The summit between US President Joe Biden and his
Chinese counterpart Xi Jinping here is an important one and key global players
like Bharat will be watching its outcome very closely, stated the head of a top
Bharat-centric business and strategic group.
US-India Strategic and Partnership Forum (USISPF) CEO Mukesh
Aghi said it is important that communication starts between US and China, the
two largest global economies.
The much-anticipated summit between Biden and Xi will
take place on the sidelines of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC)
summit, which the US is hosting in San Francisco from November 11 to 17.
“I think the summit is important both from President
Biden’s perspective and also President Xi’s perspective. China is struggling
with its economy. There are issues in the growth story, unemployment. And the
US is going into an election, and it already has two wars going on, one in the
Middle East and one in Ukraine.
So, it needs a China which is stable, it needs a
China, which is collaborative and cooperative. Will that happen? We don’t know,
but I think it’s important that communication starts between the two countries,”
said Aghi.
“Now, from an Indian perspective, I think you have two
weak leaders coming together. And you have Prime Minister Modi who’s a strong
leader at the moment. So, I think India is going to watch this carefully
because it does have an impact geopolitically or on India’s position in the
Indo-Pacific region. We wish all the best outcomes at the same time, India will
watch this very, very carefully,” he said.
Aghi asserted that the India-US relationship is “very
strong”, has momentum, and is moving in the right direction.
“Yes, you do have all the time in any relationship,
but I think the maturity of the leadership on both sides can handle those
issues. So, I feel the momentum continues,” he said.
Aghi said bilateral trade is on the rise, the number
of Indian students in the US has gone up to 2,70,000, and the Indian American
population has gone up to almost five million.
“From that perspective, the relationship is moving in
the right direction,” he added.
The ICET Dialogue that was launched early this year,
he said, has started almost 108 different initiatives from artificial
intelligence to cybersecurity.
“What we have seen is that General Electric has signed
a deal with HAL to manufacture GE engines. That will take time. That’s a seven
to 10-year project. It’ll slowly keep on moving in that direction. We have seen
in other areas, things have moved forward. I wish that it could move much
faster because I think you need to create that momentum, you need to create
that urgency,” he said.
“We are working very closely both with the Biden
administration and the Indian government to see how we can support and assist
in expediting the whole ICET process,” he added.
Observing that India’s defence platform is over 52 per
cent dependent on Russia, he said the country needs to move away and create a
platform that is an Indian platform.
“ICET is going to help from that perspective. It’s
also going to help the US because what happens is you’re able to produce the
same quality equipment, same quality software at one-fifth the cost so that the
pressure on us from defence spending perspective also can get managed,” he
said.
“To me, it’s like the old story of generic drugs.
Twenty years ago, India didn’t have much of the US market. Today it has 30 per
cent of the US market bringing savings worth hundreds of billions of dollars to
the US health budget. I see the defence also going forward 20 years from now is
going to play the same pivotal role as the generic drug credit for the US
market,” Aghi explained.
Responding to a question on the situation in the
Middle East, the USISPF CEO said India is one of the largest victims of
terrorism.
Prime Minister Modi was quick to condemn terrorism and
at the same time asserted India’s position that innocent people should be
spared, he said.
“So, India has come out quite strongly on the killing
of the Palestinians, especially women, children, and innocent men itself. I
think India has a strong relationship with Israel. India has a strong
relationship with Saudi Arabia and the UAE. I think India can play a very
pivotal role trying to find the balance between the region among the Israelis
and Arabs,” he said.
When asked about the India-Canada diplomatic row, Mr
Aghi said it’s unfortunate that the prime minister of a country without any
evidence, levels allegations in a parliament.
It is “a serious violation of statesmanship. It’s a
serious violation of diplomatic norms. If you have an issue, work through the
back channels and India has asked. It has been months now, give us the evidence
and there’s no evidence coming out,” he said.
At the same time money flow from Canadian Khalistani
to India continues, he noted.
“My thinking is very simple. We went after Pakistan,
we put them on the Financial Action Task Force (FATF) list itself. There’s more
money coming from Canada to basically fund terrorism in India. I think we
should not think about putting Canada on the FATP list. You have two countries,
great countries, democracies because of local politics, the partnership between
the two countries has been hijacked.
“I think we need to come out of that and lower the
temperature. What we are seeing is that India has allowed visa processing to
take place. India is kind of bringing the temperature down and I hope that
continues,” he said.
PTI
