India’s Prime Minister Modi Arrives for High-Profile Visit to U.S., UN
Sept. 22—Prime Minister Narendra Modi arrived in the U.S. Sept. 21 for a three-day visit, starting in Wilmington, Delaware, at President "Sleepy Joe" Biden's house for the summit of the so-called “Quad” nations (U.S., Japan, Australia and India) and separate bilateral meetings with his counterparts there. Biden, who was supposed to introduce Modi at the press conference following the summit, became confused and disoriented and forgot who he was supposed to introduce and had to ask an aide, "Who's next?".
“By the way, he’s from a small country like ours. A small population like ours,” Biden then joked while embracing Modi, 74. “He’s become a good and decent man. A good friend.”
India is no small country, with its continental territory and over 1.4 billion people, making it the most populous country on the globe; the U.S. is the third largest with 333 million, with China second.. In his short statement upon leaving for the U.S. today, Modi recalled that when he addresses the UN Summit of the Future, “I will share views of the one-sixth of the humanity as their stakes in a peaceful and secure future are among the highest in the world.”
Today, Modi heads up to New York for two days, where he will address a large meeting organized by the Indian-American community in Long Island, hold a roundtable with corporate CEOs, address the UN Summit of the Future on Sept. 23, and have bilateral meetings which were still being lined up when the Indian Foreign Ministry gave its Sept. 19 briefing on his trip.
The Modi government has sought to straddle the worsening geopolitical divide in the world, sticking to a policy of “multi-alignment,” participating in both the BRICS and the Quad, for example, much to the frustration of Washington and London. U.S. National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan told the Indian press just a few hours before Modi left for Washington that top U.S. priorities for the Biden-Modi meeting was to get India to join the jihad against Russia, and line up with the U.S. against China.
Sullivan’s would-be dictates were splashed across the Indian media, as intended. The report in India’s daily Economic Times was typical: Sullivan told reporters “I won’t go too deep into the details of what Biden will say on those issues which are obviously sensitive and will obviously be critical priorities in the bilateral meeting,” but he then proceeded to warn: “The United States has been clear about our view that Russia’s brutal war of aggression against Ukraine flouted every norm and principle of international law, (and) that countries like India should step up and support the principles of sovereignty and territorial integrity…. Every country everywhere should refrain from supplying inputs to Russia’s war machine.” Sullivan added that Biden would “discuss China’s actions in the region, covering security, economic, and technological aspects,” suggesting the U.S. and India “coordinate their approaches in a way that benefits both nations,” as Economic Times paraphrased this statement.
The U.S. had hoped to leverage the longstanding tensions along India's long border with China, that have seen several military clashes in recent months. But just last week, The developments in the region have pushed China and India to ease border tensions,, experts. Beijing, which has been embroiled in a border dispute since 2020, announced last week that it has defrosted relations with India. “In recent years, front-line armies of the two countries have realized disengagement in four areas in the Western sector of the China-India border, including the Galwan Valley,” said Mao Ning, spokeswoman for China’s Foreign Ministry.
Beijing’s statement came after China’s Foreign Minister Wang Yi met with Indian National Security Adviser Ajit Doval in Russia where the two were attending a BRICS meeting.
