A tech-tonic shift – on India-USA relations

Source– The post is based on the article “A tech-tonic shift” published in Business Standard on 21st June 2023.

Syllabus: GS2- International Relations

Relevance:  Indo-USA relations

News- The article emphasis the India-USA relationship

What is the news all about?

Beyond all the discussions about sharing technologies between India and the US, it is well known that trade relations between the two are hardly technology heavy.

The US, the world’s leading technological power, currently offers hardly any significant products to excite the Indian market; the same applies for Indian exports.

What are India’s technological engagements with other countries?

As India becomes a key player in the data network business globally, the business and safety of that architecture matters a lot.

China and India own more undersea landing stations than any other country except the US.

A report by the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (Trai) notes that India’s total activated capacity of cable landing stations increased nine times over in just six years up to 2021. About a quarter of these cables are invested in by Europe.

The USA is interested that the ownership of these cables does not pass into Chinese hands, overtly or covertly, as European ownership gets diluted.

What is the position of India USA trade mix?

So far India’s primary export to the US is diamonds — 15.4 per cent of the total $78.5 billion. The key exports from the US is crude, 36 per cent of the $50.2 billion (all figures are for FY23). Barring that the key US exports to India are only precious metals and chemical products

Even in services, the picture is not tech-heavy. Of the total US exports of services of India, almost half is personal travel. The Indian export basket fares better, with a large component of IT-related services.

The long-term trends make also it clear that the Indian market will not move to a higher consumption of US products from among the current available pool of freely exportable products and services.

How can ICET help to overcome this?

The iCET collaboration will make greater cooperation in critical and emerging technologies possible, which entails co-development and co-production of these technologies.

What are the Issues in ICET?

In the US, these are entirely private sector businesses, for whom it is difficult to do business with Indian government-owned companies in nuclear, space and big tech.

President Barack Obama favored giving US insurance companies, especially the reinsurance giants, a 100 per cent FDI, in India. India is still not there.

Present statements to elevate and expand the strategic technology partnership and defence industrial cooperation between the two countries, are ignoring the earlier areas of contentions World Trade Organization, retaliatory tariffs, currency manipulation, dumping.

This is not how China-US relations became strong in the past. They on currency convertibility, easier access for US firms into China, and copyright and patent issues initially. While high tech came later.