Önder Özar Diplomasi Sevgisi: Bloomberg Balance of Power : Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi is coming to Washington -June 20, 2023

Wednesday, June 21, 2023

Bloomberg Balance of Power : Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi is coming to Washington -June 20, 2023

Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi is coming to Washington, and the US capital couldn’t be more pleased.

President Joe Biden’s administration views India as a crucial economic and strategic partner in the Indo-Pacific, a lynchpin of democracy in Asia, and a massive potential counterweight to China. It also sees India as a huge, largely untapped market for American businesses — including defense firms — and a key actor on global issues such as climate change.

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US Looks Past India’s Rights Record as China Worries Deepen

Biden’s offer of a state dinner, as well as the US Congress’s invitation for Modi to address a joint session of the legislature this week, reflect that.

Modi is not just the leader of the world’s most populous country and the biggest democracy. He projects power and authority in a sometimes chaotic country, is a persuasive orator, and his ruling Bharatiya Janata Party’s campaign machinery is hard to match.

He’ll be tough to beat in federal elections in 2024, so countries around the world will likely be dealing with a Modi-led India possibly until 2029. His entrenched position as India’s leader for what could be a 15-year stretch has made any criticism of him and his policies awkward for countries that need Modi — and thus New Delhi — onside.

Critics of Modi — who was denied a US visa over his alleged role in deadly anti-Muslim riots in 2002 when he led the state of Gujarat, accusations he has disputed — say he’s presiding over democratic backsliding in India.

Human rights and press freedom organizations allege he’s cracked down on critical civil society organizations, journalists and the political opposition. His party has also been accused of fanning religious intolerance against minorities, including the 200 million-strong Muslim community.

Then there’s India’s reluctance to condemn Russia’s invasion of Ukraine at the United Nations.

Some of those tensions may emerge during Modi’s visit. But given the importance of India to US interests in Asia, there is likely to be much more bonhomie than friction. — Iain Marlow

Modi with Elon Musk in New York yesterday. Source: Press Information Bureau, Government of India

Listen to our Twitter Space discussion today at 8am ET (1pm London) on the prospects for a meeting between the presidents of the US and China after Secretary of State Antony Blinken’s two-day visit to Beijing.

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Global Headlines

A “public political provocation” was how China described Biden’s reference to Chinese President Xi Jinping as a dictator, as fresh tensions emerged in bilateral ties days after the two sides held meetings to stabilize relations. Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Mao Ning called the remarks by the US president at a donors’ meeting yesterday “absurd and extremely irresponsible.”

Biden claimed that Xi was unaware the alleged spy balloon that floated over the continental US had blown off course until the matter became an international incident.

The Ukraine Recovery Conference opened today in London where UK Prime Minister Rishi Sunak announced the creation of a framework for war-risk insurance backed by the Group of Seven and designed to encourage private investors to help rebuild the country. Blinken pledged an additional $1.3 billion in assistance, mostly aimed at restoring Ukraine’s battered energy grid and critical infrastructure.

The European Union has assessed that it can’t legally confiscate outright frozen Russian assets and instead is focusing on using those assets temporarily, according to a document obtained by Bloomberg.
The Pentagon said it will be able to spend $6 billion more than originally expected on arms for Ukraine thanks to what it called accounting errors.

A record share of European companies say doing business in China is getting more difficult, with some already following through on plans to divest from the world’s second-largest economy. About 64% of respondents said it became more challenging last year to do business in the country, according to a survey published today by the EU Chamber of Commerce in China.

Just in the past week, Intel has announced more than $50 billion in new semiconductor plants in Germany, Poland and Israel, spurred on by vast government incentives. As Debby Wu and Jillian Deutsch write, the global race to build domestic factories and sever dependency on overseas suppliers for critical components is spurring a spending boom, and the biggest beneficiaries so far look to be the chipmakers.

Read how Intel’s announcement of a $4.6 billion chip plant in Poland shows the country’s attraction for US tech firms, despite the fact it’s on the edge of a war zone.

US Abrams tanks during a training exercise in Nowa Deba, Poland. Photographer: Omar Marques/Getty Images

Best of Bloomberg Opinion

A coalition of pro-democracy parties that swept Thailand’s general election last month said it’s close to securing enough support from the nation’s pro-establishment Senate to form a government led by Pita Limjaroenrat. Rising support for the Move Forward party leader may help quell investor anxiety over a prolonged political impasse that’s spurred foreign funds to dump the nation’s stocks and bonds since the election.

Explainers You Can Use

“The moonshot of the 21st century” is how Representative Haley Stevens termed it. She led a bipartisan group of US lawmakers that held talks with the chief executives of Ford and General Motors in Detroit, and came away with a core message: The US needs to make up ground lost to China if it is to have any hope of dominating the next generation of battery technology for electric vehicles.

Tune in to Bloomberg TV’s Balance of Power at 5pm to 6pm ET weekdays with Washington correspondents Annmarie Hordern and Joe Mathieu. You can watch and listen on Bloomberg channels and online here.

News to Note

Biden said he was “very proud” of his son Hunter, who is entering into a deal with federal prosecutors on tax and firearms-related charges.
Rising interest rates and inflation drove UK government debt above 100% of GDP for the first time since 1961, denting hopes for tax cuts in the build up to an expected general election next year.
Underwater noises have been detected in the search for a submersible carrying five people that is missing near the wreck of the Titanic.
Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida will set up a task force to tackle blunders in the introduction of a national ID card that have damaged support for his government.
Any attempt by China to find its own reincarnation of Tibetan spiritual leader the Dalai Lama may result in two different successors and a “lifelong headache” for Beijing, the leader of Tibet’s government-in-exile said.

And finally ... The US Supreme Court has rarely been so aggressive in using its powers — or been viewed with more skepticism by Americans. With its 6-3 conservative majority, the court has issued a series of recent decisions enhancing its own role, in many cases by overriding regulatory agencies, the White House, Congress and state and local governments. Equally, its own ethics controversies have underscored how little control the public has over nine justices who have life tenure and don’t have a code of conduct.