 Hello, everyone. Welcome to another edition of the International Relations capsule for the Shankar IAS Academy. Today we discuss the very important visit of Prime Minister Narendra Modi to the United States. This is historic in many ways because this was the first time that he was traveling to the United States after the pandemic came about. And also it was the first formal head of government face-to-face meeting of the new grouping, which has emerged several years ago but has assumed importance. That is the Quad. It is also in the context of the crisis in Afghanistan. And also the confusion created by the creation of yet other military alliances called AUKUS. Because the Prime Minister also addressed the General Assembly. That was the only program that he had in New York on his way back. So we have to deal with three different aspects of the visit. First is the bilateral aspect. Though this is the first time that Prime Minister Modi is visiting Washington with Biden as president, they have known each other for a long time. Because Mr. Biden was the vice president of Barack Obama with whom Mr. Modi had a very good equation. Not only that, ever since Mr. Biden became president, there have been several crises and several issues on which they had to talk to each other. The China issue, the Afghanistan issue, the problems in international affairs, the pandemic, the climate change. So many issues came out. And this was not like one of those getting to know each other meeting. They knew each other fairly well. But still it was the first formal meeting in Washington in the White House. That was a difficulty. But interestingly, there was no bilateral issue to be discussed. Very often when such meetings take place, there will be some issue which will dominate. How is this issue going to be a result? There was really no such issue because the line of both the countries were known on all the issues that they had to discuss. But this visit came as a kind of moral booster to Mr. Biden. Because he was down and out in a sense on two reasons. One, the ignominious exit from Afghanistan, which had created a huge number of problems. And Mr. Biden had to repeatedly say that he could have done it better. And his rating had gone down considerably. The second is the very quick and unexpected announcement of focus. The Australia, UK, US alliance, military alliance in fact. Just a few days before the Quad was supposed to meet in Washington. And this surprised all the partners. But more importantly, it created a revolt in his western allies because France was very upset that this particular military alliance would get France's arrangements for manufacture of diesel submarines for Australia. So they had a very huge contract. And instead what the alliance did was, in fact, they say the alliance was in fact designed in order to give Australia the nuclear propelled submarines. These are not nuclear weapons submarines, you must remember. But even nuclear propelled submarines, the technology United States only had and it had shared it with UK. But after all these years, nobody, no other country was given that technology. And that could be given only if there was an alliance. So since there was this increasing uneasiness between Australia and China, Australia earlier was quite close to China. As a result of that, Australia felt somewhat vulnerable and wanted something more than the Quad. Because the Quad, the problem was that India was not willing to accept it as a military alliance. Because it's a security dialogue. But Australia wanted more than that. And that was not possible to accomplish within the Quad because Japan also is not very keen on alliances. And India has clearly declared that will not be part of any alliance. Otherwise they could have just taken UK also on board, the five countries unit. And that could have worked if India and Japan did not have these hesitations. So on the announcement of the office also, the president had to face a lot of fact. So the arrival of his close friends from Indo-Pacific in Washington at this time without any problems among them was a great moral booster to Mr. Biden. And therefore, Mr. Biden was visibly in his body language, visibly relieved and happy that he had his friends around him at this time. And Mr. Modi had an important place in that group. So as the only non-alive among his guests, Mr. Modi gave a moral booster to Mr. Biden by raising bilateral relations to a higher level and embracing the Quad even after the formation of focus. The conversation as far as whatever we could hear or that reported was very cordial and he was very happy when Mr. Modi praised his vision and spoke of a transformative decay in bilateral relations. This was an opportunity for both countries to give a vision of the relationship. The meeting did not look like getting to know you when they are already engaged in a dialogue. And Mr. Modi who he spoke in Hindi, his words were translated at one stage as natural allies. His natural allies are phrased first used by Mr. Adher Bihari Vajpayee. But it was also translated by some other media as natural strategic partners. These are two different things, but anyway in the translation, both these expressions were used. So it seemed that the relationship had reached a higher level. And so the cordial meeting was also possible because though India had reservations about AUKUS earlier, the timing of the announcement and the nuclear proliferation aspects of AUKUS was a bit uncomfortable for India. In fact, before the government of India responded saying that this is only a military alliance with which we have nothing to do. One is different and AUKUS is different than other official positions forward by the Foreign Secretary. But before the Foreign Secretary did that, a lot of writings in India, several people said that this is going to be uncomfortable for us because it's a full military alliance and we being in the Quad might create problems. The other thing is that since Australia is a signatory to the NPT as a non-nuclear weapon state, they are getting this technology would be questioned by some people, maybe the international atomic energy for example. How much of enriched uranium, what level or what degree of enriched uranium can be used by NPT countries? And so this is a doubtful case and we also didn't want to get employed in a discussion of that kind. But we found a solution and that came as a very good opportunity for Mr. Biden and Mr. Modi to establish a friendship on an equal basis and also Mr. Biden felt very comfortable. So Mr. Biden said that two of the largest democracies in the world are destined to be stronger, closer and tighter. Very good words and I think I can benefit and it can benefit the whole world. So the formulation of bilateral relations good for us, good also for the world. He also said that this was the beginning of a new chapter in relations and as the only country in the neighborhood of Afghanistan which shares the US position, India has become more important to the US than before and that was also quite clear. Both the leaders as traditionally done spoke about the contribution of the Indian diaspora but the language was used was much more stronger and intimate. Mr. Biden said and I'm quoting him, India-US relations are about family ties including 4 million Americans who make the United States stronger every single day. I don't think any president has put in so many words and the cruciality of the Indian diaspora and this is evidence where the fact that Mr. Biden has appointed more than 70 Indian Americans to very important positions in the administration. It is the largest ever Indian group in the White House and related responsibilities, many for which Senate confirmation is necessary and that process is going on. So on the Indian community side also which the community was looking forward to, they were very comfortable. Of course they were not on first name basis like the time of Barack Obama and of course hugs were ruled out, usually those are the kinds of things Mr. Modi does but neither first name basis because Mr. Biden was visibly older than him perhaps and also hugs were not possible because of the pandemic but that did not prevent the two from creating a very cordial atmosphere. A meeting with Kamala Harris, the Vice President was an important part of the bilateral exercise and quite surprisingly she on her own without President Prime Minister Modi mentioning anything. She spoke about Pakistan and saying that Pakistan has been harboring terrorists and this must be stopped. This was a surprise because the general belief is that Kamala Harris wants to project herself as a representative of the South Asian community and therefore she has been expressing concerns about Kashmir, somewhat friendly to Pakistan etc. So everybody was a bit surprised that she brought up Pakistan on her own but this shouldn't be surprising because a few days ago a change in attitude to Pakistan was announced by the Secretary of State Mr. Blinken and he said that we are reviewing, he didn't say anything final because they still don't know what use Pakistan can be for them in Afghanistan situation so they didn't blame Pakistan for anything but Blinken did say that there would be a review of the situation. And Mr. Modi was of course particularly warm towards her and he extended an invitation to come to India and he put it very mildly to give us a chance to celebrate your very victorious and long journey from a mother from Tamil Nadu to the Vice Presidency of the United States and as Mr. Modi often does he brought some documents to show that Mr. Biden had relatives in India and also some documents relating to Kamala Harris' grandfather this must have again improved the bilateral atmosphere quite much but there was a slight problem in the Kamala Harris meeting because though she did not make any comment on India's democracy a point on which the Americans are sensitive particularly after the freedom house that relegated India to partly democracy so there has always been this thinking that this would be raised by somebody and it was Kamala Harris who raised it, not the President and she said it was very interesting she said democracies are under threat everywhere and therefore it's imperative that we defend democratic principle and institutions within our respective countries and that we maintain what we must do to strengthen democracies at home and it is incumbent on our nations to of course protect democracies in the best interest of people of our countries so she put America in the same category as an uncertain democracy because after all that happened in January 6th and Capitol Hill and all that and how the election was challenged by Trump so this is not a classical democracy so it was not an accusation against India which was imagined many people thought that this would be brought up by somebody but she put it quite nicely saying that you know we have this effort we have to do both as though both our democracies are in danger but the message was clear that they were concerned about some of the policies of Prime Minister Modi without mentioning Hindutva or the harassment of people or any of those things without mentioning Hindutva we are both as democracies we are very very concerned with you but Mr. Modi did not react to that everybody was waiting whether he would say something he didn't take it as a criticism of India and he left it there but of course later in the general assembly session he spoke about democracy at some lengths and some people interpreted that as some kind of a reply that the Prime Minister gave to Ms. Harris but this is not necessarily so maybe that speech was written down before he met Kamala Harris but India generally speaks about democracy and the strength of it and what he said in the UN was India is the mother of democracies you know telling Kamala Harris you don't have to teach me a foot about democracy but all this is fine but everything what that happened in Washington had a China touch expecting it whether it is bilateral relations whether it is part whether it is in general assembly so it was as they say the elephant in the room you don't see it but it's always there stepping on somebody's toes so that was the position of China China was very critical of August but not so critical of the Quad and even the masks that everybody was wearing reminded everyone of the pandemic for which in one way or the other China was responsible so it was very clear that both Quad and August were clearly designed to contain China in the Indo-Pacific so China was seen propping up the Taliban regime in Afghanistan and raised of many known terrorists and if it comes to climate change China is the largest emitter of greenhouse gases and China is crucial in that but generally criticism China was restrained it was more by the circumstances and the issues discussed and specifically accusing China of everybody our Prime Minister did not talk about that act no such conversation was there but it was very clear that China was the target of many of the things that were declared the discussed the role by France I mentioned earlier that that was on account of some kind of an economic disaster for France massive economic loss on the cancellation of its submarine deal with Australia not to the strategy to fall out of focus President Biden again like in the case of Australia said that we should have been more cautious in this case also before we go on to the Quad one of the more important meetings or several meetings that you have were the meetings with the big business enterprises and he chose five of them to indicate his interest in modern technology in the US one is the semiconductor and wireless technology company called quad.com these are all the top companies in the United States the second was the software company which we all know Adobe then the renewable energy company or first solar again an intercom initiative then an arms manufacturer naturally general electronics that is relating to drones manufacturing drones in which we are interested and of course most importantly the investment management company Blackstone so the CEOs of all these five companies had short meetings with Prime Minister Modi but these were obviously discussed in advance and we'll know fairly soon what kind of business and some commentators say that this was the most important business that was committed in Washington by establishing contacts with these five people some other matter of Indian origin as you know many American companies CEOs are of Indian origin so that also was a good comment so looking at the Quad it has now developed that was not the original idea but there are two alliances with two different purposes so the military aspect the security aspect has to be necessarily handled by office because Australia, UK and the United States are all allies and they have now established even a greater compact like bringing them into the circle of two only two countries in the West knew about nuclear propelled submarines and so this has become a very thick and very close group and so they would leave the security aspects to that and therefore the agenda that was formulated the ministerial meeting of the Quad which we thought was a distraction now they didn't go into the military aspects and they talked a lot about other things and now it has become a kind of division of paper that is for the hard-power caucus to meet China and Indo-Pacific and for the soft areas and for the group of the people of the world as a whole what? so that is the kind of division and in the Quad of course we talked about terrorism one concern is not really military when the pandemic climate change technological development and supply checks all these are vital issues for the US and India and there are many differences to be ironed out even between us was on the pandemic also about manufacture of vaccines the patent issues relating to World Trade Organization there are a number of things and they cost for it and how many vaccines will be exchanged there are so many issues and the Quad certainly can deal with these issues without worrying about China of course China is again in the picture because the whole pandemic is in regard to China and they issued a joint statement which is quite substantial if you look at the joint statement the preoccupations of the Quad as well as terrorists are concerned the statement said we denounce the use of terrorist proxies and emphasize the importance of denying any logistical, financial or military support to terrorist groups which could be used to launch or plan terror attacks including cross-border attacks you know cross-border attack is a euphemism for Pakistani terrorism against India cross-border that is the case and then they also said we also recognize that our shared values will be returned in the Indo-Pacific and we will redouble our efforts to ensure that the Quad is a force for regional peace stability, security and prosperity so they don't leave out security altogether and it also noted that the partnership in COVID-19 response and relief are the historic new focus for the Quad because the pandemic is not yet over we are in the middle of it and much more may have to be done hopefully may not but if it's to be done Quad has to take the lead so even if Quad did not do anything else according to me even if they handled the pandemic properly with coordination of vaccine manufacturing and vaccine distribution and coordination of scientific evidence these are very crucial for humanity so I would say that the Quad even if it did not do anything else it should be fully justified and there is a commitment and the statement again says it's a bent rock of our shared security and prosperity a free and open Indo-Pacific this is a word which we heard all over the discussion everybody spoke about a free and open Indo-Pacific again it means euphemism against Chinese expansionism and the Quad took note of the fact that the COVID-19 had caused continued global suffering the climate crisis has actually accelerated and regional security has become ever more complex and therefore they committed themselves to promoting the free open rules based order rooted in international law and undaunted by coercion to bolster security and prosperity in the Indo-Pacific and beyond all China will hear that very loudly further they said that they stood for the rule of law freedom of navigation and overflight peaceful resolution of disputes and naturally referring to South China Sea and Taiwan and Hong Kong and others and peaceful and democratic values and territorial integrity of states which of course also means Ladakh so the Quad did not leave out security issues though the focus was on other things the Quad leaders expressed some satisfaction about what they already done which I think is not really true but none of them can really claim much success in bringing the infection level lower United States is bad, India is bad, Australia is bad Japan also had very serious problems so and even vaccination all the countries have not done well so for them to say that we are very happy we are cooperating together that was a bit of an exaggeration the only thing is that this Quad gave an opportunity for prime ministers and presidents to focus on health matters without leaving into their health ministers on climate change we all know that there are deep divisions in the Quad in fact India and China think generally they are alike because we are large emitters but we want to see that divided per capita and then therefore India and China will not be the top but as the only developing country in the group India expects financing and technology because the United States is encouraging people to countries to move on to declare carbon free period we have declared it is 2030 and the Chinese are saying 2050 and they are pressurizing India to declare a year and we will also be net zero emissions but this is not practical for us unless we have a huge expansion in nuclear as well as in renewable energy and then unless they do that we will still have to burn coal and fossil fuels so India has very special in this group because we need these and these other three are the ones who have the technology which they can spare ourselves and there was a not a very significant but a Quad fellowship program which will provide undergraduate fellowships to leading science, technology, engineering and mathematic graduates then economic and human rights and they also agree the Quad agreed that they will coordinate their policies towards Afghanistan and will deepen counter-terrorism and humanitarian cooperation in the months ahead and they quoted the UN Security Council resolution which was adopted with India in the chair so that resolution had the firm Afghan territory should not be used to threaten attack on any country and the government should be inclusive so by referring to Security Council resolution they were supporting the position that India had taken reiterated the importance of combating terrorism in Afghanistan and denounced the use of terrorist policies etc and as I said earlier terrorism was also mentioned then some odd issues were referred to the denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula which is causing concern because all that Trump tried to do it won't materialize and North Korea is still as adamant as before to continue with the nuclear activities then the other threat to the region is the violence in Myanmar while Myanmar is as serious as what is happening in Afghanistan except that it's a military dictatorship there is a democracy, there is no democracy there but they are not engaged in terrorism against other people that's the only difference that terrorism is against their own people but this cannot go on forever and the vision for this partnership so they identified many issues on which they have to work together and so as our Prime Minister said we could say the Quad has come of age all these doubts India's worries about it becoming a military alliance is also set at rest so as a testament of the Quad this joint statement which is a consequence of a likely China, Pakistan axis so the joint statement was quite comprehensive but it fell short of a commitment that the Quad will take joint action of any kind but that is as I said the job of the other alliance then the four countries will work together security challenge and the link between the Quad and AUKUS assumes importance and so bilateral relations between the US and India will amount to a strategic partnership in itself so the Quad and partnership its link with AUKUS also give the necessary muscle power to the partnership so in a situation where India is determined that it will not be a party to any alliance with any strategic autonomy at any cost India cannot expect any greater security guarantees so we have got the best possible situation so China has reacted more sharply to AUKUS than to the Quad and they mentioned the propulsion technology etc and the new characteristics of the Quad that have emerged in Washington has softened its image as an anti-China alliance and it may encourage other countries in the region to join the group and thus increase its strength and reach because if other countries join it will have to change the name because Quad means only four people so if UK joined what would have been somebody said jokingly it would be called Pentagon in five countries so that will have to be worked out what name the Quad will assume as more and more people join or people are accepted and that will be a long process Indonesia, Vietnam all these could be their candidates who basically endorse the Quad for us and lastly the General Assembly the Prime Minister just flew into New York made a General Assembly speech and left I don't think he attended any other function because normally heads of state and as a government in New York have many engagements they are there several days etc but our Prime Minister could not be away for long so he returned immediately even before his speech was reported in the press he was back in India he spoke broadly on a number of issues which he normally speaks about I didn't find anything exceptionally new in his statement he spoke about extremism and terrorism etc which of course is our standard then open seas and effectiveness of the UN so these are the three things that we normally speak about sometimes Prime Ministers speak about all the issues in the world but Mr Modi has been focusing on some issues rather than reading out a whole text saying A, B, C, D countries we have except W, A said a relationship that he did not do but one interesting thing he did was to invite, he spoke at length about India's manufacturing vaccine manufacturing capacity and invited the whole world to come to India to see some new technology that we have developed he said come he said twice come to India and manufacture these vaccines on terrorism he used a new phrase he said that those who are making use of terrorism should understand that it's posed an equally serious threat to them but everybody knows Pakistan itself says they are a victim of terrorism so but he also mentioned that Afghanistan's people must be supported that is there there should be given assistance humanitarian assistance regardless of who is ruling over the country when about the oceans he said we should use the ocean not abuse it and then what UN he repeated UN reform and he mentioned that in the case of Afghanistan and the case of the pandemic UN has been facing a lot of criticism and that is because the UN is not up to date it still has the composition of 1945 the world has changed and of course he made no secret of his interest in becoming a permanent member of the security council because this is not going anywhere it repeats it because it doesn't make an impact because two thirds majority and permanent and unanimity of the permanent members cannot be achieved in the present context whatever may happen and so I personally feel that the prime minister should not be giving too much emphasis to this we should mention our qualifications our legibilities have been established and leave it to the UN because you cannot really force them to do anything if we are useful they must come to us anyway that is my personal view so then his speech about democracy this may be or may not be related to what Kamla Harris said he gave, he said that India is a mother of democracy and in a rather unusual phrase he said he gave his own example he said look at me I am a little boy who at one time used to help his father at his tea stall at a railway station but then this must have completely taken people by surprise many people may not have known this humble origin of the prime minister but he mentioned it in the journal assembly and he said look at me I am such a, from a background I have come I had not been for Indian democracy I would not have been standing here this is the fourth time I am interested in the journal assembly it was a very touching reference but rather unusual reference to democracy of course the message that he is giving is that don't worry about India's democracy everybody is kind of worried about him acting in a way that democracy would not be supported so he said if I am a product of democracy how am I going to disturb democracy in India he did not mention China or Pakistan by name it was obvious what he was talking about but all of you know that the previous day after Prime Minister Imran Khan spoke the junior boss deprimanted the government that is the tradition a couple of years we know the prime minister Pakistan prime minister has attacked so I was there for several years so I used to know the discussion what do we do each time in the prime minister's speech so some people will say our prime minister somebody else will say no no no our prime minister should not stoop to that level let the ambassador say or they will say okay let the deputy PR say so I said it a few times and finally a decision came that the junior most person in the mission will answer to show the contempt towards the Prime Minister and then she also can use very strong language and she did she used very strong language of course she is becoming a heroine she was her personal contribution to India Pakistan relations but obviously this has been returned with great care by in the ministry of external affairs but he delivered it beautifully with the right accent and the right significance and the important thing we have to remember is for the first time in the history in the history of India Pakistan relations India asked for a vacation of the Pakistani this the BJP leaders have been talking about it you know POK is not gone we need to do something about it also but this is the first time that while saying that the whole of Jammu and Kashmir is integral part of India she indicated that we have not forgotten POK and therefore when she said Pakistan must leave Jammu and Kashmir she specifically mentioned the Pakistan of great care of great care so in some briefly Prime Minister Modi had excellent bilateral discussions extended a warm invitation to Vice President to visit India that will be also an interesting to give the people of India a chance to celebrate and reinforce the role of the Quad even after the formation of AUKUS sent the right message to China and Pakistan created a mechanism to fight the pandemic and united the democratic world against autocratic regimes that is why he mentioned was made of DPRK and Myanmar also so it's not only China and Pakistan but there are other autocrats and the fact that he accomplished all this in 65 hours that is all the time that he got in the US and it's quite remarkable they can work through the night and apparently one is returned the first thing it was to go and see how the new parliament building was coming up so that is tremendous energy that that yoga gives as an example to all of us well that is assessment of the visit and this is very important from your examination perspective because these little things in different parts of the of the assessment will be will figure in one form or the other in any of the papers whether it is in glimpse or in or in mains of course in the interview if bigger things don't happen otherwise that's what happens when bigger things happen we forget the important ones so these would remain and should be in your notebook and your memory for your examinations. Thank you