Perhaps for the first time for an Indian policymaker, the US is India’s “optimal choice” as a partner, the Indian foreign minister said during a conversation with former US ambassador to India Kenneth Juster at the Council of Foreign Relations.

Responding to query by Juster that what he saw as the limits of the India-US relationship — given concerns in the US about issues of religious freedom or human rights In India, uncertainty in Delhi about American reliability, Jaishankar said instead of “limits”, he would speak about the “possibilities” and take a more optimistic view of how relationships work and offered an explanation of why the old mindset was shifting.

The US mindset shift

Jaishankar said, “My sense is that actually today the US is also fundamentally readjusting to the world. Part of it is the long-term consequences of Iraq and Afghanistan, but that’s one part of it.”

The other part, he said, was that US dominance and relative power vis a vis others had changed in the last decade and that was logical with the world becoming more democratic, opportunities becoming more available universally, other centres of production and consumption emerging, and a “redistribution of power” which had now happened.

“The US, even if it may not use the term, is adjusting to a multipolar world. In fact, it is actively seeking to shape what would be the poles, and what would be weight of the poles, in a manner that will benefit the US and there is nothing wrong with that. We are looking at a world, we have probably entered the world where the US is no longer saying I basically work only with allies,” Hindustan Times quoted Jaishankar as saying. 

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As an example, he offered Quad where US had partnered with India, which wasn’t a treaty ally like the other two countries in the grouping (Australia and Japan).       

“You should credit US policymakers with that imagination and with that forward planning that they have already started getting into this much more fluid, dispersed centres of power. Very often, much more regional, with sometimes different issues and different theatres producing their different combinations. It is no longer such a clean-cut black-and-white or three-axis solutions. It is far more messy in a way. It is much more anarchic in a way. And all of us are trying to adjust to that and find a way of working with each other,” Jaishankar added.

The India-US dynamic: Key priorities

The Indian external affairs minister said there was enormous possibility that both countries can play in enhancing each other’s interests.

“If the US looks at the world and says what is the competition and where are the partners, real and potential, and we do the same, you will find that convergences today far, far outweighs the divergences. And so for me, I am no longer prepared to think of it as where are the limits. Where all are opportunities, how much can we step on the gas, how much can we take it forward,” the Hindustan Times reported Jaishankar as saying.

Jaishankar pointed to the changes in just the last five years across security, political, technological, and human linkages domains. “We have a lot going for us.”

When asked what constitutes the three top priorities for the bilateral relationship, Jaishankar said, “The India-US relationship has to focus strongly on technology. In many ways, the balance of power in the world has always been a function of the balance of tech. But it is even more intense today. The impact of tech on everyday lives is very sweeping.”

 Explaining why this has became a bilateral issue, Jaishankar said when India and the US looked out and examined tech partners and who could add mutual value, India and the US gravitated towards each other.

“Let me give you a practical example. You have the CHIPS Act and IRA. They have in a way accelerated investments in a certain set of tech domains. But if we scale this up at a global level, look for other centres of production, and where HR is there to support the expansion of business, I would suggest to you that India is a very important partner for US,” Jaishankar said.

There could be other such conversations on critical minerals or maritime security

“In a way, the US today needs partners in order to secure its interests more effectively. There are a finite partners out there. Those partners, potential or actual, have to reach some kind of understanding. When we look from the Indian perspective, and you can say that there is an even more finite list of countries who can be partners, if I have to make choices, to me, US is really an optimal choice. There is today a compelling need for India and US to work together. To me, most of all, it is focused on technology,” Jaishankar said.

He added that a big part of tech was spillover into defence and security. The third would be politics in the context of the north-south divide. “Today, the global south is very distrustful of global north and developed countries. It is useful for US to have partners who think and speak well of US, often behind your back.”

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Updated: 28 Sep 2023, 01:52 AM IST