0:02

It's not just for immediate,

0:05

short-term geopolitical, tactical reasons.

0:08

For India, the U.S. is an essential partner

0:11

if we are to transform India into

0:13

a modern, prosperous, secure,

0:16

developed country.

0:22

Welcome to None of the Above, a podcast

0:25

of the Eurasia Group Foundation. My

0:27

name is Caroline Gray, and I'm stepping

0:29

in for Mark Hanna today. This

0:32

week, Congress has a very special

0:35

guest. Indian Prime Minister Narendra

0:37

Modi is on his way to the United States

0:39

for a state visit. The trip is being

0:41

billed as a turning point for bilateral

0:43

relations and is expected to see the two countries

0:46

expand, working together in the

0:48

defense industry and the high technology sectors.

0:51

The U.S. sees India as a vital partner

0:52

as it pushes back against China's

0:55

rising global influence, especially in the Indo-Pacific.

0:58

Washington also wants to wean Delhi

1:00

away from its traditional defense partner, Moscow.

1:03

India's Prime Minister Narendra Modi,

1:06

who is making his first official state visit

1:08

to Washington, D.C., will

1:10

tomorrow address a joint session of Congress

1:13

intended to celebrate, as well as strengthen,

1:15

U.S.-India ties.

1:17

I think Prime Minister Modi's visit this

1:19

time is particularly significant.

1:21

It comes at a time when the international

1:24

system, the international order itself is in

1:26

flux, and where

1:28

congruence between India and the U.S.

1:30

is much closer than it's ever been before.

1:33

That's Shivshankar Menon.

1:35

Shivshankar has served in the highest roles

1:38

in India's government when it comes to foreign affairs.

1:41

He's been national security advisor to the

1:43

prime minister, foreign secretary,

1:45

and Indian ambassador to Israel,

1:48

Sri Lanka, Pakistan, and China.

1:51

There's a whole range of issues

1:54

on which India and the U.S. are

1:56

working together as partners.

1:59

The U.S. is India's partner.

1:59

biggest trading partner.

2:02

We've recently seen the

2:04

increasing congruence in the way they look

2:07

at the Indo-Pacific, which has become

2:09

more and more important. Secretary

2:12

Austin was just in India, and

2:15

we've been talking about

2:18

increasing cooperation and defense

2:21

in the co-production, research.

2:25

But beyond that, on energy, for instance,

2:29

both sides have worked very hard

2:32

to actually try and make the transition

2:34

to new and renewable energy

2:36

sources. For India, actually,

2:38

the Inflation Reduction Act in the US

2:41

is good news. I know all the attention

2:43

is on US, Europe,

2:45

and what it means for US-China, but for

2:48

countries like India, if the

2:50

act does what it says, which is to lower the

2:53

price of renewable energy and make the transition

2:56

easier, frankly, that's welcome.

2:59

But there isn't actually an area of human

3:02

endeavor which I think the Prime Minister's

3:04

visit could not cover and could not help in pushing

3:07

the relationship forward. For India,

3:09

the US is an essential

3:11

partner,

3:13

and it's not just for

3:15

immediate short-term geopolitical

3:17

tactical reasons. Many

3:20

people think it's because of the rise of China.

3:23

But that's not it. For India,

3:26

the US is an essential partner if

3:28

we are to transform India

3:30

into a modern, prosperous,

3:32

secure, developed country. So

3:35

if you look at it, it makes sense. This is quite

3:37

apart from whatever values

3:39

we share, the commitment to democracy,

3:42

and to, as I said, the geopolitical and

3:44

geostrategic congruence that we have,

3:47

and the economic complementarity that

3:49

exists between two economies which

3:51

are at very different levels of development.

3:54

So if you add all that up, this

3:56

is a natural partnership.

3:58

There's major confluence.

3:59

as Shevshankar notes, but there are

4:02

some places where those attitudes don't necessarily

4:04

align. India famously

4:06

has been reluctant to criticize or condemn

4:09

Russia for its invasion of Ukraine.

4:12

Well, I think India has made it clear that

4:14

A, it doesn't think that war

4:17

or the invasion was the answer.

4:20

B,

4:21

that it feels that Ukrainian

4:23

sovereignty, territorial integrity should

4:25

be respected. Prime Minister Modi

4:28

told Mr. Putin in public

4:30

that this is not the way forward.

4:33

But neither do we think, and

4:36

I think most Indians would

4:38

agree with this, that sanctions

4:41

are going to solve this problem.

4:43

There's often an argument made that this

4:46

is about democracy

4:48

versus autocracy, or

4:51

that this is a matter of somehow

4:55

of principle. We've made it quite

4:57

clear that we do think that

4:59

sovereignty should not be violated

5:01

like this. But

5:04

there is a problem, I

5:07

think, in suddenly deciding

5:09

to apply standard

5:11

sanctions and so on, without any clear

5:13

prospect of coming to a good outcome. Because

5:15

ultimately, what do we want here? We want an outcome

5:18

which works for the people

5:20

of Ukraine, which guarantees a

5:23

European security order in which

5:26

the country is not only of Central Europe

5:29

and Russia, but also NATO

5:31

as a whole can feel secure as

5:33

would Russia. And that,

5:35

I'm afraid, is getting harder and harder to

5:37

see.

5:38

India and the United States have many

5:40

shared interests. But India also

5:42

has its own geopolitical concerns,

5:44

which make its dealings with great powers like

5:46

Russia slightly different.

5:49

At core, India is both a maritime

5:51

and a continental part, unlike the other

5:53

members of the Quad, who in effect in geopolitical

5:56

terms are islands. The

5:58

US is behind two of the largest.

5:59

oceans on Earth, Japan is, Australia

6:03

is too, is an island. We have

6:05

a continental issue. We have the world's largest border

6:07

dispute with China and

6:10

we have worked in the past with Russia

6:13

because we are a Eurasian power as

6:15

well and what happens on the continent

6:17

affects us directly. So

6:20

we have both continental and maritime security

6:22

interests. So during

6:25

the Cold War we developed a very close

6:27

defense relationship with Russia because

6:29

we lacked alternatives.

6:31

To be sure that relationship has

6:33

declined. Russia used to account

6:35

for 80% of India's defense imports

6:38

until around 2005. Now it's less than 30%. The United States

6:41

actually provides

6:45

more defense equipment in India than Russia

6:47

does now.

6:48

But of course there's legacy platforms

6:50

which is why this this continues.

6:53

The Ukraine war and Russia's increasing dependence

6:56

on China and alignment

6:58

with China probably means that that's

7:01

the Indian defense link

7:03

is with Russia will probably get even

7:05

more attenuated over time.

7:08

But that still

7:09

doesn't change the nature of

7:12

the geopolitics of Eurasia

7:14

and unless we're

7:17

willing to just write off continental

7:19

Asia and hand

7:22

it over to new our species I think

7:24

we will continue to work with the powers

7:26

on Asia and which are those powers. With China

7:28

we have a very difficult relationship. We

7:31

had boundary clashes the first

7:33

deaths on the border in over 40

7:35

years in 2020

7:38

and our political relationship is very

7:40

fraught.

7:41

So who we left to work with. We work

7:43

with Russia, we work with

7:45

Turkey, we work with Iran, we

7:47

work with whoever there is to the extent

7:50

that we can.

7:51

And I think that we

7:53

will continue to do. And the

7:55

war in Ukraine of course isn't the only

7:57

topic many are concerned about when it comes to

7:59

the world.

7:59

to Modi's visit this week. It's

8:02

also the prime minister's track record on

8:04

human rights. While tomorrow's

8:06

visit is being framed as a meeting between

8:09

the world's two great democracies, the

8:11

treatment and persecution of India's large

8:14

Muslim minority has only gotten worse

8:16

under Modi's leadership.

8:19

But for Shiv Shankar, this

8:21

shouldn't necessarily preclude cooperation

8:23

between the two countries. You

8:25

know, one thing we share in India and

8:27

the US is that we're

8:29

both democracies, but in both

8:32

countries, democracy is a work in progress.

8:34

Has been for a long time and will probably

8:37

remain so. And that's part of being democratic,

8:40

that we keep improving what we have and we

8:42

keep working at it, and that

8:44

we argue about it internally among ourselves.

8:47

I used to tell my Chinese friends, for instance, we

8:49

do in public what you do in private. But

8:52

don't ever misunderstand that for the weakness

8:55

of the system. But it

8:57

also means that we respect differing opinions.

9:00

We don't interfere in your decisions

9:03

about how you run your democracy, and you

9:05

don't interfere in ours. And for

9:07

me, that's a good basis, that if we dealt

9:10

with these issues, the issues

9:12

you mentioned, allegations of human

9:14

rights violations, of perfecting

9:16

democracy, of how we need to deal with

9:19

individual cases, et cetera, if

9:21

we dealt with them democratically, I

9:23

think we'd have a way forward. And neither

9:26

side should be nervous

9:28

about discussing these things. Democracies

9:31

will differ from autocracies in the way

9:33

they approach these issues. There's

9:35

no question. But that doesn't give us

9:38

the right to prescribe our

9:40

way to other people. So

9:42

there are limits to this, the

9:44

extent to which one interferes

9:47

in other people's business. Doesn't mean you don't have

9:49

opinions

9:50

or that you don't express them.

9:53

But I think, ultimately, the

9:55

whole point of democracy is that the people make

9:58

their own decisions about their own future. and

10:01

choose their own systems and how they want

10:03

to operate them.

10:05

And that's, for me, the key.

10:07

So how important

10:09

is it that President Biden this week pushes

10:11

Prime Minister Modi on its dealings with Russia

10:14

and its human rights record? When the U.S.-India

10:17

relationship is more nuanced and

10:19

potentially far more critical to U.S.

10:21

interests, then these issues of concern.

10:24

Like, say, both the United States and

10:26

India's interest in keeping China in check

10:29

in the Indo-Pacific, Shiv Shankar

10:31

has his own take.

10:36

India is kind of a great example

10:39

of how this new kind of Cold

10:41

War framework doesn't really work, because

10:44

India and a lot of countries need

10:46

to work with both the United

10:48

States and Russia and China. But

10:52

this new kind of non-aligned movement

10:55

rhetoric has taken shape with

10:58

respect to the war in Ukraine and China. You've

11:01

argued that this is not a

11:04

new non-aligned movement. This isn't the Cold War. Why

11:07

is

11:07

today different? For

11:10

three big reasons, as far as I can see.

11:12

The situation is different. The Cold War

11:15

saw a bipolar world with two

11:17

camps which barely traded with

11:19

each other, only talked to each

11:21

other sometimes,

11:23

but offered completely contrasting views

11:26

and visions of how the world should be run

11:28

and how societies should be ordered,

11:31

and were in competition across

11:34

the globe between

11:35

the West and the

11:38

Soviet or socialist camp, which

11:40

China belonged to initially and then left.

11:44

In that kind of bipolar world, you could

11:46

be non-aligned, because there was somebody

11:48

to be aligned to.

11:49

Today, I don't think we're in a bipolar

11:52

world at all. I know some people think it's

11:54

a bipolar world between China and the US,

11:56

but today, if you look at it, economically,

11:59

yes, the world might do.

11:59

be multipolar. There's the EU,

12:02

there's the US, there's China,

12:05

there's large economic blocks being

12:07

formed. But militarily,

12:09

it's still a unipolar world. There's only one power

12:12

which can project military power across

12:14

the globe when it wants, where it wants,

12:17

and that's the US. The others

12:19

are all regional military powers. Even

12:21

the Chinese are basically contending

12:24

their own near seas and in the spaces

12:27

near China in military terms. So

12:30

China-US relations are very

12:32

different from Soviet-US

12:35

relations. China is no ideological

12:37

competitor. The economic

12:39

linkage between the two, I mean they're like Siamese

12:41

twins, $691 billion worth of trade last

12:45

year. Neither of them can actually

12:47

disengage beyond a point without doing real

12:49

damage to themselves. So

12:52

politically it's a very confused world.

12:54

So this is a world for me between orders.

12:57

It's a world adrift. So what

12:59

are you being non-lined with or from?

13:02

My own formula for this

13:04

kind of situation, therefore, is that you

13:07

are unaligned. I mean you're not aligned to

13:09

any single block or

13:12

group of countries. But

13:14

what you see instead in practice

13:16

is issue-based coalitions

13:19

of the willing. Depending on the issue, you

13:21

get a different set of countries

13:23

working together, those who are both willing and

13:25

capable of doing something about an issue.

13:28

Take maritime security in the Indian Indo-Pacific,

13:30

for instance. The quad forms

13:32

itself naturally, right? And

13:35

they help to work maritime security, but

13:37

they also work on providing global public

13:40

goods. But if you look at cybersecurity,

13:42

you have a whole different set of actors who have capability

13:45

and interests in taking care

13:47

of those issues. When it comes to

13:49

security in Europe, this is primarily

13:52

something that

13:53

between

13:54

NATO, Russia,

13:56

and which Europeans will have to sort

13:58

out among themselves.

13:59

I mean, frankly, the rest of us, we

14:02

can say what we think, but we don't

14:04

have very much influence on how

14:06

that is going to be sorted out. So

14:09

depending on the issue, when the pandemic

14:11

occurs, it's one set of

14:13

actors who step forward. It's not the traditional

14:17

multilateral system or

14:20

the older institutions.

14:22

In fact, the pandemic revealed how pathetic

14:25

those institutions have become in their responses.

14:28

I mean, think of how different our response

14:30

was to HIV AIDS and

14:33

to COVID. And you see actually

14:35

the deterioration in the international system

14:38

or the traditional multilateral system. So

14:40

this is why, for me, this is a world between

14:43

orders where, so you

14:45

can't now talk of a traditional and online

14:47

movement all over again in a very different

14:49

situation. The other

14:52

thing, of course, is that economic power is now much

14:54

more evenly spread across

14:56

the world. And therefore,

14:59

when it comes to economic issues, but

15:02

it's also in some ways much more

15:04

politics is in command of economics now,

15:07

to an extent which it wasn't so before,

15:10

to look at the debt crisis among developing countries.

15:13

Over 55 developing countries, according

15:15

to the IMF, face a

15:17

real risk of a serious

15:19

debt crisis.

15:21

And we've known this now

15:23

for five years. And the IMF has been

15:25

telling us, everyone, G20 has made

15:27

statements about it. And yet nobody's

15:30

done anything about it.

15:32

So we have transnational

15:34

issues like climate change, for instance,

15:37

where ultimately at core,

15:39

when you look at what countries have done

15:42

internationally as an international

15:44

community, what have we done? We've just said

15:46

each country is free to do what it will do,

15:49

but it won't even allow anybody else to

15:52

check what it does.

15:54

I mean, that's not

15:56

concerted international action

15:59

on any. on a matter of life

16:01

and death for us all on the planet.

16:04

So for me, therefore, we are

16:06

in a much more difficult situation

16:08

than I think we were

16:11

even at the height of the Cold War. And

16:13

the pillars of the old order have broken down,

16:16

whether it's the nonproliferation regime,

16:18

whether it's the international financial

16:21

order, which people are now trying to nibble away

16:23

at. So for me, this

16:25

is a whole new territory that we've

16:27

entered into.

16:29

And it's not enough to just say, oh, we're going

16:31

back to traditional non-alignment.

16:34

Let's talk more about the

16:36

kind of pillars of the order that have broken down,

16:38

because for a lot of analysts here,

16:41

the argument is

16:43

that the

16:45

West's response to Russia's

16:48

invasion of Ukraine showed the robustness

16:52

of the liberal democratic international order, that

16:54

so many countries were able to band together in

16:56

response and sanction Russia.

16:59

Is your argument that that order is

17:01

not there or that it was

17:03

broken previously? Do

17:05

you share that perspective? Well,

17:08

the Western response showed how cohesive the

17:10

West is.

17:11

And it actually showed

17:14

how the West, and particularly NATO,

17:17

and transatlantic relations, how

17:19

solid they were. I'm not

17:22

sure that it showed any international

17:24

order at work. Frankly,

17:27

the so-called international liberal

17:29

international order, which

17:32

people talk about.

17:33

For many of us in the world, for

17:36

the last 70 years or so, it has

17:38

neither been liberal nor

17:40

very orderly. The killing fields

17:42

of the Cold War were all across Asia. That's

17:45

why people died. And if

17:48

you look at deaths in combat, you

17:50

look at displaced

17:52

persons, both internally and international

17:54

refugees. We are now back

17:57

to post-war levels.

18:00

back to the late 40s when the Chinese Civil

18:02

War was going on and when Europe was a shambles.

18:05

So, orderly, as I mentioned already,

18:07

if there were an international order, where was it

18:09

when the pandemic happened? I mean, the last

18:11

time there was a concerted international

18:14

response, orderly response to

18:16

a problem was, I think, the

18:18

G20 meeting in London in April 2009,

18:20

when

18:23

together the

18:26

G20 managed to avert another Great Depression,

18:29

did manage to shore up the banking system,

18:31

the international banking system,

18:34

and did actually do things which made

18:36

a huge difference to the global economy. But

18:39

since then, it's hard

18:42

to think of something

18:44

that the international order has done in

18:46

response to the big challenges

18:49

of the day, whether it's development,

18:51

whether it's, as I said, developing country

18:53

debt crisis, whether it's climate change,

18:56

whether it was a pandemic. I

18:58

mean, I wish there were an order. You know, it's when Gandhi

19:01

was asked, what do you think of British culture?

19:03

He said it would be a good idea. And

19:06

I mean, that's my response to those

19:08

who say, what do you think of the liberal international

19:10

order? So, it would be a great idea.

19:14

Interesting. Kind of transitioning into

19:17

more of a discussion about China, it seems

19:20

like the Biden administration

19:22

and

19:22

lawmakers here in the United States use

19:26

this US-China rivalry

19:29

as a ploy to say, this is why

19:31

we need the liberal international order to be restored.

19:33

This is why it's so important. In

19:36

some of your writing, I suspect, do you feel

19:38

that the US-China rivalry

19:41

is actually distracting from a

19:43

more orderly world? Is

19:45

that fair to say? I take

19:48

the US-China rivalry as

19:50

given. It's structural now. I mean,

19:53

the US has always worked

19:56

to prevent the emergence of a peer competitor

19:58

in the international system.

19:59

since World War II and has done so successfully.

20:03

They saw off the Soviet Union, Japan,

20:05

et cetera. And from the Chinese

20:08

point of view, I think

20:10

you now have President Xi Jinping actually

20:12

naming the US and saying she's trying

20:14

to contain China, prevent China's

20:17

rise. And that

20:19

is a huge step. So when

20:22

you get to that stage, then I have

20:25

to take that as a fact of life, as

20:27

the major fact of international

20:30

geopolitics today.

20:32

That doesn't mean that this is another

20:34

Cold War because they're not separate.

20:37

As I said, they are intertwined, their

20:39

futures are intertwined, their economies

20:41

are intertwined. And there's a whole host

20:43

of issues on which both will have to work

20:46

together for their own self-interest.

20:49

But what I would put my faith in

20:51

rather than some new emerging

20:54

international order

20:56

is the

20:57

enlightened self-interest of all these

21:00

countries.

21:01

While they might be rivals, I

21:04

think it's in their self-interest to avoid

21:06

conflict

21:08

and to concentrate on

21:10

the big transnational issues. And

21:13

India, like the US, has the same problem

21:15

with

21:15

China. We are both

21:18

economically very tied to

21:20

China. I mean, India's largest

21:23

trading partner in goods is

21:25

China. If you add services,

21:27

it's the US. And

21:29

we run a huge trade deficit with

21:32

China. At the same time, we have

21:34

a political relationship which has fraught ever

21:36

since the clashes on the border

21:39

in 2020. We've had

21:41

over 100,000 troops lined up along

21:43

the line of control in

21:45

the Western sector, in Ladakh and

21:48

Western Tibet. At

21:51

really forbidding heights and in

21:54

terrible climate, they've been through

21:56

three winters up there and

21:58

are still there.

21:59

There's no real drawdown

22:01

visible.

22:03

And the US has the same combination

22:05

of competition and

22:08

cooperation at the same

22:10

time in the relationship

22:12

with China.

22:13

India and the US tend to see many

22:16

of the consequences of the rise of

22:18

China and some of China's

22:21

behavior

22:22

very similarly

22:23

as affecting international

22:27

order and as

22:29

actually increasing uncertainty and risks

22:32

in the international situation. How

22:34

do we solve this? Do we solve this by

22:37

all signing a piece of paper and signing

22:39

on to the same principles? Or

22:41

do we rely on the

22:43

traditional

22:45

realist tools which is create

22:47

a balance of power which works to

22:50

encourage responsible and

22:52

sensible behavior

22:54

and incentivize people

22:56

through using their own, as I said,

22:58

enlightened self-interest

23:00

because it's in everybody's interest that we

23:03

do so and that we

23:05

avoid the rivalry or the competition

23:07

from actually taking

23:10

an unexpected turn or getting out

23:12

of hand. So I would rather

23:14

rely on that than on creating

23:17

an order out of a world where,

23:19

as

23:19

I said, power is so

23:22

distributed. Economic power is differently

23:24

distributed from military power and

23:27

certainly from political power. India

23:30

and the US today exercise together in

23:32

various forms, have increasing communication

23:37

and interoperability between our forces

23:40

to an unprecedented level. And

23:43

at a level which we've never enjoyed with anybody

23:46

ever before.

23:48

And we work with other partners together.

23:50

And if you look at Malabar, for instance, the

23:52

naval exercises which have been going on for

23:55

some time, they now include Australia

23:57

as well apart from Japan as always.

23:59

and we've included other

24:02

partners. We now work

24:04

together with partners, but

24:06

it's a variable geometry. I mean, we did

24:08

our first naval exercises with ASEAN

24:11

as a group. We've worked with individual

24:13

ASEAN countries before, but we did

24:15

our first naval exercise with ASEAN as

24:17

a group last month, actually. So

24:21

I think this is an evolving situation.

24:24

You'll see increasing

24:26

congruence in the way we approach these

24:29

issues and in the way we work together. And

24:31

what we do on the defense side, I think, is

24:34

the most visible manifestation of

24:36

that congruence.

24:38

You were ambassador to China

24:41

for India, and I

24:43

believe you speak Mandarin and have spent a lot of time

24:45

in the country. What,

24:48

or what do kind of people in general

24:51

get wrong about the Chinese

24:53

Communist Party and their decision-making?

24:56

I think what we miss

24:58

is how internally driven

25:00

China's external policies are.

25:03

I think for most of us, what happens

25:05

in China, internal politics, is

25:08

a black box. And

25:11

since it's so hard, so opaque, so

25:13

hard to penetrate or to understand,

25:16

I think we put it out of mind and we then concentrate

25:19

on the traditional external

25:21

explanations. Situation has changed,

25:24

China's ambitions are broad, reacting

25:26

to what other people do, et cetera.

25:29

Or we rely on ascribing everything

25:31

to personality. It's all either

25:34

Deng Xiaoping or Xi Jinping's doing or

25:36

Mao Zedong's doing. And I

25:38

think that's a mistake. China has politics

25:41

just like all the rest of us. Then

25:43

ultimately, it's internal politics that matter

25:45

to the politicians who make the calls. And

25:48

I think we tend to underestimate

25:50

that. That doesn't mean I have all the answers that I

25:52

know therefore what China's going

25:55

to do. But for me, that's a fascinating

25:57

part.

25:58

But let me see.

25:59

I would say this, compared to when I first

26:02

started working on China, which is 55 years

26:06

ago,

26:07

I think we're much better at understanding

26:09

China today than we were then.

26:12

Not just because there's expertise

26:14

and because China opened up and

26:16

there was a period when we've had a lot of exchanges

26:19

with China, all of us, but

26:22

also because I think we've started understanding

26:25

how China works much better than we did

26:27

before.

26:29

My last question is, going

26:32

back to your comment about the debt

26:35

crisis that a lot of countries

26:37

in the developing world are facing that

26:39

we're not paying close attention

26:41

to here in the US, since

26:43

we're so focused on US-China rivalry

26:46

and the war in Ukraine, can

26:48

the United States play a role,

26:50

or

26:53

should it be playing more of a role in mitigating

26:56

the harm surrounding the

26:58

debt crisis, climate change from these transnational

27:01

issues? What are officials

27:03

in India hoping to see more

27:05

of

27:06

from the United States?

27:07

India has been trying since it's the present

27:09

chair of the G20. I think

27:11

they've been trying to get international action

27:14

going together, working with the IMF and

27:16

a whole group of countries, because

27:18

it has to be a multilateral effort and

27:21

it has to involve a whole host of countries

27:23

together. The problem is if we

27:25

leave it to individual countries, Sri

27:28

Lanka was a good case in point. Sri Lanka

27:30

defaulted in April 2022, owed about 20% of

27:33

its foreign debt to China.

27:38

The West was naturally reluctant

27:41

to bail out Sri Lanka because to

27:43

give Sri Lanka money to pay back the Chinese.

27:47

The Chinese were reluctant to reschedule

27:50

their loans to Sri Lanka

27:53

until the West did something. So, it became

27:55

a standoff, actually.

27:59

leave it to traditional

28:03

great power politics. Frankly,

28:05

it's never going to be solved. In fact, great

28:08

power rivalry makes it harder to deal

28:10

with debt issues in developing countries.

28:13

And it has to be something that the community

28:16

as a whole agrees on and starts implementing.

28:19

And that's what we are trying to do in this year

28:21

when we are chairman of the G20. And I

28:23

think we've made some progress. At least

28:26

I heard the MD of the IMF saying we

28:28

have. But

28:30

I think we still have a little bit of a way to go.

28:34

As Shiv Shankar argues, U.S.-India

28:36

relations are strong and will likely

28:39

only get stronger, especially after

28:41

this week's official state visit. And

28:44

this is all despite India's reluctance

28:46

to impose sanctions on Russia after

28:48

its invasion of Ukraine and Prime

28:50

Minister Modi's track record on human rights.

28:54

It seems the U.S.-India partnership is

28:56

far more important to both countries than we

28:58

realized.