John Kerry's passage to India. Why is he going now?
The US top diplomat isn't facing a war in his visit to the world's largest democracy. But he's got some serious repair work in the area of trust and cooperation, Indian analysts say.
The US top diplomat isn't facing a war in his visit to the world's largest democracy. But he's got some serious repair work in the area of trust and cooperation, Indian analysts say.
US Secretary of State John Kerry鈥檚 trip to New Delhi looks at first glance to be a diplomatic breather.
After a bruising week of shuttle diplomacy that failed to broker a cease-fire to the Gaza conflict, Mr. Kerry landed yesterday in India for two days of talks with the new Narendra Modi government.
It鈥檚 the first visit of a high ranking US official to India since Prime Minister Modi and his right-wing Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) swept to a landslide victory in May, and is designed to pave the way for the Indian leader's visit to the United States in September.聽
But Kerry鈥檚 India trip has its tricky diplomatic challenges, analysts from India warn. In their view, Kerry will need to break the ice with Modi, who before his election was banned from entering the US for nearly a decade. He will need to assuage hurt feelings over revelations that the NSA spied on the BJP, and also press India over its holdup of new global trade regulations.
鈥淭he catechism of an 'indispensable partnership' with India that US Secretary of State John Kerry repeated during [a speech before he arrived in New Delhi] cannot cover up the loss of faith that has crept into the relationship between the two countries,鈥� wrote Siddharth Varadarajan, a senior fellow at the Centre for Public Affairs in New Delhi聽in a column聽in India鈥檚 NDTV.
For the past two decades, 鈥渢he world鈥檚 two largest democracies have described themselves as natural allies, sharing similar concerns over China鈥檚 rise and Islamic extremism,鈥� the Times of India writes, but then notes that there is 'lingering resentment' in the relationship:
Kerry will be navigating those sticking points, while he also presses India on a new stumbling block: its hesitancy to sign a global trade facilitation deal agreed to at a World Trade Organization summit in December. India is the only WTO member refusing to sign the agreement, in a dispute over how tightly countries must restrict farmer subsidies and stockpiling food.聽
While perhaps seen as a technical issue, the delay on the trade agreement does carry political consequences for the US-India relationship, the Council on Foreign Relation鈥檚 Alyssa Ayres writes.
鈥淣ew Delhi鈥檚 stance not only puts up a roadblock on global trade, but will effectively halt any efforts to envision a larger ambition for the U.S.-India economic relationship 鈥� which badly needs one 鈥� by signaling that India at present does not want to stand with the global free and open trading system.鈥�
In the view of some in Washington, the US has targeted India as a strategic priority 鈥� a possible hedge against Chinese ambition in Asia 鈥� and the market potential of its 1.2 聽billion population has an appeal to American businesses. That triggered President Obama's statement early in his presidency that聽"India is not聽just a聽rising power, it has聽already risen."聽
Kerry sought to play up that importance before his visit. 鈥淭he long-standing partnership between the US and India is on the cusp of an historic transformation,鈥� Kerry and Commerce Secretary Penny Pritzker, also in Delhi,聽wrote in India鈥檚 Economic Times yesterday. The column advocated for greater business and defense partnerships.聽