Opinion: US Gives Top Billing To Modi Visit Amid Crosscurrents

US National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan making a quick trip before Prime Minister Narendra Modi's visit to Washington to tie up deliverables is unusual. Normally, Foreign Office diplomats are tasked with this. Evidently, the White House is driving this state visit and is taking direct ownership of it.

Unusually, Sullivan in a meeting with select journalists in New Delhi indicated some deliverables when our own side has not spoken about them yet. He seems to have preempted our government, catering to the public interest in potential outcomes from a visit that is drawing huge media attention. He talked of "substantial results" in collaboration in semi-conductor supply chains and a "host of substantial announcements in many areas". This would include some progress in areas such as the deployment of 5G, 6G and Open RAN, and aligning approaches in Artificial Intelligence, machine learning and advanced wireless. On the GE 414 engine, he talked of efforts to make progress but refused to say more about "exactly where it is". "Stay tuned and see where things are next week," he advised reporters. Since then more information about the project has come into the public domain.

Sullivan spoke of the "long-term vision of greater integration of our defence supply chain" and doing the "kind of technology transfer that is in India's interest". Towards this, he said, President Joe Biden has directed every element of the US government to "remove unnecessary and outmoded obstacles and barriers to deeper defence trade and technology cooperation" with India. What this really means is that the direction of ties in this broad domain is being charted but much work remains to actualise the agenda.

External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar, in his recent interview with The Economist, was more reticent about the outcome of the visit, saying that it is for the US to say what they are comfortable with, and that having been long in the game he wanted to be "cautious" and avoid predictions. "We will have to wait and see specifically what we are able to close out by the time the Prime Minister arrives," said the Foreign Minister.