Prime Minister Narendra Modi and US President Joe Biden on Tuesday committed to building strong bilateral ties between India and US. Both leaders met in Japan’s capital Tokyo for the second Quad leaders’ in-person summit. Biden said there is so much that US and India can and will do together and that he is committed to making America’s partnership with India among the closest on earth. Meanwhile, PM Modi said India and US partnership is a partnership of trust in a true sense. He further said that people-to-people ties and strong economic cooperation make India-US partnership unique.
Biden also praised India’s Covid vaccination efforts and drew a parallel between ‘India’s success with China’s failure’. According to a senior official, Biden contrasted India’s success with China’s failure to handle the COVID-19 pandemic while both the countries are of comparable size, ANI reported.
1. Joe Biden said he was pleased that India and US have reached an agreement for the US Development Finance Corporation to continue this important work in India, supporting vaccine production, clean energy initiatives.
2. Biden said: “I am glad that we are renewing the Indo-US Vaccine Action Programme. There is so much that our countries can and will do together. I am committed to make the US-India partnership among the closest we have on earth.”
3. PM Modi said that India and the US share similar views on Indo-Pacific. “We share similar views on Indo-Pacific, at the bilateral level as well as with like-minded countries to work to protect our common concerns. Our discussions today will give speed to this positive momentum,” he said.
4. PM Modi further said that India and US partnership is a partnership of trust in a true sense. “We took part in a positive and useful Quad Summit today. India and US partnership in the true sense is a partnership of trust. Our common interests and values have strengthened this bond of trust between our two countries,” he said.
5. The Indian Prime Minister added that “India-US trade and investment relations are also steadily on the rise but they are below our potential”.
6. Meanwhile, Biden said that PM Modi’s success has shown the world that democracies can deliver, and busted the “myth that autocracies like China and Russia can handle the rapidly changing world better because their leadership can take and implement decisions without going through lengthy democratic processes”.
7. On the issue of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, the US President said that the two leaders also discussed the ongoing effects of Russia’s brutal and non-justified invasion of Ukraine and the effect it has on the entire global world order. “The US-India is going to continue consulting closely on how to mitigate these negative effects,” Biden said.
8. The meeting between PM Modi and Biden marks a continuation of their regular dialogue having interacted most recently in virtual mode on April 11. The two leaders are expected to review the India-US Strategic Partnership and follow up on discussions held during PM’s bilateral meeting with President Biden in September 2021.
9. This meeting comes after the fourth interaction of Quad Leaders since their first virtual meeting in March 2021, in-person Summit in Washington DC in September 2021 and virtual meeting in March 2022.
10. The Quad summit witnessed the launch of a new initiative for continuous collaboration in the maritime domain, space, climate change, health and cyber security.
