US: Partnership with India moving substantially in positive direction

Sandeep Dikshit

New Delhi, April 11

Ahead of US National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan’s India visit next week, the White House has said that bilateral ties are “trending substantially in a positive direction and that our level of engagement across every possible vector — security, intelligence, technology, people-to-people — has excelled”.

India, US discuss defence cooperation

A high-level meeting of the India-US Executive Steering Group (ESG) took place at the US Army Pacific Headquarters in Hawaii on Thursday. The Indian delegation was led by Lt Gen TK Aich, Deputy Chief of Strategy. The ESG meet serves as a crucial platform to discuss defence cooperation engagements between India and the US.

“I think if you ask the President, one of the things he’s proudest of is his efforts to build a stronger relationship between the United States and India. And I do believe, both in the Indo-Pacific and the Indian Ocean, and on key issues like technology, the United States and India are working more closely together than ever before,” said a senior White House official during a briefing on Japanese PM Fumio Kishida’s visit to Washington.

The official was asked how the Biden administration saw India as a part of America’s deepening military, defence and security partnership with its treaty allies in East Asia. The official said it was not about the US assigning roles to countries. “It is much more about working in partnership with like-minded and other states who share common views about what should be upheld on the global stage with respect to key features of the global operating system that I think we’ve all benefited from,” he stated.

Sullivan will be here on April 18 and 19 for an annual meeting with NSA Ajit Doval to examine cooperation in critical technology such as space, quantum computing and biotechnology. They will also discuss partnerships in rare earths, which are an integral component of green technologies.

“I’ll be in India next week to celebrate elements of our bilateral relationship, compare notes on the Indo-Pacific, and also talk about next steps in technology cooperation,” said the official.