what we’ve ever done for a country that’s not a treaty ally and, in fact, in some ways, particularly when we talk about sharing advanced security technology and actually helping India to become more self-reliant in some areas of weapons production and defense material production, we’re actually doing things that we haven’t even done for treaty allies.

So it’s a new kind of relationship trying to break new ground and in some ways, you know, moving a little bit faster even than we do with traditional allies.

Now, the question is what are we going to see out of the visit next week. Today already the United States has become India’s largest defense exercise partner. We’ve got a little over $20 billion in total U.S. defense sales to India. There’s a few platforms that are on the table that we hope to get some progress on. Whether they’ll announce it at the table is always a big question. India sometimes is reluctant to announce major defense deals during summits.

But there are a few new sales that U.S. companies are hoping for. But I think you’re also going to see next week really kind of a doubling down in looking at new ways to share the co-development of new defense technology including through the private sector where the Modi government in nine years in office has really deregulated a lot of defense production to India’s private sector.

So I think there’s a lot more partners for U.S. companies to choose from. But also trying to get startups in the defense space to work together more actively. So I suspect next week is going to be chock full of announcements big and small related to furthering U.S.-India security ties and a lot of that is going to be focused on not just operational issues but actually helping India through co-development of new defense and weapon systems.

The commercial relationship is a bit more of a mixed bag. There, you know, it seems that we’re doing a step forward and a step back when we talk about government-to-government dialogues. We don’t have, I think, kind of the blistering pace of antagonism on trade matters that we had at the end of the Obama administration and early into the Trump administration when both sides were taking considerable steps that eroded, at least from the policy front, U.S.-India trade ties. Most notably the United States revoked India’s trade preferences under the Generalized System of Preference program.

So you don’t see new steps being taken on a regular basis like you saw, certainly, during the Trump administration. But a lot of those old issues have not been resolved. So we’ve got a number of trade dialogues but progress has really been very slow and forthcoming in removing some of the impediments that we look at in the trade relationship.

But that being said, of course, not everything is defined by what the governments do together and if you look at the actual trade relationship, you look at trade numbers and foreign investment numbers, the story is actually a lot more positive.

U.S.-India trade has crossed $130 billion on goods trade, and that’s a sizable increase year on year. Foreign direct investment remains pretty steady, although it has declined a little bit. But foreign direct investment into India is hovering around $50 billion per year.

India investment into the United States is one of those stories that doesn’t get reported quite often enough. Cumulative – a new report by a Confederation of Indian Industry which surveyed Indian firms that have investments in United States point to as much as $40 billion cumulatively that Indian firms have invested in the United States and employing over 400,000 people.

So we still have some old tensions that are, I think, simmering underneath. There are some steps, especially as India heads towards an election in a year, where it could further maybe erode some of the business opportunities. We might see additional steps on protectionism, maybe some issues on limiting cross-border data flows, which would be very important because, of course, a lot of U.S. companies leverage India for their back office for IT services.

But, overall, you know, despite some headwinds by government-to-government policymaking you actually see companies doing more and more and there’s been relatively good growth.

Now, for the visit next week I don’t suspect you’re going to see a lot covering general commercial issues but those areas of commercial interest that have a strategic overlay like 5G, 6G, undersea cables, critical minerals, space cooperation – areas like that – there I think you’re going to see a number of attempts to craft announcements and new work plans or agreements during the visit next week. So general trade I don’t think will be covered too closely, but trade in areas that have strategic significance, I think, will be highlighted next week during the visit.

But to talk about what these kind of visits look like, I’d like to hand the floor over to my colleague and friend, Don Camp. Don and I first got to know each other in a very similar set of circumstances when he was running the White House ahead of President Clinton’s visit to India back in 2000, and I was with the U.S.-India Business Council, so it was in the same kind of crucible we first got to know each other.

Let me hand the floor over to you, Don.

Donald Camp:  Thanks, Rick – thanks for the introduction. As a retired Foreign Service officer who worked on India at the State Department and the National Security Council staff for the last 30-plus years, I thought my value today could be a little bit of historical perspective before I get into substance.

The White House has described the Modi visit as an official state visit. The protocol industry would call it an official visit since, in the technical sense, only heads of state, like monarchs and presidents, can pay a state visit. But it’s a distinction without too much of a difference, but it has caused a little confusion around this visit. I’ve heard it described as only the third state visit to the U.S. in Indian history. That is not true. There have been ten full-fledged, official visits by Indian prime ministers since Indian independence in 1948, and one, quote, unquote, “state visit” by an Indian president back in 1963. This is one in that tradition which has been marked mostly by one official visit by India during each administration. The exceptions, I think, were the Gerald Ford, George H.W. Bush, and Trump administrations.

There have been other prime ministerial visits, of course, often around the September meetings of the U.N. General Assembly when the ministers are in New York and can make a side trip to Washington for a much less elaborate working visit – without the dinner, without the stay at Blair House, et cetera.

During the Trump administration, Narendra Modi made several trips marked most prominently by huge rallies of Indian-American supporters – once in Madison Square Garden, and once in Houston, accompanied by President Trump. That was the so-called “Hello, Modi” rally. Modi has not, however, been a guest at the White House for a full-fledged official visit, so this is important for him and for the U.S.

There are a couple of ways that the U.S. can show even more respect and hospitality to a foreign visitor. One is the address to the two houses of Congress, and that, of course, is a legislative prerogative. Modi has been invited by Congress; that will happen on the 22nd. A Capitol Hill speech has been in increasingly common feature of prime ministerial visits, and not just official visits, as Indian-Americans have become increasingly more prominent in U.S. politics. Modi addressed Congress in 2016, as did his predecessors, Atal Bihari Vajpayee and Manmohan Singh, in 2000 and 2005.

Another important but rather rare add-on is an out-of-town visit accompanied by the president. That gesture takes a lot of time and effort, and is rarely offered, but it is obviously much sought after. That would be like a trip to Camp David, or an excursion to Mount Vernon. Eisenhower – Dwight Eisenhower is still remembered by Indian historians for taking Nehru to his farm in Gettysburg, way back in 1956. There had been hopes, I think, from the Indian side, that Modi might be given a brief visit to Camp David, but that appears to be out, barring a last-minute surprise.

On to substance, the two bureaucratic machines in Washington and New Delhi will have been working in overdrive in recent weeks to prepare the policy substance for the visit. National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan is in Delhi today and tomorrow to put the final touches on what will be the highlights of the visit. And diplomats are working out right now what to include in the final joint statement to showcase the breadth of the bilateral relationship and all that has been accomplished by the two leaders. And both sides will be seeking to get into the statement what they hope to get out of the visit.

The U.S. will want to show a growing partnership in Asia, emphasizing the quad relationship between India, the U.S., Japan, and Australia that Rick just talked about, and the importance of democratic values in both countries, and importantly, whatever they can get the Indians to agree upon as far as confronting the political and military ambitions of China in the South China Sea and elsewhere in Asia. The U.S. will push the Indians to go farther than they have in criticizing the Russian invasion and occupation of Ukraine. That will be a hard sell for Delhi.

The U.S. will also seek to move India away from its traditional reliance on Russia for arms supplies. The growing U.S.-India defense relationship has whetted India’s appetite for the advanced technology the U.S. can offer. This has been a feature of the relationship for decades. One of the big deliverables of this visit looks to me a U.S. decision to allow the tech transfer that will allow General Electric to produce in India advanced jet engines for India’s indigenous jet fighters.

Also, the new dialogue announced last year on critical and emerging technologies will showcase India’s own leadership in information technology. India is seeking sensitive technologies that the U.S. is often loath to share. So they will be talking about cooperation in artificial intelligence and quantum computing. The U.S. is eager to – obviously, to diversify sources of high-tech computer chips, and thus a high-profile investment by a company like Micron, as has been talked about, serves both countries’ interests. The two sides will also want to show progress on the common priorities, but differing approaches, to climate change, as well as a common effort to prepare for future pandemics.

As far as India, they will be looking to demonstrate their growing influence in world affairs. Modi will arrive representing for the first time the most populous country in the world. India wants and expects a seat at the high table of global diplomacy. They will want the U.S. to reiterate its pledge to support India as a permanent member of the U.N. Security Council. President Obama made that commitment on his trip to India in 2010, and Trump later reiterated it. No one really expects this to happen in the near future, but the U.S. has spent the last year earnestly taking soundings around the world about what a reformed and expanded Security Council would look like.

Modi will push the president for action, not words. But if Biden is speaking frankly, he will remind them that they will have to round up the support of Russia and China as well before there is concrete action, given those two countries’ veto powers. I’ll be glad to talk more about this if you’re interested in where this might go, and field any other questions you might have. Thank you. I will now turn the podium over to my colleague Neelima Jain from CSIS.

Neelima Jain:  Thank you, Don. Good morning, everyone. Thank you for your interest and time. I’ll speak briefly about the role climate and energy could play during the state visit.

First, to put it in context, the U.S. and India have a long and rich history of bilateral cooperation on climate and energy that started in 2005 with a dialogue on energy security and has expanded into a multi- and strong disciplinary collaboration. Under the Biden administration, the cooperation is progressing through two main tracks: first, SCEP, which is the – sorry – which is the Strategic Clean Energy Partnership; and, second, Climate Action and Finance Mobilization Dialogue.

Now, through those partnerships, U.S. and India are committed to working together in achieving their ambitious climate and clean-energy targets. The two countries have also launched the India-U.S. Hydrogen Task Force to look at issues such as sustainable production of hydrogen and its safe deployment, and have launched a new energy task force to support the large-scale integration of renewable energy.

Now, in an inflationary and energy crisis environment, both the U.S. and India face a range of challenges that have restricted the full ambitions of U.S.-India climate partnership. Both countries have witnessed extreme weather conditions. Especially for India, with a coal-dependent energy system, balancing climate action, energy access, and economic development will continue to bear unique social, economic, and political challenges.

The U.S. recognizes India’s regional context. For example, a study run by Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory funded by the State Department demonstrates that the Indian grid will require additional promised capacity through 2030 to meet the grid’s flexibility requirements.

While a number of accomplishments have been demonstrated under the first track, the Strategic Clean Energy Partnership, limited progress has been made under the second track, which is the Climate Action and Finance Mobilization Dialogue. So in this context, perhaps the upcoming visit may entail an announcement on a financing vehicle in order to mobilize institutional capital to support India’s clean-energy transition.

The second area to look out for is bilateral cooperation in critical minerals and clean tech. India is keen to strengthen its supply chains and it appears that the Biden administration is open to it.

I’ll conclude here, and happy to take it any direction you like later on. I’ll turn it over to Alex.

Mr. Kisling: Great. Thank you so much, Neelima, and thank you to all of our speakers.

I will now turn it over to our operator, Karen to run down the instructions for Q&A, and hope we can have a great discussion here.

Operator:  Thank you, Mr. Kisling.

(Gives queuing instructions.)

We will go to the line of Shaun Tandon, AFP. Please go ahead.

Q: Hey there. Thanks for doing this call.

Could I follow up on the Russia angle? I wanted to see how much of an impediment you’ve found it to be in relations and whether there could be any meeting of the minds. I know that publicly officials in Washington just say, look, you know, we understand that Russia – that India has a historic relationship with Russia, but how much pressure do you think that puts on the relationship? Are there some perceptions that maybe India may not be the partner that the United States wants due to its stance on Ukraine? Thanks.

Mr. Camp:  Can I tackle that one? This is Don.

I would simply say that, you know, India will pursue its own national interest very firmly. That’s always been their policy. And, obviously, the U.S. will push them to cut oil sales, try to cut arms sales, and so forth. I suspect that India has gone about as far as it’s willing to go, and it certainly has criticized the invasion. I don’t – there may be some further action that the U.S. will push them to, but it has not seemed to be a huge impediment in the development of the relationship over the last year or so.

Mr. Kisling:  All right. Thanks, Don.

I think we can go to the next question, Karen.

Operator: Thank you.

Next we’ll go to the line of Dave Lawler, Axios. Please go ahead.

Q: Hi there.

I’d actually like to build off of Shaun’s question on the relationship with Russia. I guess I wonder, you know, given the lack of sort of leverage, I guess, to push India to a different position on Russia, I wonder, you know, how that might impact the outlook for, you know, confrontation with China either economically or, you know, if it did enter the military dimension. You know, I know they have some converging interests on China at the moment. But I guess I wonder whether U.S. policymakers should expect India to follow its, you know, somewhat more narrow self-interest on the China issue as well and maybe tailor their expectations accordingly. Thanks.

Mr. Camp: Rich, shall I try –

Mr. Rossow: I can – I can – yeah.

You know, I would just say that I think that when you – when you compare the relative gravity of the two – you know, these two rivals that we’re talking about, Russia and China, you know, this understanding that, you know, relatively limited support to Ukraine has been able to head off what we thought would be a relatively easy Russian victory. You know, when we think about the threat horizon 10 years out, 20 years out, one will grow – that’s China – and one will diminish or stay the same – that’s Russia – especially as countries across Europe and others begin, you know, initiating embargoes against sharing the kind of root technology that Russia needs to further develop and expand its own military equipment.

And so I think, you know, it is – maybe we’d call it kind of narrow. You know, there’s really sort of one country where we have a tremendous level of overlap with India in our threat perception. But that is the main threat that we’re going to be confronting, you know, over the next decades and on into the future.

So I suspect, you know, right now, as you get, as I have described it, closer to the president here in the United States, there’s more understanding that we really need to keep our powder dry. We don’t want to risk severing the relationship with India. Find small and modest ways to nudge, but don’t make that a deciding factor. Because the upside and the overlap, you know, it is the threat that we’re going to – the overriding threat that we’re going to face in coming decades, and India has shown a really deep willingness to partner with the United States across multiple domains.

So I suspect in this – in this – the visit and on into the future the good that we look at in this certainly outweighs what we consider, you know, the areas where we have divergence. There’s lots of others, too, that we could point to where you’re going to have small and medium headaches, you know, for instance like elections in Bangladesh when the United States announces a sanctions program and India’s got more comfort. So there’s going to be a lot of – a lot of, I think, areas that pop up where you’re going to have divergence, but the convergence is big enough where I think it’ll outweigh everything else barring, you know, some major conflagration.

Operator: Thank you.

Mr. Kisling:  Thanks, Rick.

Karen, let’s go to the next question.

Operator: Next we’ll go to the line of George Condon, National Journal. Please go ahead.

Q: Thanks much. I wanted to follow on those first two answers and then ask one other question.

Given how high on the president’s priority list Ukraine is, what can he realistically expect to get out of the prime minister that he would consider a success?

And secondly, on the personal relationship, you mentioned the Howdy Modi event. President Trump was always bragging of a great personal relationship with the prime minister. How would you describe, compared to that, President Biden’s personal relationship with the – with the prime minister?

Mr. Rossow:  Don, you want to – you want to tee up first this time?

Mr. Camp:  Sure.

Just on the – on the personal relationship, I think that by all accounts Biden has developed a pretty good relationship through virtual meetings and the like with Modi over the last couple years. He’s, obviously, got a very different style from President Trump, but I think – I think it’s very clear that Biden has pushed the relationship farther. Under Trump, you had a lot of thunder but not quite as much action, and I think the Biden administration has probably pushed the relationship farther ahead. And I’m sure the Indians are appreciative of that.

As far as what the U.S. can get out of India on Russia, I can only repeat what I – (laughs) – what I sort of said. And that is that, you know, the Indians have their own constraints. They are – they could potentially transfer their oil purchases more toward the Gulf and away from Russia, but that would be very expensive for them. We have already had – I’m sure we would expect a reiteration of Modi’s opposition to the Russian invasion. But as far as practical action, I don’t see a lot of movement on the Indian side.

Ms. Rossow:  And, Don, I might say, too, it’s a little bit indirect, but I think meaningful; when we talk about helping India become more self-reliant in defense production – and that includes U.S. companies co-producing in India – but, you know, I’m sure in the back of people’s minds as well is it’s another step to reduce reliance on Russia as a major military supplier. So if India’s not going to buy everything they need from the United States, we certainly would like to see them buy it from partners and allies of the United States or become more self-reliant.

And I think that’s one way that we’re in some ways in a helpful way feeding the beast. India, because of its trade deficits and interest in job creation and things like that, they’re really focused on domestic production in any kind of manufacturing, but defense has particular significance. So some of the announcements that we look at on the visit where we are talking about helping India stand up its own defense industry, a lot of times in partnership with American firms, you know, indirectly, but I think that’s also an interesting way to try to unseat Russia’s primacy as a major defense supplier.

So we’re planting deeper seeds, maybe, than, you know, simply announcing a major recast of everything India’s got out in the field in one fell swoop, but of course nobody’s got the budget to do that in one fell swoop. So I think we’re laying seeds, too, with some of the – some of the cooperation on things you’re going to see next week.

Operator: Thank you.

(Gives queuing instructions.)

We’ll go to the line of Margaret Spiegelman, Inside U.S. Trade. Please go ahead.

Q: Hi. Thank you so much.

So I have a trade question. My understanding is the U.S. and India have been working to resolve several pending WTO disputes. I’m wondering, you know, what your expectation is for any announcement about those disputes and if we see any kind of announcement on the case involving the 232 tariffs and, in particular, you know, what that might look like. Thank you so much.

Mr. Rossow:  Yeah, I’ll jump in for this one. I do know that there’s supposed to be kind of a last-minute call between the commerce ministers, the trade ministers, later this week and try to see if they can expand the aperture a bit in terms of what some commercial announcements might look like.

The biggest package, as you know, that’s been kind of pending for multiple years now is resolving a number of challenges that U.S. companies face in India on medical device price controls and some agriculture market access and things like that, which would be offset by restoration of India’s GSP benefits.

But, of course, the program has expired globally. So USTR, the main – the main bullet they had to show up for this discussions for cannot be – cannot be brought to the table currently. So it’s been – it’s been pretty tricky.

The WTO-related issues, you know, I think it’s a – it’s a good action-forcing event having leaders, although, you know, it tends to be a little bit tricky if something is brought up to the WTO in a bilateral meeting to kind of announce some sort of resolution. Either it looks like the WTO forced the leaders’ hands and they were kind of, you know, come to the table at a summit like this. So I suspect it may be an opportunity to, I think, further discussions behind the scenes. But to see WTO-related issues kind of get announced and resolved at the leaders’ summit, that seems a little bit – a little bit difficult, I think, for either side to try to – to try to put on the table.

So, hopefully, this will help nudge it but probably not, you know, cause finalization, I wouldn’t think. 232 I haven’t heard it brought up, I think, as actively as I might have kind of expected. It continues to burn a bit. So I think that’s a little bit more viable as an option to bring up on the table next week. So I’m glad you raised it.

Operator:  Thank you.

Next we’ll go to the line of Khushboo Razdan, South China Morning Post. Please go ahead.

Q:  Hi.

My question is about, you know, President Biden has articulated, you know, the competition with China as something between autocracies and democracies and we have been witnessing a kind of, you know, erosion of democracy in India under the Modi government.

There has been suppression of his political opposition. There has been, you know, suppression of independent media as well and persecution of Muslim minorities under his rule, and the Biden administration has not been very public and vocal about, you know, the human rights violations under the Modi government like it has been in case of Sheikh Hasina in Bangladesh. Do you think President Biden is going to take this issue up with Prime Minister Modi during this visit?

Mr. Camp:  Can I speak to that briefly? This is Don.

You know, by definition a big – a large-scale official visit like this is going to be a success. It has to be a success for both sides, and that means that there is a real reluctance to introduce difficult topics in this context. You want – you want bonhomie. You want a grand success to come out of this because the two heads of government are depending on that.

So my guess is that human rights will not be much of a focus of the conversation. It will be left to other visits, the many dialogues that we have on every issue under the sun, where those issues – our concerns will be raised, and there are real concerns and the White House is taking some heat from human rights organizations in the U.S. on what is happening in India under the Modi government.

But it will – I’m sure it will not be a focus of this official visit.

Q:  Thank you.

Operator:  Thank you.

(Gives queuing instructions.)

Next, we’ll go to the line of Laura Winter, Defense & Aerospace Report. Please go ahead.

Q:  Hello, gentlemen and lady. Thank you for the event and for taking my question.

I’d like to know what would be the possible space-related deliverables. It’s both a commercial question and a defense question. Will there be increased tech or data sharing, commercial cooperation? And, well, what about the Artemis Accords, especially in light of the State Department’s new strategy to further the accords, and while India is a major spacefaring nation and space has been in the Quad discussions and deliverables before? That is my question. Thank you.

Mr. Rossow:  Yeah, I can pop in and give this one an initial. You know, it feels like the real thrust right now is trying to get our private sectors to work together a lot more closely. There’s been times past where they’ve talked about a commercial space launch agreement and some other government-to-government stuff. I don’t hear about that as much right now. And as we saw with the launch in January with the workstreams under the Initiative on Critical and Emerging Technologies, India actually brought a relatively sizable private sector delegation, along with the national security advisor. And a lot of the firms that joined that were from the space and related industries.

So there’s already good things happening between our relative government space agencies. India is launching U.S. equipment. So there’s lots of good things that are happening from the government-to-government side. But it feels like the real thrust is going to be trying to get private sector firms to work together a lot more closely. And that includes, again, smaller firms, start-up firms, small and medium firms, where sometimes, you know, doing the real hard stuff, on sharing intellectual property, is sometimes a bit easier at the research and development phase than it is with something that’s a little bit more full-fledged.

So you may not even see a lot of the big U.S. majors on defense companies necessarily as intertwined, but instead a lot more on the start-up ecosystem, the small business ecosystem, and how do you initiate collaborations there. It could be even things like university research partnerships as well, kind of going all the way back to the beginning there. So I think the government-to-government stuff is moving along at a fairly good pace, but the real energy is trying to get the private sectors to do more together. So I suspect that’ll be the real thrust next week.

Operator:  Thank you.

Next we’ll go to the line of Ethan Plotkin, Intrigue Media. Please go ahead.

Q:  Hey. Thanks for this.

On the topic of private-sector cooperation, we’ve heard a lot about Apple moving into India, and using it as its new industrial hub. Are other American companies aiming to follow Apple’s lead here?

Mr. Rossow:  Yeah, I can – I can take this one. You know, I think that when you look at the announcement of some of the suppliers, and the fact that suppliers have acknowledged that they’ve circled India, that India’s cellphone production and exports are starting to grow even before a lot of these suppliers have moved in, so a lot of lower-end phones and stuff that India’s already producing. It’s actually had some notable success. There are a few manufacturing areas. You know, I think cellphones is in that list now, but generic pharmaceuticals, autos, and auto components where India has globally competitive manufacturing industries.

But those are still relatively rare. And I do see Indian government officials, you know, talking about this may be the moment when China Plus One strategy, things like that, are really kind of starting to take root. I would say, you know, as much as the Indian government releases data on foreign direct investment, it’s not really showing a dramatic tale that you have this huge uptick in foreign investment of whatever type. Foreign director investment into India actually has declined a bit, a few percentage points year on year, as of – as of March of this year. So you’re not seeing this major groundswell when you look at the numbers.

But there are a few narratives and stories, the Apple suppliers I think are the most notable, which kind of show that maybe companies are taking a second look. So not a lot of tangible evidence that, outside of telecoms, that there’s been this big uptick. But it does feel like, you know, companies that maybe first were looking at Vietnam, and Malaysia, and Mexico are giving India a bit of a second look. And I suspect that we’ll – you know, we’ll see a bit of an increase. But the numbers so far don’t really show that it’s happening in any dramatic way yet.

Operator:  Thank you.

Next we’ll go to the line of Ellen Nakashima, Washington Post. Please go ahead.

Q: Thank you.

You’ve no doubt seen Ashley Tellis’ piece in Foreign Affairs that talks about how the United States should not – I mean, it was actually titled “The Bad Bet on India.” But that might be a little bit of hyperbole. In any case, his point was the U.S. should not – the U.S. should not make the mistake of thinking that its growing partnership with India will mean that India will be all-in as a defense and security ally, and it will be in collective security in the region, in particular in the event of a conflict with China over Taiwan. And I know you know that India is avowedly nonaligned and wants to be a great power in its own right.

So what do you think the United States and the Biden administration – what is the best they can expect out of India? You know, this deepening partnership is not, you know, a full-fledged treaty alliance and a commitment to throw in militarily in the event of a conflict with China in the Pacific. What is the best that this administration can hope for?

Mr. Camp:  Let me start on that, and then maybe Rick has some ideas as well. I mean, you’re quite right. And India has never let us think that there would be any kind of alliance. Anyone who thinks that India will become a treaty ally is simply wrong, as you know well.

What we have now I think both sides have called a strategic partnership. India is very proud of its – what they now tend to call strategic autonomy. And they, as I said before, have their own national interests. They tell us often that don’t forget that we deal with China as a neighbor. They have a very complicated relationship with China. They have border conflicts. At the same time, they cooperate in – they’re a member of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization, they’re a founding member of BRICS, the Brazil, Russia, India, China, South Africa consortium.

So there’s a lot of cooperation there. They cannot – I would say, cannot afford to have China as a committed enemy. And that will always be high on their list of strategic priorities. And that will always limit what they can do vis-à-vis China. Does that make sense? Rick, over to you. (Laughs.)

Mr. Rossow: Yeah, I mean, to Don’s – one of his first lines he had there too, which I always like to unpack a little more – India is the only country in decades that’s actually went to combat against China. Now, luckily, no shots were fired. It was hand-to-hand combat. But dozens of soldiers on both sides, you know, died. And every couple of months you have another potential there. You see these massive breakouts of fisticuffs, and clubs, and rocks, and things like that. You know, it’s not hard to imagine at some point that somebody picks up a rifle and shoots or something, when you’ve got these kind of confrontations happening all the time.

So, you know, the fact that you have this confrontation happening, which China is certainly provoking. China has expanded its military capabilities along the border, which does draw them away from the theaters we consider more important. And that’s where, I think, the distinction has to be made as well. You know, a lot of American security analysts, when we talk about the role and utility India’s going to play, we think about it in the areas that we consider the most grave and severe. You know, probably ranking those you’d say Taiwan Strait, South China Sea, East China Sea, Pacific Islands.

India’s view, you know, and its own geography, as Don pointed out, is its border and the maritime domain. And they would actually kind of counter to the United States, saying: All right, what are you doing around us? You’re asking us, like, what role we’re playing in the Pacific, but you’re calling it the Indo-Pacific now. And you don’t really have an Indian Ocean security strategy that kind of matches, you know, the other threats. And China is dramatically expanding its military operations in India’s neighborhood. And India feels a little bit lonely right now, as the only one who’s trying to uphold security and law and order in the region.

So that’s a challenge that I think you’ll face, once again, next week in the summit. We want to see India have more of a forward-leaning presence on some of the security threats in the Pacific theater. They want us to play a more active role in the Indian Ocean. And that includes not just military, but heading off China attempts to develop strategic infrastructure in the region, which could potentially be leveraged and used for military purposes later on.

And so I think, you know, the theater where we’re operating and trying to find ways where, you know, we can work in the theater each other cares about a lot more, you know, that’s going to be part of the delicate dance that the two leaders are going to be playing, you know, for the summit next week and on into the future. Both threats are very severe. One of them is on the frontpage news every single day to the American audience. But the other, on the South Asia and Indian Ocean, you know, gets a lot less attention.

But the one country that’s at risk every single day of losing territory, more than any country in the South China Sea, and that’s getting engulfed faster than Taiwan, is little Bhutan. And, you know, who talks about the fact that Bhutan’s independence is getting eroded by the slow Chinese incursion? So India, you know, they feel that their primary area to engage is in their own neighborhood. And, you know, unfortunately, it doesn’t always rank quite so high to the foreign audiences. But for India it’s a day-to-day experience, for sure.

Operator:  Thank you.

Mr. Kisling: All right. Rick. Thank you.

It looks like we have no more questions in the queue right now, so we’ll just go ahead and wrap it here. But thank you all for joining today. We really appreciate it. And thank you to my colleagues for their time and expertise.

Just as a reminder, we’re going to have a transcript of this call which we’ll send around to everybody who RSVPed, and then we’ll post it to CSIS.org later today. So, again, thank you, everybody. Really appreciate it. And have a great day.

Mr. Rossow: Thanks, all.

Mr. Camp: Thank you.

 (END)