 Good morning and good evening. Welcome and thank you for joining us on today's online panel discussion on what is next for the year of India. I'm Samir Lalwani, a senior expert in the Asia Center at the U.S. Institute of Peace, and I will be moderating today's discussion. USIP is a national nonpartisan institute founded by Congress and dedicated to the proposition that peace is possible, practical, and essential for U.S. and global security. As part of that mission, we strive to provide high quality analysis and discussion of crucial global issues. This year, India is at the center of these issues and multilateral diplomacy amidst high geopolitical stakes. India is leading the G20 this year, including recently hosting meetings in the foreign and finance ministers in New Delhi, as well as intelligence chief. India is also president of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization this year, a frequent guest of the G7, a critical member of the Quad with the U.S.-Australian Japan, and in fact, the Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese is in New Delhi right now before he heads to San Diego for an announcement on August. So, there are many questions to consider today, including what are India's goals for the year, what are the likely outcomes, and how might this shape U.S.-India relations in 2023 and going forward. To discuss what all of this means for India's increasingly important global role and its relations with the U.S. and the world, we'll be joined today by Suhasini Haider, Dr. Aparna Pandey, and Vikram Singh. So, let me preview first how we're going to do this discussion. I'm going to introduce the panelists, then I'm going to engage in a discussion with them for about 30 minutes, and then there'll be an opportunity for the audience to pose questions. And so, to share your questions for our panelists, please submit them through the question box next to the webcast on the USIP event page, and we'll select a few of those to pose to the panelists. So, let me introduce the panelists now. Suhasini Haider is the diplomatic editor of the Hindu, one of India's oldest, most respected dailies, and has over three decades of experience covering foreign affairs and geopolitics. She also hosts the online show, World View, with Suhasini Haider. Dr. Aparna Pandey is a research fellow at the Hudson Institute, where she also directs the India Initiative. She's a regular commentator on foreign affairs with a particular focus on South Asia, especially India Pakistan, and the author of four books, including most recently, Making India Great, The Promise of a Reluctant Global Power. And finally, we have Vikram Singh, who is a senior advisor to the Asia Center at USIP, as well as a senior advisor to the US India Strategic Partnership Forum. Vikram has served as several senior positions inside and outside of government, including as Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for South and Southeast Asia from 2012 to 2014. So, welcome, everyone. Thank you for joining us. And I'm just going to kick things off by directing the first question to Aparna. So, Aparna, India has the leadership role in the summits of the SDO and the G20, as we mentioned. It's a critical member of the Quad, a participant in the G7 Summit, and has recently convened a Global South Summit early in January before the G20 ministerial. So, with all this high-level diplomatic activity, what sorts of outcomes should we expect from India? And what would India like to see from its leadership positions in these international institutions this year? Thanks, Samir. Great to be on a panel with Swasengh and Vikram, and thanks to USIP. The most important outcome for India actually is the symbolism of India on the global high table, being moved by the world's major countries, being at the center of global attention. And such symbolism has mattered to every Indian government, including the current regime, knowing fully well that the current global environment precludes concrete outcomes. For example, consensus on the Ukraine war. Delhi will actually work to ensure that the various summits, regional and multilateral, showcase India's clout and respect for India. We saw this at the Global South Summit, at all the G20, and actually even the SCO-related events. For example, the first time the US Secretary of State met his Russian counterpart after the start of the Ukraine conflict was in Delhi. Now, India seeks reforms of the UN Security Council that might give it a permanent seat at the body, but it knows the UN procedures make such reform unlikely. India understands the reluctance of many countries around the world to take sides with either the United States or China or Russia. And India has used that to resurrect another version of nonalignment or strategic autonomy. Recent references to Global South are part of that. India is well positioned to be the leader of the Global South. India has leveraged its soft power with strong with decades of developmental and actually humanitarian assistance to other countries. India takes pride in its economic potential and non-interference in a country's domestic politics. And finally, for India, discussions and statements that each of these summits need to refer to issues that matter to India. We saw this actually from December 2022 when India was President of the UN Security Council. And you can see this in every engagement since. I'll just give one example. The strong references to terrorism in all such statements matter to India. Thanks. Great. Thanks, Aparna. OK, so we have a sense of like India's objective here. But we had a little experiment or a test run, let's say, of the G20 ministerial most recently as followed by a Quad ministerial in New Delhi. And there was even these reports of intelligence chiefs meeting about 25 intelligence chiefs. So, Duhasini, you're on the ground there. Based on the readouts, you're reporting, was this a success for India? There was some mixed accounts, I think, coming out from the news headlines about the Blinken-Lavrov meeting, some of the acrimony and the inability to produce a joint statement. But what was your sense of how New Delhi sees this? Well, certainly. And you mentioned three different meetings, the G20 ministerials. There were actually two, the finance minister and central bank governors, which is actually in the G20 process, the more important one. And then the foreign minister's meeting back to back. And then there was the Quad ministerial, as you said. And on the sidelines of the Ricina dialogue was the intel chiefs. So in that Ricina dialogue, we saw more foreign ministers from around the world visiting Delhi. There was the Italian prime minister. We inaugurated it as well as these four Quad ministers. You may have followed some of the excitement over the Japanese foreign minister in particular. He wasn't able to get away for the G20 foreign minister's meeting sent a deputy, but actually came hours. Flew to India overnight, arrived hours before the Quad ministerial so that the four foreign ministers could do this photo op with Penny Wong and Blinken and Dr. Jay Shankar and Mr. Ayashi. So just to take them all a little separately, because each one means a different thing. The G20 is now well underway. The first ministerial was held in Bangalore. That was the finance minister track. And then there was the foreign ministers in Delhi. Both of them were overshadowed by Ukraine, divisions over Ukraine. To the point, we saw a lot of brinkmanship, the French side saying very openly, unless Russia signs on to what was committed in the Bali statement, they were not going to go forward with this. And Russia actually, and China is aided by China, which was a bit of a surprise, actually came out and said they were not willing to commit to the Bali statement for a number of reasons. They said the war has changed. There's now a greater involvement of the West in the war. They wanted a discussion on the Nord Stream explosions. They wanted to ask why former G20s had not discussed Iraq and Afghanistan and Yemen and all the rest. So there was a clear division. The G7 on one side, Russia and China on the other. The Indian side eventually gave up after hours of burning the midnight oil. The Indian side said we can't get or communicate together, but we will put out this chairman summary. So from the government's point of view, they did try to spin it as a bit of a success that they were able to put out a chairman summary. They also pointed to the number of paragraphs that clearly everybody agrees on. And eventually it's those two paragraphs on Ukraine that are the breaking point. The real question is, will the G20 summit, which is due in September actually end with some success on a joint communique? Because we'd seen this process last year as well with the Indonesian president. Jokowi actually flew to Moscow, flew to Kiev, invited President Zelensky to address the G20 via satellite. So he did try to push that extra mile. Will Prime Minister Modi do that along with everything else that's on his plate this year? And I'm sure we'll have time to get to it because this is really a major year. Some of it may be a coincidence. Some of it is clearly by design. For the government, they want to go out on a high into the next elections, which are in 2024. And so even though the G20 was supposed to be have been held several years before this in India, I think the original plan was for 2020. They then moved it saying we want to do it in the 75th year of India's independence. Then they've swapped with Italy. They swapped with Indonesia. And finally, they're having it in 2023, clearly timed for the next election. We see a lot of those pitches because every billboard has a picture of Prime Minister Modi and has the G20 symbol, which just happens to look like the ruling party, the BJP's own party symbol, the Lotus. So anyway, the government is gonna have to work some bit to get some kind of communicate together. When it comes to the Quad Ministerial, it was certainly a success. A, the first time we saw the four ministers actually come out and not just, they've done press conferences in the past, but they've held this one hour public chat at the Raisina Dialogue. That was certainly interesting. It was a success from India's point of view because they brought in, as Aparna said, important language on terrorism, important language on the UN Security Council reforms that India wants. And there was a great success for the other three because remember a year ago when the Quad Foreign Ministers had met, Dr. Jaishankar actually reprimanded a journalist in Australia who said, what are you going to say about Ukraine? And he said, you need to check your geography. Ukraine is not in the Indo-Pacific. But a year later, we see India willing to come on board with a Quad statement at the ministerial level that clearly mentions the concerns over Ukraine. The language is probably not as strong as the other three would have liked. But given that this is the first such statement, I think it has to be noted that India was willing to come on board. Maybe some of the upset over not being able to forge a consensus because of Russia and China earlier had some impact on that. And then there was something that got acquired burial. So these were the successes, which was the Quad Vaccine Initiative, which was announced with a lot of pomp and show two years ago and at the leader's level, it was supposed to be, I think, a billion vaccines made in India with US expertise distributed by Japan and Australia by December 2022. That deadline went without a single vaccine actually being made under the Quad's plan. So it was essentially, you know, they did try to get together and distribute some vaccines, but none of them were American vaccines made under the Quad Vaccine Initiative. So I think that's been done away with, but it also teaches all the Quad countries on how better to plan on some of the initiatives for the future and gave them a lot of great experience. Finally, the Intel Chief story, which of course, we did at the Hindu break, it normally does stay quiet. This is now the second year we've seen this happen. It does happen a little bit of cover from the Ricina dialogue because they don't like to put out any public statements, public communication, but it does put the spotlight on another key player in India this year, and that's national security advisor, Ajit Doval. We saw him in January, go to Washington, work on the ICET, the high technology discussions. He held high level meetings there, call on by the Joint Chiefs of Staff. We saw him go to London, where the Prime Minister dropped in on his meeting over there with the security meeting, and then he went to Moscow for a Central Asian meeting on Afghanistan, where he also had a one-on-one with President Putin. So clearly this is somebody to watch in this year of India, as you call it. Great, thank you for that. I'm very confident to respond to Hasse. And I was not aware that India had traded up to move up a couple of spots in the G20 sweepstakes sense and time it perfectly with 70-50 year. It kind of reminds me of the NFL draft where teams are trading up just to get that right spot. You mentioned a couple of things I wanted to maybe follow up on with Vikram. So the first was sort of the absence of the joint communique. Maybe Vikram, I can ask you, what consequences, what consequence is that if at the end in September, after the G20 Leader Summit, there is not a joint statement from all 20 participants, what impact does that have? It seemed to me that the amount of consensus in the Chair's summary was actually quite a lot. And there was a really notable piece in the two paragraphs of dissensus or sort of where there was a lack of consensus on most countries saying that they did not want to see that as nuclear threats and nuclear use were unacceptable. I can't remember the exact language, along those lines. And Secretary Blinken revealed that 18 of the 20 countries were basically on board with that. It was just Russia and China post that. That seems to me fairly consequential even in the absence of joint statements. So maybe you can tell us, you spent some time at the Diplomatic High Table, what are the consequences of having a joint statement versus not? Well, in the real world, the not having a joint statement just reflects the diplomatic geopolitical reality we're in at the time that the summit happens, right? The G20 is an amalgamation of these nations and if their relations are where they are now, I think that's not an unlikely outcome. But the impact is very interesting because you pointed to one, the threat or use of nuclear weapons is inadmissible. That was the line from both the Bali communique and that's in this summary document that the Indians put out. So now you have a situation where only Russia and China have basically said that they can't sign on to that. And similarly, the first sentence of that same paragraph, just paragraph three and four were not consensus paragraphs. The rest of the document, Russia and China agreed to. But what they didn't agree to in paragraphs three and four with a lot of protesting around, we need to add other things and context and the war is at a new stage from when we were in Bali last year, but the bottom line is these are very easy things that any country should be able to agree to. The first sentence of paragraph four, which is also the one that includes the nuclear languages, quote, it is essential to uphold international law and the multilateral system that safeguards peace and stability. So if you're not able to sign on to that, I think the message to the world, at least at some degree, becomes that maybe you're not committed to that principle. Russia is indeed in violation of it. And a lot of China's neighbors would say that it is close to or even in India's case, occasionally in violation of that same fundamental principle and it is pushing the boundaries of the premise of peaceful dispute resolution with aggressive militarization, gray zone tactics and really elbowing its way, especially when it comes to territorial disputes into changing the situation on the ground and backing that up with its military power. So not what Russia has done fully invading a neighbor, but something that gives everyone concern. And I think what you really do see here and reflected on the international stage with UN General Assembly votes and the rest are that no countries are comfortable with this. Very, I mean, very few other than Russia's close partners. I mean, so we're talking Iran, Syria, North Korea, those are the Belarus, those are the ones that are there. Everyone else is either firmly with the Western camp of NATO, Europe, United States and directly opposing this kind of aggression or they are distinctly uncomfortable and disquieted by the predicate that Russia is trying to set. And so what I think that leaves you is a feeling that including for India, which is maybe the leading nation among these countries that find themselves in this difficult predicament of being in a bind, I don't think any of them, if you sat in a room with their leaders and said, would you like to see Russia succeed in this endeavor? I don't think any of them want to see Russia succeed. It sets a terrible predicate for any country that has, especially any country that has disputes with its neighbors. I think the consequences of not having consensus from the G20 in 2023 are to further clarify to the world that for the time being Russia and potentially China are taking an approach to geopolitics that is zero sum and fairly threatening at least to their neighbors. Yeah, it's interesting that in some ways, this, at least from sort of the US perspective, Russia and China being the source of disunity and sort of being isolated or marginalized in this might actually be a US or sort of Western objective here. I want to go back to Aparna, we've sort of talked about that there's an impact obviously on sort of India's star rising in 2023 on the US India relationship. So there's a dense US India agenda, a number of bilaterals and multilateral engagements, defense activities, a planned state visit or at least sort of reported state visit by Prime Minister Modi to Washington. So do you think that 2023 will be this transformative year for the US India relationship and why or why not? Thanks Amir. Actually, I'd say almost every arena, this is the most pro Indian American administration and since this matters to India, I'd say it's also an administration that is ignoring Pakistan and is hawkish on China. Statements and pronouncements by the Biden administration show a desire to convince India that it is Washington's most important bilateral relationship. We saw that just the last few months, I said the soft peddling, I would say, on India's ties with Russia. The Modi government too has placed relations with United States at front and center of its foreign policy priorities. So question of numbers, I'd say this is the year where when we have the highest number of summits, engagements, events in this partnership, I have lost count of how many initiatives they are, but I'm sure somebody knows how many there are between the two countries and we can add those to the bag as well. Now a lot of what is possible today is a product of over two decades of efforts involving different administrations and different governments, both in Delhi and Washington. So as all of us know, it is transformation is a time-intensive process. The Indian system moves slowly and the American system is still trying to figure out how to deal with the country that is not a treaty ally or a junior partner. And while India is keen for a strong partnership, Delhi would like to keep strategic autonomy intact. For example, maintain ties with Russia, manage its relations with China. Similarly, while the United States would like India to grow faster economically, the US cannot force its private sector. And so there are also limitations in the sharing of technology. The American side has some concerns about Russian access and the Indian side that there is some mistrust still from the Cold War era. The final challenge I'd say relates to domestic politics. We live in a polarized partisan populist nationalist rhetoric in both countries. And with the election year in both countries in 2024, I'd say there are challenges which will come up and there are limitations that both governments will face. Thank you. We'll definitely come back to both the Russia angle and the domestic politics angle. But you mentioned a couple of things, ones are the number of bilatiles. My understanding is that US Secretary of Commerce, Gina Raimondo is in India this week for the US-India Commercial Dialogue and the CEO Forum. And this sort of speaks to one of the strong cases for India, both in its leadership role in the world, but also the attraction for the United States, which is India's economic star is reportedly rising as well. So there was, I read a lot of accounts that in the Davos meetings in January, there was a lot of chatter of India, a lot of discussion of French shoring or reshoring to India from China. And Vikram, you rub shoulders with some of the Davos crowd. So tell us, is that narrative still present in sort of the US corporate environment? Is there is not just about sort of growth in general, but specifically as an investment destination, as a technology hub? What is your sense of where that discussion is today and going forward? Yeah, I mean, great question. And just really quickly on the breakthrough issue, is this going to be a breakthrough year for US India? I mean, I think in a way, every year has been a breakthrough year. If you go back over the past 20 years, there's always a lot of progress. But there's sort of a desire to see it be this perfect alignment. And that isn't going to be the reality. It's going to look like it's looked. And I think it's going to keep getting better. And we're really talking about speed. Is the upward curve this or is it this? But it'll be generally an upswing. And the economy in India is similar. So India is most likely going to be the fastest growing economy on the planet this year. Very likely will be next year as well. Is that 6%? Is that 8%? Is that 10%? A lot of economists would argue that if India moves faster on certain reforms and opening up the further opening of certain critical sectors, it could get to 10%, which is probably where it would have been without a pandemic two years ago or three years ago. And so the recovery of India from the pandemic is significant. India is facing a lot of challenges. It's not in the predicament of any of its neighbors who are all in debt crises. But I think it is concerned about where the global south is in terms of indebtedness and the difficulties that we're facing and the risk that there could be a systemic contagion effect if enough countries end up in the predicament facing Sri Lanka or Zambia or Pakistan, even Bangladesh is close. And then that would really have a negative impact on India's economic prospects writ large. But from an international perspective, India is inevitable. The demographics are inevitable. Growth is inevitable. In 20 years, India will have something like 40% of the world's labor force. I mean, this is like there's really no stopping India's growth, a true catastrophe, world war, complete global economic financial crisis. But it's the speed of that growth. It's whether it keeps up. And really, India needs about 8% growth just to try to keep up with its own domestic needs, just to be able to have enough jobs for people that are growing up and coming into the labor market. And so 8% should be is sort of a baseline target, I think, for India. And there's probably a lot that could be done to accelerate it. But India wants to be the master of its destiny. It does not want to outsource India's economic future to a European or an American or a Chinese model. It wants to have an Indian model. And so I think we're going to see regulatory issues. I think we're going to see India's own versions of things from the digital economy side, how it's going to handle data localization, how it's going to handle foreign investment, how it's going to handle technology controls and intellectual property and things that will be Indian versions and not just aligned. And so I think a big part of the agenda will be how much can we harmonize. So if we can't be totally aligned between, say, Europe, the United States, India, Australia, Japan, can we be harmonized in a way that sort of maximizes the benefit for all and makes us competitive primarily with China, which is, of course, the thing that concerns everyone. Great. I want to pick up on this question. Because, Vikram, your argument is that India is inevitable. But so, Hosni, I've read an interesting analysis by Arvind Subramanian, who was a former chief economic advisor, who makes the argument that there's still, I mean, this recent article in Foreign Affairs that India can't replace China, there's still some serious policy software bugs. He talks about the regulatory environment, the high tariffs that even that sort of offset production length incentives, this recent incident of the Adani Group taking a hit in their stock valuation just because there's some questions about the fundamentals. So how robust is this actual sort of economic promise of India? And is it seen today by the foreign investment community that's looking to reshore to India? Well, I think India certainly has many strengths when it comes to the economic question. And India has been growing at this very fast pace, as Vikram said, over the last few years, although it has been much slower, I think, since the year of demonetization in particular. What it does have this year at the highest is a population. The estimates are that this year India will cross China when it comes to a population. And obviously, it is always seen as a great market for that reason. The challenges remain. And I think I read the same analysis by Arvind Subramanian, making the point that you have to still be much more investment friendly in India, that companies that have been here for a while may be comfortable, but the new ones coming in, particularly the ones that were pulling out from China over the last four or five years, had not necessarily found a second home in India. Instead, we've seen them move to other investment destinations, including Vietnam, Mexico, and even back to the United States itself. And we should acknowledge here that the United States itself is turning a little more protectionist from the CHIPS Act. We do see that it's not necessarily looking for new destinations for manufacture either. There are also in India IP challenges over intellectual protection. And I think Aparna mentioned some of the other challenges. There's a challenge of a lack of confidence within India, which is leading to a lot of high network individuals actually taking foreign citizenships, taking non-Indian citizenships. There are the questions, as you pointed out, about the Adani enterprises and whether their entire growth has been unreal. Their share values are certainly higher than many assume was in step with their valuation. And the question about just how much help were they getting from the government when it came to their new investment projects. The next year is going to tell us a lot about how much of those projects are actually still afloat. I think besides all of these, India does have a unique special quality, a USP, if you like. And that is a pluralistic, inclusive, multi-religious democracy. And I think that's something that one has to understand makes it different from all other countries of the size and population. Without any of these, it becomes one of the other countries that the West doesn't feel it shares values with anymore. And we've seen how those relationships have panned out. So I do want to make the point that in India that is investor friendly, but is also perhaps free of the conflicts and the worries we are having right now from China and Pakistan, but also has a very strong and robust relationship with its own democracy, and with the pluralistic democracy would actually be in a much better position to take on that new relationship. Yeah, that's a really good point. I mean, I think that is also implicit in supermoney analysis that the institutional capacity for both transparency and even self-correction is probably what is one of the fundamentals that appeals to a lot of partners and foreign investors as well. But that was interesting. I remember about three years ago, four years ago, before the pre-pandemic, different world, we had a pretty senior Indian analyst come visit and in a sort of private discussion, make an argument that essentially if India was going to achieve its $5 trillion economy status by 2025, it would be on the back of a massive expansion of trade with China. I think at the time it was sort of something like $250 billion trade with China. And those numbers sort of seem like more plausible today. But at the time, I think it was kind of surprising because we were in a world we were talking about possible diversification, decoupling, and sort of a deeper US-India economic relationship. So I'm wondering, Aparna, what to make of that? What does that mean? Is India's economy going to need China in the future? And that might sort of get us into a conversation about sort of the India-China relationship more broadly. Maybe we can start with that. Thanks, Amit. I mean, the India-China economic relationship actually dates back to the 90s. And at its core, it's important for India primarily because of India's dependence on basic items for pharmaceutical industries, for its technology, for its manufacturing. And I would say every country in some ways depends on China for its economic growth. So does the United States for a long time as well. Because the way that Chinese sort of economic growth has taken place, its trade has taken place, the countries it trades with end up becoming dependent on China for certain products that are part of the broader manufacturing or technology or sort of infrastructure. And so it's difficult to find a replacement for China in some of those sectors. And in order for India to grow faster, for example, in manufacturing, it needs those cheaper products. On the pharmaceutical industries, it needs those basic products. And so it's difficult to find an alternative to China for many of these. Now, where India has tried to move away would be in areas like sort of technology, not just spanning of the apps, but sort of finding either indigenous technology or looking to other countries, whether American, Western, or even Japanese or South Korean for technology or for infrastructure. But when it comes to manufacturing, which is primarily the basic sort of the core of any economic growth, India is dependent on China. Now, there is the geo-strategic compulsion which comes in there. And so where India has tried to restrict it also is in trade. So India did not join our set, not just for the economic reasons, but because that would be one of the ways through which Chinese products would enter the Indian market. And as it is, there are a lot of Chinese, sort of Chinese-made products entering the Indian market. And so India is trying to, but it's very difficult, just as American companies are reluctant to leave the Chinese market totally despite the American desire that they move to, you know, French or they move to other countries. It's very difficult for Indian companies in certain sectors to totally break away from dependence on China as well. Great, great. So, but this maybe backs into a question that I alluded to about just the future of sort of the India-China relationship. Obviously, there was a major border conflict where there's been an ongoing dispute about the border for quite a while. There was a major flare-up in the border tensions in 2020. Shot-fired, first sort of the fatalities on the line of actual control in almost 50 years. And then as things seemed to start cooling and there was a lot of de-escalation taking place last fall following the visit of Foreign Minister Wang Yi, then in December, you had this account of another attack around the Tawang area or at least sort of a skirmish that was being premeditated in a number of ways. So, Hassan, tell us what the future of sort of the India-China relationship is this year as India is not only set to host these major multilateral summits, but possibly host Xi Jinping maybe two times at the SDO and then maybe even the G20 in person. What does this portend in terms of either a thaw in the relationship or sort of just kind of grudging acceptance of this reality? Well, it certainly will be interesting to watch, Samir, because in 2022, this was one of the big guessing games that we played at all multilateral summits. If you remember, there was an SCO summit in Samarkand last year, more famous for that oft-quoted Modi line to Putin. This era is not of war, but also was the first time he and President Xi Jinping were together in a room. In fact, in one photo op, they actually stood shoulder to shoulder, but never once looked at each other. Now, this is a huge jump and tells you just how bad relations have got over the last three years since China amassed its troops along the border and all the transgressions that followed. And they didn't publicly certainly acknowledge each other. However, cut to two months later, and there was a live feed coming from a dinner at the G20 in Bali, where we saw Prime Minister Modi get up, go up and greet President Xi Jinping, hold a conversation with him for five minutes, although we did hear from officials later that some of that five minutes was taken away in translation. But it certainly looked like the two men were a lot more at ease with each other than they had been just a couple of months before that publicly. Now, we've just come out of the G20 Foreign Ministers meeting where Chen Gang, the new Foreign Minister of China, made a visit last year. There was Wang Yi, who was here. So we are seeing some kind of talks happening at those levels. He held a bilateral conversation with the Foreign Minister, the External Affairs Minister, Dr. Jay Shankar in Delhi. As you pointed out, India is not just the host of the G20 summit. It is also the host of the SEO summit. And for those who might be wondering why India is part of the summit that names itself after Shanghai, includes Russia, China, Central Asian, four Central Asian countries. Iran is about to join. Pakistan's already a member. Turkey is there as well. And there's a whole host of other countries off that region that are trying to also join in. The fact is, and Mr. Lavrov said that, Russian Foreign Minister Lavrov said it while he was in Delhi, that New Delhi at this point perhaps feels more comfortable dealing with China in these multilateral spheres. So your question about the crystal ball gazing into what happens in this relationship in the next year or so is going to be very important. Now, Xi Jinping is invited in June to the SEO summit. He's also invited in September to the G20 summit. And the question on everyone's mind is, is he gonna come for one? Is he gonna come for both? Is he gonna come for neither? He could appoint somebody else in his place as well. But it does look like there's an opportunity here for the two men to actually meet Prime Minister Modi and President Xi Jinping three years after this entire standoff at the line of actual control began. I would say that it is hard for me to see as an analyst, this government or any future government in the foreseeable future certainly revert to the past Banami that we saw. As I said, 18 meetings between Prime Minister Modi and President Xi Jinping within a space of just six years. Two of those meetings were one-on-one, eight, 10 hours together in Wuhan and then in Mamla Purim. That kind of Banami, it seems hard to imagine at this particular time. It also seems to me that for the foreseeable future, no matter how far they're able to go on the disengagement at the LAC and even on restarting, picking up any of the other conversations. Trade, of course, has been untouched so far. It will be hard to see a scenario where India will not, the Indian army will not have to man every inch of the 3,500 kilometer LAC between them. That is going to mean resources, defense resources of India are going to be focused on that territorial boundary, which really, as you pointed out for 40 or so years, did not see these kind of shots being fired or did not see this kind of tension. So you have to think about what it's going to do to India's military budget as well, because if there is a stretch, it is also a fact that the other territorial boundary India has is the LOC with Pakistan. So very hard to see how they will be able to decrease any of the resources to these two areas, particularly if you like, for a future maritime initiative of some kind. My final point would be Samir, where we need to look at India-China relations in the global context, is what happens with a growing chance or a growing sense that there could be a conflict over Taiwan. When this occurred last year, what we saw was India refusing to stand with either the G7 statement, the other Quad countries also met and India was not part of that statement. India didn't actually join any statements about the situation until two weeks, I think later, when all the navies are packed up and gone home. So you can expect that when it comes to these multilateral issues, India is still going to be fairly sort of cautious. But that personal and bilateral bond army, I think between India and China, is going to be very hard to put together again. Well, you read my mind, because I was going to ask you a follow-up on sort of whether we can ever return to that Wuhan summit process or it sounds like that's highly unlikely. But I just add that maybe while the, sort of the level of engagement on the line of actual control may look like a mistake, maybe that's precisely China's objective is to lock up the Indian army and keep them focused on the LAC that sort of imposes high peacetime attrition costs for an indefinite period that maybe limits their ability to focus elsewhere like the maritime environment. Do you want to follow up on it? Yes, I mean, just to add to that, what is really actually troubling perhaps is that we announced nearly three years into the conflict. We still don't have a definitive idea of why China did what it did. And we all know that as of 18th April 2020, that's when China mass troops, after that we saw transgressions, we saw a lot of skirmishes with Indian soldiers and then what happened in Galwan with 20 Indian soldiers and we still don't really know from the Chinese side just how many died, they only own up to about four. So I think that is troubling. Was it about China's normal boundary flexing hegemony? Was it about a message to India on building infrastructure along the LAC and trying to push India back? Was it a message about the China-Pakistan economic corridor and staying perhaps trying to in some way refurbish those boundaries? We still don't have that. And it is worrying not just that China has made very little explanation of what it has done, but also we hear from Indian ministers as well and say we don't really know why China did what it did. So I think until that answer comes, it's going to be difficult. Well, I think that's a puzzle even for the US analytic community as well as picked up. But let me turn now back to the Russia question. It's been sort of the looming question in 2022 and probably persist in 2023. So the US and India have been quite far apart on this issue on Russia's war in Ukraine. And yet it hasn't seemed to really hurt bilateral relations substantially. There was sort of a blip early in the war, but I think the administration seems to have found a way to bracket it. But how do you see this going forward? Is it possible to continue for the US government to bracket this issue? How is India going to navigate it, especially if something surprising happens in the war, if it escalates in a certain way, if you start to see sort of more accounts of a realistic human tragedy? How will this continue in the next year? Yeah, I mean, I think it's a great storyline for the media. But I think that in general, US leaders for many years have sort of come to more of an understanding that India is in a very different geostrategic position than the United States, that it is between these countries, that it has Pakistan and China sitting right on top of it, that it is a country with a $2,000 per capita GDP. And when you drive up fuel and fertilizer and other prices for basic commodities, it has a different kind of impact on India than it does on the United States. And I think it's instructive to actually go back a little over a decade to look at Iran sanctions and how that was handled. What is difficult for Americans often to navigate is that we could have common interests with India, but that India would not take our policy approach to advancing those shared interests. And that is true in a wide range of circumstances. So in Myanmar, India would much rather see Aung San Suu Kyi and democracy proceeding in Myanmar, but they won't join us in the sanctions against Myanmar or in really doing anything to pressurize that regime too hard because they feel they have to manage their own border. With Iran, the Indians share the objective of not having a nuclear-armed Iran and always have. And so it's instructive to go back to how did that work when we imposed secondary sanctions on Iranian oil. India was importing somewhere close between 15% and 20% of its oil was coming from Iran at that point. And so when we were imposing secondary sanctions, I think the Indians basically said, we don't really like this. We'll try to be helpful, but don't come out and punch us in the face in public for it. And India did reduce its imports of Iranian oil substantially by more than two thirds at that time. And so in general, I think there has had to be an understanding that India's strategic circumstances are simply different. India doesn't have the ability to flex its muscle the way the wealthiest and most powerful military in the world does in the United States. And that could be something that you let damage relations or that could be something where you try to find it's sort of an okay outcome. So India, external affairs minister Jaishankar was very forceful early on in saying, we're not gonna stop buying Russian crude while Europe is still buying Russian crude. But then after the price cap was put in place, India continuing to buy Russian crude below the price cap is actually serving the US and European policy direction. So long as it fits in that sort of a way it doesn't become an untenable thing. Now, could it become untenable? I mean, I think if Russia were winning the war, it might, but because Russia is having such a difficult time and because no one thinks that India really wants this war, India has been dramatically harmed. I mean, India's economic growth is lower because of this war. There's no debating that and India knows it very well. And the little gestures like both the telling Putin, this is not the era of war. India being very forceful when there's been nuclear brandishing that it is unacceptable to have nuclear brandishing. And then the sense that maybe India could in the future provide some good offices. I think those all help. And then there's also an understanding that India has a lot of dependencies on Russia. Military systems, submarines, missile systems, strategic systems, tanks, armored personnel carriers that are all Russian origin. And that's not the kind of thing that gets unwound in two or three years. Those are systems that are in service for decades. And as the Indians would say, most of these things came from Russia because at the time it wasn't possible the United States wouldn't have sold these things to us. And now we're in a different place but that doesn't change 60 years of history and it won't pivot overnight. Could it become a problem? Yes. I don't expect it to unless there is either a real turn in the war that's favoring Russia or Russia escalates in catastrophic ways that probably only means nuclear escalation. And if Russia went nuclear, I'm pretty sure India would actually change its position, would become, would be fully against any kind of move in the direction of using nuclear weapons. So I'm relatively unconcerned that it's a major disruption in the relationship. It's just differences in strategic reality. Okay, well, let's encouraging. We're gonna move down to some of the audience questions that were submitted. And one of them is on the domestic politics angle which we mentioned earlier. So maybe a partner I'll direct this to you. What is the domestic politics angle on these multilateral engagements? And how does this fit into the fact that India is going into an election year next year in 2024? And how does the foreign policy decision-making state that? Thanks, Amit. There's a strong domestic politics angle and Suhasini referenced this right in the beginning to all multilateral engagements for Delhi. General elections in 2024, the Modi government is keen to showcase this year as the year of India. Started with the 75th of year of India's independence last year and has continued in every discussion, dialogue, you know, sort of gear to project India as a global player. Now, the hope is that all the international adulation that India receives, the various summits it hosts, the potential visit of Prime Minister Modi to Washington and actually of President Biden for G20 most likely will add to approval for the Indian Prime Minister ahead of the next elections. Now, every electorate relishes symbolism and so does the Indian electorate and could voters be swayed by these acolytes? Absolutely. If the United States and other countries around the world are seen as wooing India, that helps the ruling party portrait itself as the nationalist party with international credentials. However, the foreign policy issue that is most critical for the BJP in electoral politics is the Pakistan factor, not the China factor or relations with Russia or the United States. This is because at the core of BJP's foreign policy there is a desire to right historical wrongs. The challenge is the United States is keen that India push back against China and is willing to support India's endeavors on that front. Washington is not keen for an escalation on the India-Pakistan border. But for the BJP calm on the India-China border is better for electoral politics. An escalation on the border with China could make the government look weak, especially if it does not show enough military strength. Whereas an escalation on the border with Pakistan and accompanying domestic rhetoric could help the votes. In addition to the symbolism of hosting all these summits, it is important for the current government that joint statements emphasize not just the strength of the India-US bilateral partnership but show that the United States no longer considers Pakistan an ally and is critical of Pakistan's support for terrorism. Thanks, Sumi. That's very interesting. I think that the traditional approach to thinking about domestic politics is that it rests upon governance and the economy and distribution. And what you're saying is I think something really interesting, not just for India but for political science in general is how foreign affairs can really capture the imagination of the population. It shouldn't be lost on us in 2019. There was a major crisis with Pakistan where India flexed its muscles, conducting airstrikes on a nuclear-capable state. And even though I don't think it went so well for it in the actual skirmish, it seemed to profit electorally. So that's actually a really good point to sort of keep an eye out for in the coming year. I want to go to another question from the audience on Global South. Maybe I can turn back to Vikram for a second and ask you from the US domestic politics side, we'll also be heading into an election. It feels like every year is an election year. We just got out of one and we're probably heading into one in 2024. There's still a lot of challenges and testing this amongst political parties here in the United States. Foreign policy seems to be sort of an increasingly important issue. The announcement of the Select Committee on China is sort of part of this discussion. So do you think India will play at all a role in sort of our domestic political discussion or will the relationship be affected at all by the election discussion? Yeah, I think both in India and the United States, I mean, the similarities are often striking but in both countries, foreign policy is only skin deep when it comes to elections. Elections are domestic affairs in India and elections are domestic affairs in the United States and foreign policy can be a nice to have for a president going into an election. You have some foreign policy successes. You look good on the world stage. You seem like a strong leader. That helps you with the work at home but at the end of the day, we are very, very domestically focused and our populations are not very focused in either country on foreign policy. So flashy things, hosting summits, things like that, they get attention and they can lend to an aura of competence and leadership. And I think you'll see the Biden administration wanting to do that. One of the struggles in the United States tends to be for other candidates who are say like governors or whatever to demonstrate that they have chops on the international stage. It's often a challenge to overcome. That doesn't really feature in the Indian system since it's a parliamentary system. And as we watch the campaign unfold in India, you're gonna see a lot of nationalist rhetoric as you always do. You're gonna see assertions of standing up to any aggression from China or Pakistan and being strong. And you're gonna see robustly supporting American national security interests in our election here. But individual countries, individual issues don't tend to feature. The one that will feature in both of our countries that has an overlap is going to be standing up to China if China is being a bully. And that matters more in the U.S. context probably than in the Indian context. Great, okay. So another question from the audience is about the global south. And I think it's quite fitting. So the question is how important is India's claim to a role as a leader of the global south? And what can it do? Or has it, what will it need to do to deliver or substantiate this claim? And maybe Dostin, I can pose this question to you first. Sure. To begin with, you know, the global south is not a new concept. In fact, its underpinnings are decidedly in the left-wing world of the 60s and 70s, but it talked about, you know, South America, Africa. But the idea that developing nations, underdeveloped nations really need to come together. Now until last year, the alphabet soup that represented the global south the best was really the G77 as it was called. And it was being chaired by Pakistan. So we didn't really hear too much on the global south issue from the government when it came to the G20 agenda until after Pakistan gave up its chairperson ship. But it is very clear that in the Modi government's plan, the global south concept to be the voice of the global south is definitely on its agenda. Now it can be for a number of reasons. I think to begin with, there's been a constant shift. You know, in 2014 when we were all told to expect completely new foreign policy that India under Modi had really given up its hesitations of history and now was looking not at something called non-alignment anymore. We saw a certain shift to what was called multi-alignment or multi-polar alignment. More recently, we've seen a further shift if you like in an assertion of strategic autonomy when it came to what you and Vikram were talking about India's position on Russia vis-à-vis Ukraine. You know, in more than 20 UN votes, India has abstained from being, from any resolution that criticizes Russia. India has not actually openly criticized Russia's actions in the Ukraine at all. We've seen India's oil imports from Russia at a time. Now, of course, it seems as if the West is actually quite comfortable with India buying Russian oil. But even when there was so much opposition to it, the Modi government went ahead, increased its intake. It's gone now from 40,000 barrels per day before the war to today 1.8 million barrels per day. It's like more than 30 or 40 times what it used to be. Now, these are all assertions of strategic autonomy. That has become a little more, has aligned India a little more with the concept of the global south. Food security, fertilizer security, energy security. These are also issues India has been raising that fit with that agenda at the G20. Finally, given what we did see over the last two ministerials, if you've got a situation where the G7 is altogether and Russia and China are looking closer and closer together on these positions, it really leaves India with the G11, if you like, the non-Russia-China G and non-G7 to sort of try and build some kind of a consensus to keep the G20 going. Indonesia had the same problem. And in fact, in the next few years, we're going to see Brazil and then South Africa take over this role at the G20. The G20 is actually moving into the hands of the global south, if you like, certainly the developing world. And we are seeing them come up with different concerns than perhaps the G7 countries used to have or the G8 when it was India's push for sustainable lifestyle in the environment for vaccine patent waivers at the WTO UNSC reform, which of course will have a lot of pushback with countries like Italy are not on the same page, but also debt resolution, making sure that developed economies pay much more for climate justice. These are all issues that are very close to the Indian position and where India will look to try and build consensus and build some kind of leadership as well. So I certainly see these issues as an integral part of India's agenda when it comes to the G20, when it comes to the global south. And as many of these that they can push into the language, they'll certainly be very happy with. Great, okay. So I'm going to close with a rapid fire, maybe one minute response from each of our panelists. I'm going to do a fun one. So I'd like each of you to make a prediction about India over the next five years that is not a mainstream expectation. So what should we expect of the, well, what is the unexpected thing we should expect in the future? And it's okay to be a little daring here. I think I would actually make it more interesting. So maybe Aparna, can I start off with you on that one? I guess I'll sort of, I'll draw on something Vikram mentioned earlier, which is that the expectation of India, because it's going to be the fastest growing economy that in the next five years, its economy is really going to grow my faster, move towards the five trillion. My expectation is that in this economy, growth is not going to go above five or six percent and it's going to stay that for the next decade or so, because I don't see the changes that would result and that five or six percent will really achieve nothing for India, aside from helping India stay where it is right now. Okay, that's very interesting. Okay, so India, maybe like flatlining or sort of anemic growth over the next two years. Sushini, over to you. I think all the surprises for India are actually going to come from areas that are new and where India can very quickly take a leadership role. So whether it is the youth, whether it is areas like renewable technology, whether it is areas where India really speaks up on startups and all the rest, I certainly think you are going to see the biggest surprises coming when it comes to where India sees itself in the next few years because the old capital heavy sort of industries are still very hard for India perhaps to break into and it hasn't yet shown that it is willing to take the leap of faith required, even though India is negotiating a whole bunch of FTAs right now, the actual philosophy when it comes to trade is still extremely protectionist. So I do think we have to look to the youth. We also have to look to a new generation that sees itself connected to the world virtually. And that's where your big surprises will come from, where we realize that India is connected not just at this leader heavy level, but at a level where people expect the same and by that I mean expect the same things from India being a democracy, from India being pluralistic and India leading the world if you like in trying to resolve differences. Fantastic, okay, Vikram, you can already close it out. So, well, first of all, thanks, Samir and USIP and it's really a pleasure to be on with the Pernah and Zahasini and don't deserve to be in such good company. These are hopes, not predictions. I hope that in about five years, India has broken through to start becoming a leader in education. So I think it's possible, but India does not have, it has great universities, but it's not yet up there in the universe of having being seen as globally a part of the educational system for the future. And I think that can change now that they've opened up the education sector. So I hope to see massive university partnerships between Indian institutions, American, European research institutions, things like that. And my second one is, I hope, and I think it's possible that United States and India would be together deepening their relationship in space to include India joining a mission to go to the moon with the Americans as partners. Well, that's a fun one, okay. So we're gonna wrap it up there. Thank you all for these three experts for participating in this discussion. I think it's incredibly illuminating and helpful for all of us. And thank you to the USIP staff for putting this together and hosting this. And to our audience members for attending, participating, we plan to continue this discussion and this analysis going forward throughout the years. So stay tuned and look forward to having you back with that.