 Hello everyone. Welcome to another international capsule for the Shankar IAS Academy. Today we will talk about the forthcoming visit of the Prime Minister of India to Washington. Many of you may have seen an article today in the Hindu hectic preparations on for PM's US visit. This is to be expected because this is an extremely important visit for both the countries. It is happening at a time when there were several issues involved in India-US relations. Even though the relations were kept at an even keel by both the sides, there are a number of issues which emerge in between, which seem to hurt India-US relations. So it is for this reason that this visit is extremely important. And it's also for that reason that this visit has to be prepared very carefully. Seeing the visits from Washington to India and India to Washington the last few weeks, we know that the preparations are hectic. There are several things to be settled. First, the whole schedule. What will the Prime Minister do? What will he do in New York? What will he do in Washington? There are some key elements that all people are always looking for. Normally, heads of state who visit New York are not encouraged to visit Washington because of then there will be too many visitors to Washington. So the Prime Minister seems to be keeping this separate. Even though he is visiting New York and participating in an international yoga day, his activities in New York are not too intense. And the visit to Washington and other cities, perhaps Camp David, will show that this is going to be an extremely important bilateral visit. And of course, this is the third formal state visit that Biden is hosting up to Germany and South Korea. This is also rather significant, particularly because there are all these difficulties arising in the last few months since President Biden took over. Of course, the major issue that everyone expects to be discussed is the Russia-Ukraine war. The situation was quite difficult between India and the US in the initial stages. President Biden expressed some exasperation about India's position, though not directly criticizing us, but expressing concern and anxiety that a good friend of the United States should be supporting Russia on this issue. But over the months that have passed, almost a year has passed, this has been played down. There is no huge queue and cry about India's position because things have changed in the war situation. And also because people have come to realize that one side or the other, somebody taking one side or the other is the main, not the main position, how much a country is able to resolve the problem or to help resolve the problem. So in that sense, even though United States would have liked us to condemn Russia and join the vast majority of the big members of the United Nations to support NATO and support Ukraine, they have come to realize that India's position of moderation, the position that there should be no war, this is not an era of war, the position that Russia should not be isolated. And also, situations should be made better for Russia so that they also get into a better mode for reconciliation and negotiation. So the spirit is emerging that way. And particularly after the Bali summit of G20, there are some adjustments and possibilities of understanding the position of India emerged. And President Biden, in fact, praised India for the role it played in Bali. But of course, subsequent meetings of the G20 in India, it don't go well because there was no possibility of even reproducing the language of the Bali deterioration in the Indian foreign affairs meeting, etc. So of course, there is still time for the summit. By then maybe, let's hope something is being worked out. But what I was saying was that the Indian position and the United States opposition to it have become less important today than it was a few months ago. The United States understands India's legacy relationship with Russia. And also, the ability of India to talk to all sides will be only helpful in the long process. The second issue, which was a bit of an irritation, was the Biden administration's comments on India as a democracy. This also was driven by NGOs, some organizations, the State Department, some congressmen, senators, etc. started this complaint that Indian democracy is not very genuine. People's rights are being restrained and opposition is being suppressed. These kinds of views came out from the Biden administration. This was expected because President Biden had always maintained great interest in human rights all over the world. And this is a State Department report. The State Department doesn't bring out annual reports on the state of the human rights in the world. They don't concentrate too much on the human rights situation within the United States. But the State Department analyzes with the evidence available to them, either directly or indirectly, and produces a report saying that such and such a particular country is not really observing human rights and not oppressing the press, etc. And this time, it was particularly harsh. The report contains a large number of events in India which are considered not conducive to good human rights situations. But this has been a very clear departure of late. Recently, Spokesperson of the Biden administration in a very timely manner spoke about India's democracy because it did not say India is the mother of democracy as we claim. But he said that it is a democracy, strong public opinion, judiciary, etc., etc., and made it very clear that in preparation for the Prime Minister's visit, I suppose, that this is not an issue. But still, this may be raised in close meetings, etc., but there are still some concerns in the United States about India's democratic record. In any event, so these two issues, which we thought might dominate the discussion, have been now kind of, I won't say, resolved as some understanding has been reached on both these issues. This will remain on the agenda, I presume. It will be brought up in certain circumstances, certainly the Russia-Ukraine war. And both the sides will try to analyze and advance certain suggestions and proposals. And same about India's democratic record. So after you set aside this, then what is there in the visit is what people are wondering. And in this context, as Hindus has reported, Jake Sullivan, the National Security Advisor, a rising star in the Biden administration, is visiting India very soon. And this has a very specific agenda because earlier this year, the National Security Advisors of India and the USA met in Washington and discussed something very important and very timely, which is the need for intense cooperation between India and the United States on emerging important technologies, critical technologies. It is called initiative on critical and emerging technologies. This was brought in by the two National Security Advisors in Washington. And we don't know the details, but artificial intelligence and others, which are now becoming a threat to international security. People are saying that the chat GPT is as dangerous as a nuclear weapon because uncontrolled use of technology, particularly artificial intelligence, might result in the end of the world, as the kind of predictions are being made. So while this is a convenience and everybody welcomes the technology getting more and more effective, there is this concern and UAE has even appointed a minister for artificial intelligence. UAE has this idea of ministers for happiness, for example. So similarly, now they have a minister for artificial intelligence, even the other governments have thought about it. So there is some concern about all technology that is concerned, but about artificial intelligence, particularly because human beings will be made super human beings. And as super human beings, they may have certain capacities, which could be misused by in autocrats or people who do not think about these things effectively. So this initially taken between the two National Security Advisors. And remember, these are not scientists who are discussing the National Security Advisors, which means technology is becoming part of our security concerns of both the United States and India. And this major initiative would have been discussed at some length in various groups. We do not know the details as yet, but after this visit of Mr. Sullivan to India, and after Prime Minister's visit to Washington, we'll have a clear idea of the extent and depth of the understanding that they reached between India and the United States on this issue. It should be mentioned here that most of the technologies in the United States arise out of the work of Indian nationals or people of Indian origin. So India and technology are very clearly linked in the mind of the Americans. So like the critical situation at the turn of the century, it was the Indian technician who resolved what is called the Y2K problem. So in the mind of the Americans, India figures very prominently on the horizon of technology. And therefore, this is only natural. And let's hope that this initiative will lead to greater understanding and a great depth in India-US relations, maybe outshining any other issues that we have. So that is one area in which there is likely to be discussions and maybe an outcome also. The defense secretary, Lloyd Austin, was in India too. And some discussions are taking place on, you know, upon systems and various other partnerships that India has in defense. India, as you know, is a defense partner, a critical defense partner of the United States. And there is a new, a major technology partnership has been discussed about developing GE414 jet engines in India. This again is something that we have to follow. So the idea seems to be that the engines, GE414 jet engines will be developed and assembled in India. And this may open up the third-party exports, the make in India idea. That is, technology comes from abroad. And we help in the manufacturing. And then these are exported to third countries for the basic spirit of Mr. Modi's idea of make in India. Some technologies are identified earlier, but there seems to be a new technology and that might have spoke for further increase. So, whether between the I CET that initiatives on the critical and emerging technologies and the GE414 jet engine, probably we are entering a new field in cooperation between India and the United States. There are other issues being discussed. There was this issue of Trump withdrawing the GSP, that is the General System of preferences, which was available to India. And this was not being discussed very much. We were not pushing it too much. But apparently, the special envoy of the Prime Minister is visiting Washington in order to see whether this can be retained. And so that that can be more partnerships with India's cooperation with the states. And so these two are supposed to be very important. And obviously, what has been discussed is a stronger relationship between India and the states. So in this context, there will be other issues, of course, Russia will be discussed in very many ways. But more importantly, China, because the United States China relationship is not formed as yet, it is still work in progress. Because Biden has been busy with Russia and China has been trying to mediate in the war, but at the same time, sticking very closely to Russia. Then the threat about Taiwan and China has repeatedly stressed during this period that this is an issue on which there is no compromise. And that's a big, big problem. Because any work, anything done by China in Taiwan, literally will definitely lead to a wider war, how wide we cannot predict. And India, where we are, and what position being what it is, will have concerns about this aspect. But also at the same time, both the United States and India are in the process of dealing with China in different parts of the world, and particularly in the Asia Pacific, in the Indo Pacific. The Quad has been strengthened to some extent, but still there is some reluctance on our part to plan headlong into a military alliance. We would rather prefer that we concentrate on political and other aspects of the cooperation in Indo-Pacific. And like in the case of the pandemic, the case of supply chains, the case of other facilities have been disrupted by the pandemic. All these are of course important matters which will be, will be discussed. And we prefer to have a more peaceful and constructive approach to the Quad. But there will still be questions as to whether India is willing to be a military partner. And the general sense in India is that it should be against, because our geographical location is such that we'll be very vulnerable in such situations. And the question was also raised in American US strategic circles as to what the United States is doing in India, whether it is a bad bet or a good bet, because they feel that India will be willing to fight with the United States against China if a situation arises. And therefore, they should not expect too much from India if there is a war between the United States and China. But this is too far-fetched because that's not the issue here. But India's friendship with the United States is much more important than any possibility of joining up militarily against China. So this matter may also come up in the discussion. In this way, our position is very clear. We are not talking in terms of a war with China for obvious reasons. And this is exactly what some of the writers are stressing that India, because of its unbalanced situation with China, will not want to get involved in any kind of military confrontation with China. Yes, we would not like to. But at the same time, it is not that we are keen to gang up against China in the Asia Pacific. The potential is very much there, but it depends on the circumstances. So China will be a major subject of discussion when the prime minister is in Washington. Apart from this, of course, there will be a number of other bilateral and bilateral issues. And interestingly, spokesmen of the White House said that India is important for us not only because of our bilateral relations, but also because of multilateral relations. You know, the whole issue of the permanent membership of the Security Council is still hanging on fire after 40 years. And no solution is being found for this in a hurry. And therefore, India's involvement in multilateralism suggests that India should have a more important role in the United Nations. And that is not being considered even at this stage. But when they say there is multilateralism, there's an indication that maybe they are open to reform. And in fact, the permanent members did indicate some flexibility on this aspect sometime ago. But even that's not considered very serious. So the expansion of Security Council may not happen, according to the charter, which is available now, because the conditions are very, very stiff. But still, I think the United States talking about India as a partner in multilateral, the multilateral level seems to be of some interest. So if we look back at presidential visits and presidents of India, you will see that there is a general trend towards improvement in relations. And it all started during the Clinton administration, because President Clinton kept asking everybody in Washington during his second term as to why India's relationship with the United States is not as good as it should be. And everybody pointed out the NPT issue, the India's reluctance to design the NPT. And therefore, cooperation in the nuclear field is not working out well. And but these cannot be resolved as a private prison. Bush, after the visit of President Clinton to India, and vice-president to Washington in 2000, after resolving all other issues which were there at that time, this arose as a major issue. And sure enough, as a prime minister, my Mohan Singh's visit to Washington started off a new discussion on this 2005. It was based on the discussions that had taken place between Stop Talbot and just one scene, soon after India's nuclear explosion in 1998 to 2000. So what Clinton did to take India's relationship forward in other areas, President Bush decided to tackle the nuclear issue frontally. And that is how we had a nuclear deal, took a long time, 2008 only it was signed. But that marked a major advancement in the relationship between India and the United States. Of course, the expectations raised about greater capacity for India, more nuclear reactors in India all fizzled out for various reasons, particularly because of our insistence that the liability limits, liability should be that of the supplier and not of the operator. And that issue has not been resolved yet. And therefore, it has not fully met the potential that it had outlined in terms of cooperation. India having more reactors and several other things did not materialize. But still, it opened the way for India to import weapons, I mean, sorry, not weapons, but nuclear reactors, et cetera, from other countries. So we are able to get it technically from others. But as of now, we only have the good old Russian reactors in good and good, no new reactor has come. For various reasons, Fukushima India itself will protest against more nuclear reactors. And so we have gone back to the traditional reactors for our technology purposes. But in spite of that, this was a major breakthrough because India was no more considered in violation of all the nuclear laws. But we are considered responsible technologically advanced nation. And that has changed the spirit of the relationship between our two countries. So since then, every president, though there were difficulties in the various relations, President Trump had a very unconventional way of dealing with these things. But at the same time, he, one way or the other, he maintained that relationship. And towards the end of his term, he also hit upon friendship with friends Narendra Modi, Haudenosaunee Modi and Thomas Thetrum and very many active interactions. And it was at that time that China, let's say included into Indian territory. And President Trump was very clear in the support for India. And so it served a purpose for us. And after President Trump, President Biden, of course, has had long experience of various relations. But because of the circumstances, he could not really move further on India's relations, particularly nuclear issues, etc. And therefore it has not happened. But slowly and gradually, we are moving towards not really normalcy, but better relationship. On the question of their concern about Indian democracy, criticism about the systems developing India, and a concern for minorities, which they keep expressing. Now there is a basic foundation for a good relationship, which would actually be laid at this time, because the things are moving in different directions, but all in a desirable manner. And therefore, it's quite possible that the Prime Minister's visit ends towards the end of this month. We'll probably have a better relationship with the United States. And in also the hope that there'll be a resolution of the conflict in Ukraine, which is very essential for the survival of the United States. And therefore, apart from all the other crises that humanity faced in the 21st century, this war of longing is not going to be a good omen for anyone else. And therefore, hopefully, this visit will open the way for a solution of the Ukraine-Russia issue, but also better understanding between India and the United States on our position. And also, the hesitations about Indian democracy being expressed by official sources is now being put to rest, with the statement made from Washington. They will clearly say that India is a flourishing democracy and we should work with them. So this is a general outlay, because every visit will have its surprises. We may not yet know what are the things which really come out of that visit. But from all the signs that we see and the preparations that we see and the exchanges that are taking place, we can be reasonably assured that this is a success, because all visits are success. But at the same time, there can be visits which are particularly successful. So there is every sign that India is moving towards a stronger relationship with the United States, not to the extent that the United States would want, but with our own strategic autonomy and our own relationship with Russia and our own relationship with other countries, we will be able to establish a good relationship between India and the United States. And that is the expectation. Thank you very much.