PM Modi addressing a joint session of US Congress shows the bipartisan support for India

Modi’s visit comes in the backdrop of China’s growing assertiveness over Taiwan and in the Indo-Pacific region.

In a sign of the continued bipartisan support in America for strong bilateral ties with India, Prime Minister Narendra Modi will address a joint session of the United States Congress during his first state visit to the country this month.

US House Speaker Kevin McCarthy has invited Modi to address the joint session on June 22.

Modi had also addressed a joint session of the Congress during his 2016 visit to the US.

The invitation to address the joint session of the US Congress is a great honour for a visiting leader or dignitary. It gives Modi the opportunity to share his vision for his country’s development and progress. It also allows him to announce his world view and how he wants to take forward the bilateral relationship.

Modi’s visit comes in the backdrop of China’s growing assertiveness over Taiwan and in the Indo-Pacific region.

The Indian Prime Minister will also be in the US at a time when the ongoing war in Ukraine would have been scaled up by both Russia and Ukraine, backed by America and the NATO members in Europe.

The keenness shown by McCarthy, a Republican, that Modi, who has been invited by US President Joe Biden (a Democrat), address the joint session shows the strong bipartisan support behind the invitation.

This demand from Republicans, who now control the House of Representatives, and Democrats, who are in the majority in the Senate, shows that both sides are interested in deepening and widening ties that India and the US currently enjoy.

Between Modi’s 2016 visit and the forthcoming trip to America this month, relations between the two countries have improved remarkably.
Modi’s nine-year rule as prime minister has conveyed a sense of political stability to the US, though Biden has replaced Donald Trump in this period as the American president.

But this has not led to any dilution in the bipartisan support that India enjoys. Most Indian analysts describe India’s ties with the US as its most consequential relationship.

In the past decade India and the US have broadened their cooperation in a number of areas, ranging from trade and investment, and defence and security, to space, science, and critical technology, to culture and education, for their mutual benefit.

But another critical factor that has brought the two countries even closer has been the aggressive rise of China in the region.

Indian and Chinese soldiers have been engaged in a face-off in east Ladakh along the Line of Actual Control (LAC) — the informal boundary between the two countries — since May 2020, after China unilaterally tried to change the status quo at the borders.

India has made it clear that normal ties between the two countries will be achieved only when China moves back its troops to their position prior to the stand-off, and there is peace and tranquility along the LAC.
China is also engaged in a number of maritime disputes with other Asian countries.

The US, which is trying to reach out to Beijing to lower the temperature in the region, has continued to identify China as its greatest threat.

India also sees China as the greatest challenge in its foreign policy, as many in the establishment believe that relations between the two neighbours will only worsen in the coming years.

However, this has not stopped Indian leaders from engaging with their Chinese counterparts to ensure that differences between the two countries do not turn into a conflict.

India is a partner in the US-led Quadrilateral Dialogue —the Quad — where India, along with Japan and Australia, have been trying to maintain an “open, peaceful and inclusive” Indo-Pacific.

Significantly, though India shares the US’s concerns over the challenge China poses in the region, the Modi government has so far refused to commit to any military alliance with America against the Chinese.

Many US lawmakers are a little puzzled about this ambiguity on India’s part in dealing with China, and the issue is likely to figure during Modi’s engagement with the American leadership.

Another equally tricky issue that India is likely to face during Modi’s visit will be on clarifying its relations with Russia.

India is the only Quad member that has not condemned Russia for invading Ukraine, though it has called for peaceful negotiations to settle outstanding disputes. It has also stressed on respecting territorial integrity and sovereignty.

In recent years, the US has become one of the key defence suppliers of India and their partnership in this area has grown significantly in the past decade.
But Russia continues to be India’s main weapons supplier and the purchase of Russian arms by India has often defied the American law that calls for sanctions on countries that buy weapons from Russia.

Though these issues are likely to come up during the Indian Prime Minister’s talks in the US later this month, there are no indications that the differences over these issues will derail the current progress in Indo-US relations.

Modi’s visit to America will give the Indian leadership another opportunity to show its strategic independence in an atmosphere of growing bipolarity.