K Srinivasan
OUTGOING US National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan was in Delhi in early January on a farewell visit before he demits office on January 20 when Donald Trump takes over as the US President. In a speech at the Delhi IIT on ‘The United States and India: Building a shared future’, Sullivan mapped the IndiaUS relationship thus: “The partnership we have built is one of intention, of choice, one of determination, of leadership, and frankly, one of perseverance and grit,” and added, “Over the years I’ve noticed that people have referred to the United States and India as natural partners.”
He further said, “In many ways that’s true. Our democracies are linked, our companies are linked, our universities are linked and more than anything else, our people are linked. Of course, none of the work we’ve done together over any of these years has been easy. We have had to navigate our fair share of turbulence, legacy relationships, and tensions over trade, as well as over human rights and the rule of law at home and abroad, but we’ve navigated these issues together with our eye on the long game, and our ability to do so reflects the deep and enduring resilience between the US and India, across generations, across administrations and yes, across the aisle.”
Missile export control
One of the most important pronouncements made by Sullivan while in Delhi, and confirmed in a readout of the meeting by the White House, was the “updates brought out by the Biden administration to U.S. missile export control policies under the Missile Technology Control Regime (MTCR) that will boost US commercial space cooperation with India…… (and) finalize necessary steps to delist Indian nuclear entities, which will promote civil nuclear cooperation and resilient clean energy supply chains.” What this means is the exclusion of Government institutions like the Bhabha Atomic Research Centre (BARC), Indira Gandhi Atomic Research Institute (IGARI) and Indian Rare Earths Limited (IREL) from the debilitating restrictions that have been the key roadblock in expanding civil nuclear cooperation between Indian institutions and US companies.
In the same speech, Sullivan was fulsome in his praise of India’s National Security Advisor Ajit Doval: “ICET is truly a people’s initiative, but in many ways, it owes its success to one man – my Indian counterpart, Ajit Doval, and his vision. It was Ajit who believed in our partnership and felt it could benefit both nations. This collaboration has elevated our ties to new heights.”
China slammed
The cornerstone of this partnership is the United States-India Initiative on Critical and Emerging Technology, or ICET– established to enhance and expand collaboration in cutting-edge technologies. Not surprisingly, Sullivan slammed China during his visit and said one of the reasons for this collaboration was what China was doing. “We’ve seen countries lose access to critical minerals that support our clean energy, we’ve seen companies struggling to compete against China’s predatory industrial strategies in chips and clean energy and other emerging technologies. We’ve seen repeated attacks on industries tied to our structure which is heightening the risks not only to cyber espionage but of destructive sabotage.”
The bottom line, Sullivan said was that India-US collaboration is crucial for peace and stability in the Indo-Pacific and prevents the globe from being “overly reliant on a single country”. There have also been other critical collaborations unveiled last year including on semiconductors, critical minerals, advanced telecommunication, defence and space.
Trump’s NSA nominee
Earlier in late December External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar met Congressman Michael Waltz, who is President-elect Donald Trump’s nominee for National Security Adviser. Waltz, as The Hindu said in a report, “is no stranger to the India-U.S.
relationship. A three-term Congressman from the sixth Congressional District of Florida, Waltz is the Republican Co-Chair of the Congressional India Caucus, which is the largest country-specific Caucus in the U.S. House of Representatives. (He) also co-led a Congressional delegation to India in August last year and attended the Independence Day celebrations at Red Fort. He has been the sponsor of several India-friendly legislation in the House of Representatives.”
While the Jake Sullivan-Ajit Doval chemistry was extraordinary, it is hoped that with Michael Waltz, the relationship will continue to prosper, thanks to the hard yards put in by successive leaders in both countries.
