published on in Front Page News

Biden welcomes Modi for state visit amid concerns over Indias human rights record

Daniel Markey:

Well, certainly from the Biden administration's perspective, there are huge upside benefits.

They're thinking about the long term and they're thinking about geopolitical competition with China, an enormous country. The scale issue looms large, right? It's 1.4 billion or so people in China, and now we have about the same number or a little bit more in India.

So, as they think about how to balance China, I think they look at India as an necessary factor in that. And they see it as enormously helpful because India has this population, a huge market for U.S. goods, huge numbers of skilled workers, some of the brightest brains that have led to growth in America's own industry, especially the I.T. industry, and so on.

So they see that as a huge upside benefit over the long term. And, in the near term, as your piece pointed out, India's facing a huge challenge along its border with China, a very acute military threat. And the Biden administration recognizes that it has an interest in making sure that India isn't intimidated, that it isn't bossed around, because that sends a dangerous message to other countries in the region.

And so there's sort of a long-term concern and a near-term interest as well.

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