The road to partnership: 

The road to partnership: 

Context:

The US Secretary of State, Rex Tillerson, has drawn attention to an enduring paradox that marks the relationship between India and America.

Two paradoxes:

1. One such paradox is about the gap between expert expectations and actual outcomes.
2. The relationship remains very below potential. Neither side has taken full advantage of all the possibilities that have emerged.

Recent development on their relations:

• The two countries have now advanced to $115 billion, with the surplus in India’s favour.
• Still there are multiple obstacles remain in boosting two-ways trade to the proclaimed goal of $500 billion.
• America has become a major arms supplier for India.
• The volume of Indian defence imports has grown from near zero at the turn of the century to about $15 billion presently.
• And now, both Trump and Tillerson have signalled renewed strategic enthusiasm for India.
• In the last couple of decades, both the nations made progress by setting aside their differences on Pakistan and China.
• America has begun to clear the path for strategic regional coordination between two nations.

Problems:

• There are residual issues in Washington about supplying advanced defence technologies to India and Delhi remains reluctant to inject greater political content into the security partnership.
• Under-estimation of the bipartisan political commitment in both countries to build a strong strategic partnership.
• Conflicts related to the IPR regime under the aegis of  WTO.
• Increased Protectionism being brought in by the Trump Regime.
• President George W.Bush invested huge political capital to reconcile America with the reality of India’s nuclear weapons programme and lifted the decade-old domestic and international restrictions on atomic energy cooperation with India.
• President Barack Obama resisted the temptations to connect the problems in Kashmir and Afghanistan, completed the negotiations on the nuclear deal, and elevated India to a central position in America’s strategy towards Asia and the Indo-Pacific.

India-U.S relations:

1-      Economic dimensions:

• India ranks just 130th on the World Bank’s annual survey on the ease of doing business. Yet Tillerson cited the growth of the two countries’ economic partnership, saying 600 American companies work there and that U.S. investment in the country has risen 500 percent in two years.
• Bilateral trade will climb beyond the record $115 billion reached last year, noting that a U.S. shipment of crude oil arrived in India this month for the first time.
• Citing India’s role as the world’s most populous democracy, Tillerson said the two nations “share a vision for the future.” He called for closer defense ties, referring to a range of hardware the U.S. is prepared to sell India

Trade relations:

• The U.S. is India’s second largest trading partner, and India is its 11th largest trading partner.
• In 2015, the US exported $ 21.5 billion worth of goods to India and imported $ 44.8 billion worth of Indian goods.
• Major items imported from India include information services, textiles, machinery, gems, and diamonds, chemicals and iron and steel products, coffee etc.
• Major items imported by India include aircraft, fertilizers, computer hardware, scrap metal and medical equipment.

2-       Civil Nuclear Partnership:

The bilateral civil nuclear cooperation agreement was finalized in July 2007 and signed in October 2008. During Prime Minister Modi’s visit to the US in September 2014, the two sides set up a Contact Group for advancing the full and timely implementation of the India-US Civil Nuclear Cooperation Agreement, and to resolve pending issues.The India-United States Civil Nuclear Agreement also referred to as the “123 Agreement” signed  in 2008 is a bilateral agreement for peaceful nuclear cooperation which governs civil nuclear trade between American and Indian firms to participate in each other’s civil nuclear energy sector.  For the agreement to be operational, nuclear vendors and operators must comply with India’s 2010 Nuclear Liability  Act which stipulates that nuclear suppliers, contractors and operators must bear financial responsibility in case of an accident.

Counter terrorism:

Cooperation in counter-terrorism has seen considerable progress with intelligence sharing, information exchange, operational cooperation, counter-terrorism technology and equipment. India-US Counter-Terrorism Cooperation Initiative was signed in 2010 to expand collaboration on counter-terrorism, information sharing and capacity building.

Energy and climate change:

The U.S.-India Energy Dialogue was launched in May 2005 to promote trade and investment in the energy sector, and held its last meeting in September 2015 in Washington DC. There are six working groups in oil & gas, coal, power and energy efficiency, new technologies & renewable energy, civil nuclear cooperation and sustainable development under the Energy Dialogue.

Recently, Indian Oil Corp. Ltd received its first crude oil shipment from the US on Monday, after Washington re-entered the export market last year, increasing competition in an already depressed oil market.

Significance of Present visit for India-U.S bilateral relations:

• The visit set the course for India-U.S. relations going ahead, mapping convergences in connectivity, trade and economics and counter-terrorism cooperation.
• America wants to be India’s most “reliable partner” in an increasingly uncertain world.
• The U.S. put India at the very heart of America’s efforts to balance an increasingly assertive China.
• The meeting will lead to more intensive regional collaboration between the US and Asian democracies- India, Japan and Australia — to ensure peace and promote prosperity in the Indo-Pacific.
• In facing up to India’s concerns about Pakistan’s use of terror as an instrument of foreign policy and China’s quest for hegemony in the Indo-Pacific, Trump and Tillerson have raised hopes for a closer regional alignment between Delhi and Washington.
• Tillerson sketched out a crucial role for India in maintaining in stability in the Asia Pacific region—along with partners like Japan and Australia besides the US. This was against the backdrop of the unpredictable rise of China.

Conclusion:

India should resist the temptation for an endless debate on whether America can move away from China and Pakistan and be India’s reliable partner. Delhi should focus, instead, on strengthening practical cooperation wherever possible with Trump’s Washington.

In the talks with Tillerson this week, Delhi must seek to stiffen America’s resolve to confront the Pakistan Army’s sponsorship of terror, encourage him to discard the residual bureaucratic hesitations in Washington about supporting India’s rise and delineate the pathways for constructing a stable balance of power system in the Indo-Pacific.