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- India doesn’t need aid anymore—the plan doesn’t trigger any resentment
- No link—India cares more about weapon and space tech development
- Internal Link
- India can always just go to Russia
DisadsIndia DANo LinkThe U.S. has made it clear that they will not shirk India offMehta and Sidhu '15 (Vikram Singh Mehta currently serves as the executive chairman of Brookings India and a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution, and Waheguru Pal Singh Sidhu is a senior fellow with Brookings India and a senior fellow at New York University’s Center on International Cooperation.,, "Introduction: Building Up the India-U.S. Relationship", Brookings, January 2015, www.brookings.edu/research/opinions/2015/01/20-building-up-india-us-partnership-mehta-sidhu) When Prime Minister Narendra Modi and President Barack Obama met for their first summit in September 2014 in Washington DC, they had a crowded and diverse agenda ranging from terrorism to trade and a spate of other issues. This reflected the sheer breadth of the India-U.S. relationship, but the agenda also included many issues – such as the stalled civil nuclear deal – that remain unresolved and have become symptomatic of the drift in the relationship. And the shadow of the past threatened to cloud the prospects for the future. The Modi-Obama Summit: A Leadership Moment for India and the United States, a briefing book with memos by Brookings experts in New Delhi and Washington, issued on the eve of the first summit, highlighted some of the challenges and opportunities for both leaders and offered ways to move forward on a number of issues facing both countries. Both leaders did seize the leadership moment that the first summit provided to give momentum and outline the future contours of the India-U.S. relationship. This was apparent in their joint Washington Post op-ed, “A Renewed U.S.-India Partnership for the 21st Century,” a vision statement and the ambitious joint declaration, which called for consultations on global and regional issues, as well as a bilateral focus on economic growth, energy and climate change, defense and homeland security, and high technology, space and health cooperation. The New Delhi summit – their second in less than six months – is an ideal opportunity to build on that joint vision. The India-U.S. relationship is evolving against the backdrop of growing global disorder. A recalcitrant Russia, a resurgent China and a fragile and vulnerable Afghanistan pose challenges to both India and the United States. Additionally a series of ‘black swan’ events – from the dramatic and brutal rise of Islamic State, to the precipitous fall in oil prices, and the inability to curtail the Ebola outbreak – revealed how ill prepared nations, including India and the United States, are to deal with them. With the upheaval wrought by state and non-state actors to its west and inter-state tensions to its east, India sits at the epicenter of the unfolding geopolitical uncertainty; New Delhi might have no choice but to help manage the chaos and restore order regionally and globally for its own interest. There is growing recognition in the Modi government that the United States is probably the best partner to address these challenges and help India’s rise—despite the differences that persist between the two countries and the questions about reliability. The Obama administration, on its part, has repeatedly stated that even if India and the United States will not always be on the same page, India’s rise is in U.S. interest—not least because a strong, prosperous, inclusive India could help manage global and regional disorder. India doesn’t need aid anymore—the plan doesn’t trigger any resentmentRamachandran '10 (Vijaya Ramachandran, a senior fellow at the Center for Global Development, works on private-sector development, financial flows, food security, humanitarian assistance, and development interventions in fragile states, "India Emerges as an Aid Donor", Center for Global Development, October 5, www.cgdev.org/blog/india-emerges-aid-donor) The Indian Express reported that India might not accept aid from the United Kingdom after April 2011. India has been the largest single recipient of British aid, receiving more than €800m (about $1.25b) since 2008. This announcement is perhaps symbolic of the fine line that India is walking between being a “developed” and “developing” country. It is the eleventh largest economy in the world, growing 8-9% annually. But it is also home to one-third of the world’s poor—there are more poor people in India than in all of Sub-Saharan Africa. Nonetheless, over the past decade, India has quietly transitioned to a donor country, emerging on the world stage as a significant provider of development assistance. In the mid-1980s, India was the world’s largest recipient of foreign aid. Today foreign aid is less than 0.3% of GDP. Seven years ago India announced that it would only accept bilateral development assistance from five countries (Germany, Japan, Russia, the UK, and the United States) in addition to the EU. Now it appears that the list is dwindling. India also declined international assistance after both the 2004 tsunami and the 2005 earthquake in Kashmir. Although there are no consolidated figures on the total foreign assistance that India provides, the estimates are rising. India allocated approximately $547 million to aid-related activities in 2008. It is now the fifth largest donor to Afghanistan (with commitments over $1 billion since 2001) and is increasingly seeking out new recipients – India’s aid to Africa has grown at a compound annual growth rate of 22% over the past ten years. India’s aid programs are increasingly including countries outside the immediate neighborhood of Afghanistan, Bhutan, and Nepal. These changes seem to reflect fresh attention to aid as an instrument of foreign policy. India’s flagship aid initiative has been the Indian Technical and Economic Cooperation (ITEC), which provides training and education to scholars and leaders from developing countries. There are more than 40,000 alumni of the ITEC program around the world; the hope is they have a friendly disposition to India that will be reflected in policies and bilateral relationships. However, India is no longer containing itself to “soft power” influences. Driven by competition with China and its own unprecedented growth, India has begun to focus on not only diplomatic influence but also on oil reserves and markets for goods, especially in Africa. During the April 2008 India-Africa Forum Summit, India pledged $500 million in concessional credit facilities to eight resource rich West-African nations. Some observers argue that India would do best not to completely abandon its “soft power” approach. Much of India’s success in its relations with the developing world has been built through its traditional aid program and a shared colonial history with countries in Africa and elsewhere. India should think twice before sacrificing this goodwill for mineral or other resources. More problematically, like China, India lacks an official definition of what counts as development assistance. No official records of aid disbursements are kept, either by the Ministry of External Affairs or the Ministry of Finance. Aid flows through various channels and various agencies in an ad hoc manner. And India has yet to join the OECD’s Development Assistance Committee (DAC), which would require better record keeping and compliance with international standard definitions. India’s foreign aid program will likely be more successful if it engages with other donors, provides clear and transparent records of its activities, and participates as a full-fledged member of the global aid system, including joining the OECD-DAC. Public information and records will not only allow India to receive due credit as an emerging player, but will also facilitate cooperation with other donors. If India’s goal is to be recognized as a significant donor, it must start acting like one. No link—India cares more about weapon and space tech developmentWortzel & Dillon '00 (Larry M. Wortzel is a fellow at the The Kathryn and Shelby Cullom Davis Institute for National Security and Foreign Policy, Dana Robert Dillon is a senior policy analyst at the Asian Studies Center, "Improving Relations with India Without Compromising U.S. Security", Heritage, December 11, www.heritage.org/research/reports/2000/12/improving-relations-with-india) America and India share the distinction of being the world's largest democracies. Yet relations between the two countries have been unsteady and will need executive attention if they are to improve. A major stumbling block to relations in recent years has been India's testing of nuclear weapons and its missile development program, both of which threaten regional stability. Now, as part of a program to accelerate economic modernization, India is seeking U.S. assistance to develop its commercial satellite and space launch capabilities. Although helping India to improve its economy and increasing opportunities for U.S. businesses in India are good foreign policy objectives, history has shown that there are limits to how far the United States should go in transferring sensitive technology that could be used in weapons development or ballistic missile programs. Washington should not be swayed, either by rhetoric about India's democracy and its new nuclear power status or by suggestions of increased trade, into placing India's interests before U.S. national security concerns. At the same time, the United States must recognize that India is a great emerging democracy that is redefining its identity and future goals.1 A new strategy for improving relations with India should focus on how to improve regional security by restraining nuclear proliferation and avoiding technology cooperation that could advance ballistic missile programs, as well as on how to improve trade. BALANCING TRADE ISSUES AND SECURITY CONCERNS During a recent visit to Washington, Indian Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee spoke before the U.S.-India Business Summit, recognizing that "The United States is today India's largest trading partner. The US companies are also the largest investors in India.... We would like to deepen this relationship."2 Building on this theme when he addressed a joint session of Congress, Vajpayee said that "In the years ahead, a strong, democratic and economically prosperous India, standing at the crossroads of all the major cultural and economic zones of Asia, will be an indispensable factor of stability in the region."3 Indian officials have asked for greater cooperation in the field of satellite technology and space launches.4 Inherent in these remarks is India's desire to be seen today as strategically important to the United States. The fact that visiting Indian officials urged their American counterparts to invest in India is not surprising. India's economy grew slowly after the country gained its independence in 1947. Its formidable tariff regime and burdensome regulations stifled trade and economic development. Then, in the 1980s and 1990s, the government began opening borders to trade and emphasizing economic growth by increasing exports. India's economy began a steady and sustainable rise; however, it remains constrained by an average tariff rate of 27.2 percent. Internal LinkIndia and China are working closely together economicallyGutpa and Wang '09 (Anil K. Gupta and Haiyan Wang, writers for the Magazing of U.S.-China Business Council, "China and India: Greater Economic Integration", USCBC, September 1, www.chinabusinessreview.com/china-and-india-greater-economic-integration/) Rapidly expanding trade and nascent foreign investment promise stronger economic links between the world’s two fastest-growing and most populous countries. Economic ties between China and India will play a large role in one of the most important bilateral relationships in the world by 2020. Bilateral trade has already surged from under $3 billion in 2000 to nearly $52 billion in 2008 (see Table 1). Though last year’s figure equals only one-eighth of total US-China trade in 2008, China-India trade is growing at nearly three times the pace of US-China trade, and rapid growth will likely continue. Even conservative estimates suggest that, by 2020, China-India trade could surpass last year’s US-China total of $409.2 billion and more than half of total projected US-China trade in 2020. Such trade expansion would affect every major world economy, including the United States. Though foreign direct investment (FDI) between China and India trails trade growth, it too will likely surge in the years to come. Bilateral trade blossom: As neighbors and two of the world’s oldest civilizations, China and India have shared a long history of cultural, scientific, and economic linkages. In modern times, economic ties between the two countries were almost completely severed from 1949 to 1978. Following a brief border war in 1962, bilateral trade and investment came to a halt. Economic ties officially resumed when China embarked on economic reforms but remained largely insignificant for the next two decades. The last 10 years, however, have seen a transformation of the economic relationship between China and India. Since the 1990s, both countries have become increasingly outward-looking in their economic policies and have embraced deeper economic integration with the rest of the world. China and India are also members of the World Trade Organization (WTO)—India as a founding member and China since 2001. Indian Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee’s visit to China in June 2003 accelerated the momentum for economic integration. The visit led to a pragmatic decision by both countries’ political leaders to cultivate economic ties without being constrained by unresolved border disputes. After this visit, the two sides set up a joint study group to examine how China and India could expand trade and cooperation. The reduction and elimination of trade barriers has helped to stimulate economic exchange. Since 2000, trade between China and India has grown nearly twice as fast as each country’s trade with the rest of the world, and since 2001, China’s trade with India has grown more rapidly than its trade with any of its top 10 trade partners. In 2008, China surpassed the United States to become India’s largest trade partner. Last year, India was China’s tenth-largest export market. Drivers of bilateral trade: There are two primary drivers of the burgeoning trade between China and India: differing comparative advantages of the two countries and sustained, high growth rates in both economies. The different comparative advantages of the two countries provide grounds for strong economic exchange. Although China’s economy is three times as large as India’s, its manufacturing sector is five times that of India’s. Chinese exports to India thus consist primarily of manufactured goods, especially various types of machinery. Conversely, India has some of the world’s largest reserves of iron ore, bauxite, and manganese, and its exports to China consist primarily of raw materials to feed that country’s expanding steel and automotive sectors. Services trade between China and India remains small. Though India has emerged as a global powerhouse in information technology (IT) and IT-enabled services, language differences create natural barriers to the export of these services from India to China. Thus, many of India’s larger IT companies invest directly in local operations within China. Rapid economic growth: The sheer size and growth rates of these economies have boosted bilateral trade, as bigger economies have more to buy and sell. In 2008, China’s economy grew 9.0 percent and India’s grew 7.3 percent—both faster than any other major economy in the world—and these countries will likely continue to grow faster than other major economies through 2010, according to International Monetary Fund projections. The two countries could also remain the world’s two fastest-growing economies for the next two to three decades. In this context, the prospects for continued strong growth in bilateral trade appear to be bright. Imports of lower-priced capital goods from China, such as turbines for electric utilities, can help India address the infrastructure bottlenecks—especially in roads, highways, ports, and electric power—that have appeared as India’s manufacturing revolution gets under way. Because Chinese capital goods are often much cheaper than those from Western or Japanese manufacturers, such imports from China can keep costs low, allowing India to modernize and upgrade its infrastructure more quickly. Emerging investment linkages: Unlike trade, levels of investment between China and India remain relatively low. Though an estimated 100 companies from each country have offices in the other, cumulative bilateral FDI is less than $500 million. Cross-border investment remains low because Chinese and Indian companies are still in the early stages of learning how to operate and succeed in each other’s economies. FDI requires greater knowledge of and commitment to the host economy than trade and often follows trade linkages. Recent developments, however, suggest that bilateral FDI will likely see a sharp upswing over the next five years. Investment is rapidly entering a broader range of sectors, encompassing high-tech and low-tech industries, and leading companies in both countries have their sights set on global expansion. Given the size and growth rates of the two economies, corporate leaders from each country have realized that a leading market position in the other economy is critical to pursuing global ambitions. Recent business developments also reflect this trend: India can always just go to RussiaWortzel & Dillon '00 (Larry M. Wortzel is a fellow at the The Kathryn and Shelby Cullom Davis Institute for National Security and Foreign Policy, Dana Robert Dillon is a senior policy analyst at the Asian Studies Center, "Improving Relations with India Without Compromising U.S. Security", Heritage, December 11, www.heritage.org/research/reports/2000/12/improving-relations-with-india) INDIA'S CONTINUING ALLIANCE WITH RUSSIA The only permanent member of the Security Council that supports India's accession is Russia, India's one enduring security ally. This alliance was forged in 1950 when India signed the Soviet-Indian Treaty of Peace and Friendship. It was reinforced when the two states signed a Treaty of Cooperation and Mutual Friendship in 1971 and when India renewed that treaty with Russia in 1991. India's relations with the Russian Federation continue to be based on this strategic partnership and oriented around the complementary nature of their state-owned heavy industries and their arms trade. This long security relationship means that the vast majority of India's weapons are either Russian-produced or Russian-designed. Moreover, India's relationship with Russia is likely to continue under current economic conditions; India simply cannot afford to make a major change in suppliers, and Moscow still produces generally high-quality weapons at low cost. The recent $3 billion arms deal signed by Russian President Vladimir Putin during a visit in October demonstrates that New Delhi will likely seek Russia's assistance in developing nuclear weapons and missile capabilities, especially if the United States prohibitively limits American commercial involvement in India's developing space program. India, however, has begun to move away from a socialist, centrally planned economy to a more open market economy, and as it continues to do so, its foreign and defense policies will change and links to the West will grow. India thus far has resisted Russia's calls to build a three-way alliance with China to offset America's international power. India could move more toward the West as friction with China grows and economic ties to the United States increase. Download 1.1 Mb. Share with your friends:
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