Biden Presidency impacts on India

[Raveen]

Folks
Thanks for keeping the discussion civil and not getting banned.
I had my own doubts that it would be so polite.

Overall good discussion.
Looks like Biden could be the President.

I would like to channel the energies in asking you to think of broad range of political, defence, economic, social impacts on India.

Just a three to five lines

Category: Political/Defence/Economic/Social

Impact:

Mitigation:


I you don't think there won't be please don't post.

Thanks again,
ramana

Category: Political
Impact: The overall US relationship with India will get cooler, cooperation will suffer, Biden has a million AMA votes to pay back for.

Category: Defence
Impact: Defense will continue as is for the most part.

Category: Economic
Impact: Economic cooperation will slow down, as the US economy will in general slow down thanks to higher taxes.

Category: Social
Impact: Socially they'll return to the anti-370 35A CAA NRC narrative and preach about hooman rights - refer to million AMA votes above.

Mitigation: Hindu Americans need to get more vocal, assertive, active, and savvy with lobbying and PACs.

[ramana]

Looks like Biden could be the President.

I would like to channel the energies in asking you to think of a broad range of political, defense, economic, social impacts on India.

Just a three to five lines

Category: Political/Defence/Economic/Social

Impact:

Mitigation:


If you don't think there won't be please don't post.

Thanks again,
ramana

[Rupesh]

We will have to wait for a couple of weeks for clear picture to appear. Lot depends on his cabinet - Secretary of State, Defence and NSA.
Michele Flournoy & Susan Rice are most likely candidates for Defence and Secretary of State. So expect more pressure on Kashmir and urban Naxals will be emboldened. Need to prioritize acquisition of Dhanush and ATAGS to ensure pakis pay a heavy price for any mischief.

[Cyrano]

Another angle to explore is how will the change of US Presidency impact China?

This offers an opportunity for Xi to start afresh with Biden administration.

The Dems now will try to:
- Get Covid under control >> increased PPE & medical supplies imported from China
- Get consumer spending going >> easier done with cheap goods imported from China.
- Roll out green agenda >> There will be increased subsidy driven demand for solar panels, wind turbines etc mostly imported from China
- Reward Big Tech & Big & Hitech Industry >> which only wants to maximise profits from outsourcing to China

But this is exactly where the opportunity lies for India. NaMo and S Jaishankar (not sure what P Goyal is up to? may be he is just less visible) have been holding many virtual summits for ex with Denmark, Nordic states, Italy, Agrentina etc recently and continue to do so. They are hammering the mantra of "derisking global supply chains" and "Atmanirbhar Bharat = Make in India, made for the world." Too early to say how much FDI increase is happening because of this in the current global economic slump, but this push is surely going to yield some +ve results sooner or later esp when countries start coming out of Covid.

This same push must be amplified 10x for US alone. I'd like to see GOI junk FIPB set up a real corporate company "MakeInIndia Inc" opening offices in at least a dozen major US cities, and going after healthcare, tech mfg and green industries on a war footing with killer sales teams drawn from the likes of Infosys, TCS etc and from our IIMs and IITs. We need to make a huge focused effort to tap into Indian American network to amplify this push. And in the back end, create a bunch of ready to go Industrial Infra packages in special zones all over the country. There is surely something we can learn & replicate from how the Chinese did it in the 90s and our own SEZ/STP success story since the past 3 decades.

We should use the focus US will put on Green technologies to further propel our own Green journey since we have 4x poplulation but 1/3x landmass.

Its imperative to replicate the growth success story of Indian S/W & Services sector in HealthCare, Green and Tech MFG industries.
I believe we have a 2 year golden window of opportunity to get this off the ground. If more US MFG business is attracted (they are less risk averse), more Japanese, Taiwanese & EU business will follow.

A fourth sector to focus on would be the US Military Industrial Complex for manufacturing & at least some R&D for India's needs to start with and move up for US needs as well. The rapprochement achieved during the past 3 decades should be leveraged actively for this. If India & US Defense Industries become enmeshed in the coming decade (this can surely be done without compromising our own R&D efforts) that will be the best long term strategy to keep China quiet.

We should dream of becoming the economic engine that powers and pulls the world along, like we did until 3 centuries ago and US is doing today. Instead of all this rona dhona about leftist liberals SJws, Dravidian/AIT, HRCs etc and will they again mooch with the Pakis? Will they take Quad seriously ? type handwringing, lets just go aggressive get a whole lot of business. Money talks. Everything else will fall into place.

[nam]

On Kashmir front, our standard slogan, "kashmir will not see peace, until Pak dismantles all UN designated terror groups". There is a simple reason why we don't target characters like Hafiz.. it is a wonderful albatross around Pak's neck. Everytime US asks us to "talk", we show the albatross..

On China front, we need to push hard on anti-China front. Biden may pull back, but it's allies like taiwan, Japan & Aus are going to face the Chinese threat. So it is important that US allies are in our camp. None of them have objected heavily to our Kashmir (or CAA) moves. In fact most of them liked Trump's anti-China moves, so they will be happy to tag along with India. Need to push hard on supply chain alternatives and get companies in to India.

If Biden tries to ask us to be lenient on the Chinis, we say "no reset of relation with China, until they move back from LAC". And ofcourse some buy of US weapons, to quieten the noise..

We have the perfect victim hood stories for both Pak & China front. The only sticking point is if we wanted to buy F35. Biden would be more hard on S400 purchase compared to Trump, if we asked for F35. If we wanted it, we should have got it during Trump..

[nam]

If the Chinis carry out any military action in Ladakh, they would have done us a favour and handed a US alliance to us on platter. Got to exploit this fear and block out Chinis from our economy.

[Pratyush]

The only real issue with potential impact on India of the Biden presidency is the potential exposure to PRC blackmail due to the actions of hunter Biden.

Will Joe Biden be able to handle this blackmail?

I don't really know.

If Biden can handle this, then the stress point will be the SJW agenda.

That's not really what I would worry about. As we can deal with it the same way we took care of the last two years of the Obama administration.

When it comes to economic affairs, I believe that if the SJW agenda is not checked in United States, it will wreck every aspect of US economy with infiltration of large medium and small businesses. That in turn will accelerate the decline of US economy relative to PRC.

The way to take advantage of that would be to get the Indian states to become more friendly to business and industry. That will be a thread in and off itself.

[SRajesh]

Immediate concerns would be the:
1. Bihar/by-poll counting
Given all that is happening the counting there, the tone of the Dems would be set by the reaction to the counting here what with the usual suspects making noises on the EVM's and bring back paper
2. EJ activities especially South of the Vindhya's probably increase with or without tacit support of the new dispensation
3. How far the Aussies/Japs/Taiwan would be able to support us on the Chin front if US back pedals
4. EU/Brit support to wean them off the Chin dependence and the 5G set up
5. Alternative energy : Solar/Wind and the Bill Gate promoted Tech If the world could move away from Li-battery and break the Chin control would US be a willing partner

[darshhan]

Forget what will be the biden presidency impact on India. First analyse what will be the impact on America. The credibility of American republic lies shattered.

[Avtar Singh]

In every crisis there is opportunity…
As the USA heads for stanification and ccp takeover..
Shining beacon of light dimming/sun-setting on freedom and democracy

"As Ronald Reagan emphasized, America is a shining city upon a hill
whose beacon light guides freedom-loving people everywhere."[

INDIA needs to step in as a Hindu civilization… that can do democracy.
Offering a home for all freedom loving people around the world.
There are many gora who now see their countries being taken over by paks/communists.
Desperate for a leader.

India needs to reach out and say we are here…

PM MODI could do some fantastic speeches, he needs to start touring the world asap.
His global value and rating could soar ahead of 2024..
just when the haters thought they were winning.
It would be glorious to behold.

Doing an end run around the anti India media who the gora also hate.

Use the quad as a starter with it becoming a global nato-esq organization.
India at the centre fighting for democracy against..ccp/pak/turk.
Some big meets in Delhi chaired by PM Modi should be on the cards.

Think of all the candidate countries around the world,
France would be a starter for 10.
oher european countries, south east asia, Japan, africa, latin america countries.

Especially if the economy can get motoring.

[ramana]

We will have to wait for a couple of weeks for clear picture to appear. Lot depends on his cabinet - Secretary of State, Defence and NSA.
Michele Flournoy & Susan Rice are most likely candidates for Defence and Secretary of State. So expect more pressure on Kashmir and urban Naxals will be emboldened. Need to prioritize acquisition of Dhanush and ATAGS to ensure pakis pay a heavy price for any mischief.

We are trying to look at it from bottoms up and not top-down.
After Cabinet is nominated the next excuse will be let's wait for them to formulate policies!

[Dilbu]

Indo-US trade: Joe Biden’s victory to delay planned deal

[Mort Walker]

The US has no FY2021 budget with a Continuing Resolution (CR) set to expire on 11 DEC 2020. The Trump administration and congress will extend this CR until the end of JAN 2021 when the Biden administration will set the budget. Appropriations start in the US House, and with the same party controlling the executive branch and House, a budget will quickly be formulated next month in December. The Trump administration has budgets for only 3 years, FY18, 19, and 20, and will not get to set a budget for FY21. In FY20, TSP got $53 million in total aid with 0% for military assistance. https://explorer.usaid.gov/cd/PAK?measu ... _year=2020

What to look for:

1. From the link above, the trend was downward in total aid to TSP. From an outgoing Bush administration high of $2.7 billion in FY10 to $53 million now.
2. How much total aid to TSP will increase in 2021? I predict between $600M-$1B with nearly 40% being military assistance.
3. How much of aid to TSP will be for military assistance in 2021?
4. How much of aid to TSP will be for debt relief in 2021?
5. US foreign aid to TSP is not the only concern. Much of the civilian aid ends up being routed through EJs for sinister activities in India and Nepal. Total aid reduction by the US was a positive sign, but that will change come January 2021.
6. In the spring of 2021, this aid will have an IMMEDIATE IMPACT in the border states of Kashmir, Punjab, Rajasthan, Gujarat, WB, and NE states in terms of increase in terrorist activities, smuggling of guns+drugs, and illegal incursions by Pak and BD civilians.

[Cyrano]

Ramana garu,
A few days ago, I was thinking how the Presidential debates compare between US and France.

French debates go into a great level of details, with data, lay out options, and the positions of candidates, their manifesto promises are articulated based on these and with some degree of nuance. On every proposed measure, candidates are questioned, challenged on their assumptions, where the funding will come from, what benefits are real, risks associated etc. Idem on foreign policy, global challenges and where to take the country in the future. I remember thinking at that time that these candidates are actually doing a kind of "asthavadhanam". It was actually quite impressive for me. The media next day, dissects these arguments and comes up with their own analysis. So gauging the "going in" position of a future French President becomes quite easy. Of course reality soon hits and all that.

In contrast the recent Trump-Biden debates have been at 30000 feet level. Actually worse than that for the most part. Not sure if they published a manifesto. So when Biden says we will create thousands of high paying jobs in the Green Energy sector, its just an assertion, not supported by data and arguments. Ditto when Trump says we brought back jobs from China. Come to think of it, this lack of resolution is quite remarkable in a data driven culture. So having watched these debates, I could get the broad leanings of each candidate, which are pretty much along established party lines, but not enough detail to see the policy implications and positions on key international issues. Which can be seen, from India's perspective, as a limitation to react or as an opportunity to act to try and influence as the policies get fleshed out in the next few months.

I'm think GOI is seeing the latter. We all should too.

[eklavya]

2. How much total aid to TSP will increase in 2021? I predict between $600M-$1B with nearly 40% being military assistance.

Why do you say so sir? Why would Biden wish to fund the terrorist state of Pakistan?

[Mort Walker]

2. How much total aid to TSP will increase in 2021? I predict between $600M-$1B with nearly 40% being military assistance.

Why do you say so sir? Why would Biden wish to fund the terrorist state of Pakistan?

Look at budgets in the link I provided. Both parties funded TSP until Trump. The US MIC and intelligence communities have a long relationship with TSP. That relationship shall be restored. One should not believe politicians and should follow the revenue and expenditure paths. The numbers don’t lie.

This thread is about the Biden impact on India. Rather it should be changed to how many Indians will die from terrorism due to a Biden administration.

[eklavya]

^^^^
Pakistan was firmly in the US camp in the Cold War. But that ended 30 years ago. The challenge to US power now comes from China, and Pakistan is a slave to China.

Doesn’t the MIC have much more to gain from the Indian defence budget?

[darshan]

Need to add Turkey to the list too which will be enlisted to provide pukes western standard weapons that US won't directly provide to pukes.

[ramana]

Eklvaya, This is not a thread to argue about what the US should do or not.

[eklavya]

Ramana, so we take it as a fact or a reasonable assumption that US military aid to Pakistan will be resumed?

[Cyrano]

Folks,
Why are we so defeatist in asserting that a Dem/Biden administration will definitely harm India? Hum kya chudiyan pehenke baithay hain?

Its fair to be cautious based on the past, but the world is not static, Dems today Biden included have evolved from Clinton era. Its a very different India in 2020. We need to believe in our strength and our ability to influence world tendencies not resign ourselves to be passively buffeted by it.

Like I posted above, what we know of Dem's agenda opens up many opportunities for India. If we grab them, that will generate convergences. Convergences lead to enduring cooperation which leads to trust and cements friendship.

Isn't that path better than being dependent 4 more years on a quirky president's actions or inactions that we can't really influence?

[ramana]

Ramana garu,

to think of broad range of political, defence, economic, social impact s

Sorry saw your format after typing this!

I tried to get my head around it for the past few days. At a broad level :

1: Where things stand at the end of Trump era
The +ves : Outwardly pro-India stance, bonhomie with Namo, arms sales, dumped Pakistan, anti-china stance, Quad impetus
The -ves : Poor understanding of India, civilisational autism, no historic context, unwelcome offers to mediate, unhelpful stand on visas etc, no trade deal concluded (presumably NaMo & Co rejected the terms they proposed)

In a nutshell, Trump's navigation wrt to India IMO has been mostly opportunistic and impulse (thankfully not -ve) driven, seeing us as a faraway messy poor "filthy" non-threatening country with some marginal utility against China but buying arms that let him claim he has benefited American businesses. Trump's attitude does not seem to be backed by any well thought out strategy of engagement based on true understanding and genuine respect for a rising power. His officials like Pompeo and the "deep state" might be having a better, more informed and balanced view.

2. Where things stand for India at the start of Biden-Harris era:
The +ves : Kamala's India connection, view of India as non threatening, careful to not confront China directly in public, but very careful NOT to say anything pro-China which I think is more significant than it appears, Indian-American community's influence in their win, and lastly Tech industry's support to Dems which itself is strongly tied to India.
The -ves : Possible prejudice hangover against NaMo linking him to GJ riots etc, tendency to treat India & Pak as equals, left leaning wokeness may influence their policies.

So, not much I believe is pre-determined in the minds of Biden-Harris on how to engage with India and its current leadership. They will have their hands full undoing DT's mess, controlling the Pandemic, Obamacare etc. for the first year and are likely to continue India policy where Trump left off, based on seasoned career officials' advice to start with, until they find their feet. This makes for a great opportunity for a competent EAM like JS & leader like NaMo to engage early, with no reticence and full energy and purposefully shape the new administration's engagement with India. Heck, if we could build a manageable and beneficial relationship with someone so volatile like Trump, there is no reason to think we cannot do way better with B-H.

India-America relation's next chapter will be unprecedentedly positive, and India must step up and guide the US write it.

[ramana]

I am no fan of Trump but anecdotally, in my backyard I found a lot more support for him among middle-class whites, esp women than in 2016 when most of them were for HC. The Hispanics (I have a huge population as my patients) are also in a large way pro Trump these days - I guess they prefer to have a job and food on the table than worry about the 1% possibility of COVID induced death.


I doubt KH will be any good for India. Desis seem to be enamored of her for no reason other than the ancestry which she herself has rejected long ago in favor of a more politically useful AA and Christian legacy. She strikes me as worse than HC as far as the relationship with India is concerned. HC had Huma Abedin, KH has the Jihadi Omar and Tlaib types lurking just around the corner. These two WILL take their pound of flesh for winning Michigan for the Dems.



Category: Political

Impact: Mostly negative for India. Lots of criticism of CAA, perhaps a reversal of the support on 370, overall a cooling off, with possible pro-Pak ideology resurfacing.

Mitigation:Hope our spine is strong enough, I believe Modi is quite capable of standing up to this kind of bullying.

Defence: Doubt any difference overall. Everybody loves to sell stuff and most of this decision making is usually a backdoor thing with the Generals and the MIC. The overt support against China maybe a key factor though, since it is quite likely the Dems will start kissing the Chinese behind again.

Mitigation: Make ourselves indispensable with promises to look elsewhere for key acquisitions a-la Rafale.

Economic: Probably one sector where the Dems may make a positive difference esp wrt trade tariffs and other barriers, they probably do not care about the local economy and upliftment of the blue-collar workers as much as the Republicans have done.

Social: This will be the biggest loss for India IMHO. Expect lots of 'intolerant Hindus' type of rhetoric and 'no freedom of religion' essays everywhere in the MSM. Social media will be full of the same.

Mitigation: Get tough with SM outlets in India, Impose stiff penalties on twitter and FB- about time we did that anyway. Have key people from the Dharmic side write counter-arguments - Malhotra seems to have morphed into something else entirely. Above all, Hindus in America need to wake up to the reality that the Dems have used them - much like the Labor Party did in UK. We need to support HAF and similar Dharmic groups much more. Get the political HINOs out of the system. This will take far longer than four years.

[ramana]

Folks,
Why are we so defeatist in asserting that a Dem/Biden administration will definitely harm India? Hum kya chudiyan pehenke baithay hain?

Its fair to be cautious based on the past, but the world is not static, Dems today Biden included have evolved from Clinton era. Its a very different India in 2020. We need to believe in our strength and our ability to influence world tendencies not resign ourselves to be passively buffeted by it.

Like I posted above, what we know of Dem's agenda opens up many opportunities for India. If we grab them, that will generate convergences. Convergences lead to enduring cooperation which leads to trust and cements friendship.

Isn't that path better than being dependent 4 more years on a quirky president's actions or inactions that we can't really influence?

No one required only negative impacts.
If you note you had posted the +ves too.
It just takes some time to catch up.

Also, the human mind wants to assess negatives that can harm you.
No one looks at a snake and says what a lovely reptile!

They first take precautions to make sure it's not poisonous and/or they have anti-venin injection nearby.

[Cyrano]

Fair enough

[nam]

Trump went all out on China, what happened? Nothing much. They are still putting people in to concentration camp, cracked down on Honkong, threatening countries around..

There will be gyan, which will make some people happy. However from our perspective, we need to strengthen relationship with US allies. Japan, Taiwan, Aus want our support against the Chini. Keep them and the Europeans in the good books and Biden will not be able to do much other than giving gyan. Our work in J&K is done... there have been hardly any noise from US allies on our steps.

The path to tone any US gyan is through it's allies.. Japan, Taiwan, Aus, Europe, UAE, Isreal etc.

[nam]

We will be falling in to the trap, if we reduce our opposition to China. A hardline stance by us against the Chinese will find lot of takers.. and find us useful.

[Karan M]

The main thing is lobbying. India needs to up its spend there to buy more influence in the US. That and energizing the desi PIO community to articulate India's POV strongly within the ambit of the law. Until and unless PIOs organize to combat the Hinduphobic left, the GOIs efforts alone will not succeed.

[ramana]

Desi PIOs are 90% Democrats. And Democrats under "Progressive" Ro Khanna guidance found Hinduphobia resonates with their Muslim Americans. From a survey by CAIR, 1 Million MA voted for Biden.
Am sure at least 75% of the Hindus also voted but no one will proclaim.
10% voted for Trump.
15% sat at home eating pakodas and WhatsApp forwards of poor jokes.

[ramana]

GOI did increase trade with US under Trump.
Take a look at the trade figures.

Trump wanted to sell the animal protein fed milk products to India.
Didn't go well.
And not enact Data Localization or Privacy laws so FANG can have access to Indian consumer's data.

[Suraj]

Regarding Ro Khanna, he got 73% of the vote vs 27% for Tandon. This is nothing to do with Indian Americans. This part of country does not want to be responsible for flipping a Democrat held seat and sending one more Republican to Congress, given the numbers situation in the House. Tandon said a lot of sensible things but he cannot get past his party affiliation regardless - registered Democrats vastly outnumber registered Republicans here.

[nam]

We have the usual "trump" card in managing relationship. Arms purchase. A arms deal, when there is bit of a noise will find enough Congressmen singing our praise as "frontline" state. No harm is getting some extra C130J or C17.

As long as there is no real material effect, we should grow thick skin for all the gyan. Obama was a bigger gyani than the current lot. He was in fact was the first US president for Republic day!

The only issue is our local characters like Muftis & co will find the window of opportunity to increase the noise J&K. Need to keep them busy, until things are clear on the Chini front..

[nam]

PM has done the twitter diplomacy with congratulations already been sent out..

[idan]

More Rafales for India in the interim for sure

[Mort Walker]

The main thing is lobbying. India needs to up its soend there to buy more influence in the US. That and energizing the desi PIO community to articulate India's POV strongly within the ambit of the law. Until and unless PIOs organize to combat the Hinduphobic left, the GOIs efforts alone will not succeed.

This will happen once US India trade exceeds that of Germany or Korea. Major corporations will lobby on India’s behalf with congress members and president. PIO community is too divided and are themselves Hinduphobic.

[Ambar]

PM has done the twitter diplomacy with congratulations already been sent out..

Yes, i thought it was a bid premature given that its just the media houses declaring. Modi is a mature politician and very, very politically savvy, he tried his best to forge a good relationship with Obama but Obama couldn't resist talking about "religious freedom" when he was in India. We will have to work hard on our diplomacy , PR and lobbying - all 3 weak areas historically. Came across a video of Burkha Dutt and Dhume wondering aloud how Biden will fix Modi and India.

https://twitter.com/i/status/1323873459659632641

[Dilbu]

India showed the willingness to get hands dirty and literally break the neck of PLA's belligerance. That should count for something in a world with a weakened US facing China. It will be hard for Biden to go full china pasand even if he wanted to. If India can shrug off a few occasional remarks on cashmere human rights and restrictions against NGO we.mmigt even have a better working relationship with Biden administration than with Trump, especially on the economic front. Both sides will have to take a few steps forward based on a leap of faith and meet each other in the middle. If it can happen then it might not be all that bad as a few of us are thinking.

[nam]

Yes, i thought it was a bid premature given that its just the media houses declaring. Modi is a mature politician and very, very politically savvy, he tried his best to forge a good relationship with Obama but Obama couldn't resist talking about "religious freedom" when he was in India. We will have to work hard on our diplomacy , PR and lobbying - all 3 weak areas historically. Came across a video of Burkha Dutt and Dhume wondering aloud how Biden will fix Modi and India.

https://twitter.com/i/status/1323873459659632641

All that gyan doesn't matter. Obama may have given some gyan, but at the same time came as Republic day president and wrote an article supporting Modi in NYT! We need to learn from our western jokers. Thousands of things have been said about them, yet their is no ,material known to man which can penetrate their thick skin!

Nothing comes in the way of their national interest..

Dhume & dutt characters don't matter in international relationship.

[nam]

https://www.reuters.com/article/idUSKBN27N0W4

The need to revive the US economy may indirectly require US being tough on Chini trade manipulation. This would be helpful to us.

[chetak]

PM has done the twitter diplomacy with congratulations already been sent out..

so has pappu