India could be US' best bet in competition with China: Report

Washington [US], February 10 : India could be the best bet for the US in its competition with China. With the increased defence and technological cooperation between India and US, the country can strike two birds with one stone, according to a report in Washington based The Hill newspaper.
According to The Hill, the US can, through cooperation with India, weaken Russia by snatching a portion of the market that is otherwise heavily reliant on the latter and also strengthen an Indo-Pacific democracy that has a prevailing border dispute with China.
The US and India are elevating their defence partnership in the spheres of critical and emerging technology.
This comes in the backdrop of India and the US elevating their bilateral partnership to address 21st-century challenges in critical technologies, defence and even the space domain.
According to The Hill, India has repeatedly faced the belligerence of China's People's Liberation Army at its border since 2020. This has provided an urgency to engage like-minded partners across the Indo-Pacific region. Moreover, under the Narendra Modi administration, the historically socio-capitalist country has taken a turn toward unbridled capitalism, it noted.
The United States and India recently formally established a high-level initiative on critical and emerging technologies or iCET.
National Security Advisor Ajit Doval had a 'fruitful discussion' with his US counterpart at the White House recently. During the discussions, there was a laser focus on aligning Washington and New Delhi's strategic, commercial and scientific approaches specifically in the field of technology.
Officials did announce several concrete steps that will be taken from the high-powered meeting in Washington.
Sullivan, in an interview with reporters, said that iCET would 'serve both countries' deeper strategic interests, according to The Washington Post.
iCET has no explicit reference to China, but the Biden administration sees technology development vis-a-vis China as a zero-sum game that the U.S. cannot lose hence iCET could be an important way forward.
"The US-India defence and artificial intelligence dialogue is a multi-layered approach and China is one of the dimensions as it is a major challenge to New Delhi and the world," a senior administration official in Washington told reporters.
On whether there were any geopolitical concerns about China and Russia, Sullivan said, "A big part of the story is fundamentally about a bet on high tech and an industrial innovation policy. That's at the core of the president's entire approach to his presidency. So the China-Russia factors are real, but so is the idea of building a deep democratic ecosystem with high technology."