{"id":121567,"date":"2021-07-27T19:44:14","date_gmt":"2021-07-27T14:14:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blog.forumias.com\/?p=121567"},"modified":"2021-07-27T19:44:14","modified_gmt":"2021-07-27T14:14:14","slug":"the-great-convergence-and-a-lag","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/the-great-convergence-and-a-lag\/","title":{"rendered":"The great convergence and a lag"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><b>Source<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">: <a href=\"https:\/\/indianexpress.com\/article\/opinion\/columns\/into-us-partnership-antony-blinken-joe-biden-narendra-modi-7423761\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Indian Express<\/a>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<h5><b>Synopsis<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">:<\/span><\/h5>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">India and the US have an expansive new agenda for discussion. This includes not only democracy and human rights, but also Afghanistan, the Indo-Pacific region, reform of global economic institutions, climate change and vaccine diplomacy.<\/span><\/p>\n<h5><b>Background<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">:<\/span><\/h5>\n<ul>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The Indian leadership will review US ties this week with the visiting Secretary of State, Antony Blinken.<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Prime Minister Narendra Modi and US President Joe Biden have already agreed on an ambitious agenda for bilateral, regional, and global cooperation between India and the US.\u00a0<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">That ambition, in turn, is based on the unprecedented convergence of Indian and American national interests.\u00a0<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">However, the discourse within India\u2019s strategic community continues to be anxious.<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<h5><b>India\u2019s Anxiety<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">:<\/span><\/h5>\n<ul>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><b>First<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">, <\/span><b>the country is unsure about the US\u2019s approach towards the Kashmir issue<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">. It fears that the US president wants to mediate on Kashmir or the American talk of democracy and human rights may derail Delhi\u2019s relationship with the US.<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><b>Second<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">, there is <\/span><b>a contradictory fear over the China issue.<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> On one hand, India is not able to trust the US for extending full support to contain China. On the other hand, the country also worries that the US may be trying to \u201centrap\u201d India into an alliance.<\/span><\/li>\n<li><b>Third<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">, as India\u2019s relative weight in the international system continues to grow, it creates much room for giving and taking between India and the US. Yet, <\/span><b>a small state syndrome continues to grip the foreign policy elite.<\/b>\n<ul>\n<li><b>For instance, <\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">on the <\/span><b>economic front,<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> India is now the sixth-largest economy in the world, but there is unending concern about Washington imposing globalisation on Delhi.\u00a0<\/span><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Similarly, even as India\u2019s salience for solutions to climate change has increased, Delhi\u2019s debate remains deeply defensive. <\/span><b>\u00a0<\/b><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">While the government seems quite self-assured in dealing with differences that were traditionally seen as irreconcilable,<\/span><b> the gap between Indian policy and discourse still continues.<\/b><\/p>\n<h5><b>Reasons behind this gap<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">:<\/span><\/h5>\n<ul>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><b>First<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">, the<\/span><b> Indian elite\u2019s entrenched ideological suspicion of the US <\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">has been continuing since independence.<\/span>\n<ul>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Successive prime ministers in the last few decades (from Rajiv Gandhi to Narendra Modi) have invested political capital in improving ties with the US. But the suspicion continues in sections of the elite.<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><b>Second<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">, the <\/span><b>public debate in India narrowly focuses on bilateral relations. <\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">This prevents an assessment of the larger forces shaping American domestic and international politics. That, in turn, limits the new possibilities for the bilateral relationship.<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><b>Third<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">, the problem is reinforced by Delhi\u2019s under-investment in public understanding of American society. Unlike India, Russia and China have put large resources in American studies at their universities and think tanks.<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Through the last six months of the Biden presidency, there has been little informed debate in India on the extraordinary policy shifts that are unfolding in Washington.<\/span><\/p>\n<h5><b>Policy Shifts in Washington<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">:<\/span><\/h5>\n<ul>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Biden has also joined Trump in questioning <\/span><b>America\u2019s uncritical economic globalisation of the past<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">.\u00a0<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Trump talked of putting America First, Biden wants to make sure that America\u2019s foreign and economic policies serve the US middle class. <\/span><b>As a result, he does not plan to sign any free trade treaties in the near term.<\/b><\/li>\n<li><b>On the democratic front,<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> Biden recognises that renewing American democracy is the most powerful way of supporting democracies around the world. <\/span><b>For this, <\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">he has underlined the i<\/span><b>mportance of &#8211;<\/b>\n<ul>\n<li><b>Confronting institutional racism <\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">within America,\u00a0<\/span><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Reducing the mindless gun violence by limiting the constitutional right to bear arms, and\u00a0<\/span><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Preventing discrimination on voting rights for minorities.\u00a0<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<li><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Washington is also witnessing <\/span><b>big changes in US foreign policy.<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> The emphasis on rebooting the American economy is driven in part by the perceived <\/span><b>need to vigorously compete with China<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">.\u00a0<\/span><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Biden is also focused on renewing the traditional US alliances to present a united front against China. He is also seeking to <\/span><b>overcome Washington\u2019s hostility to Russia by resetting ties with Moscow.<\/b><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<h5><b>Way Ahead<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">:<\/span><\/h5>\n<p><span style=\"font-family: var(--list--font-family); background-color: var(--global--color-background); color: var(--global--color-primary); font-size: var(--global--font-size-base);\">A comprehensive discussion and deliberation should take place on an expansive new agenda. It would cover the issue of Afghanistan, the Indo-Pacific region, reform of global economic institutions, climate change and vaccine diplomacy.<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Source: Indian Express\u00a0 Synopsis: India and the US have an expansive new agenda for discussion. This includes not only democracy and human rights, but also Afghanistan, the Indo-Pacific region, reform of global economic institutions, climate change and vaccine diplomacy. Background: The Indian leadership will review US ties this week with the visiting Secretary of State,&hellip; <a class=\"more-link\" href=\"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/the-great-convergence-and-a-lag\/\">Continue reading <span class=\"screen-reader-text\">The great convergence and a lag<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10322,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1230,9],"tags":[212],"class_list":["post-121567","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-9-pm-daily-articles","category-public","tag-gs-paper-2","entry"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","views":{"total":0,"cached_at":"","cached_date":1704957686},"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/121567","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/10322"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=121567"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/121567\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=121567"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=121567"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=121567"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}