This US politician thinks his country's relationship with India could be "one of the most important" for the western giant.
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00:00Russia for India was, out of necessity, a partner of choice when we were not in a position to be a partner. Now we are.
00:31The world's oldest democracy, of course, is the United States, but India is the world's biggest democracy.
00:39And I think they have, you know, I think what I see before us is something I'm certain that is very frustrating in the short term when we have our differences, and you deal with that every day, but in the long term.
00:51The strategic partnership that we have with India, I think, poses the opportunity to do more good in the 21st century and have more consequence, more impact than anything that the CCP could do, coming from their perspective.
01:04And I believe that there's great untapped potential there in terms of developing that partnership for the good of all.
01:11And I would look forward to hearing your views in terms of what concrete steps the United States and India could take together to deepen our strategic alliance.
01:19I think this partnership has the potential to be one of the most important and foundational partnerships that we have going forward over the next decades.
01:33This has actually been, I think, a success story over multiple administrations, going back to the end of the Clinton administration, through the Bush administration, particularly with the Peaceful Nuclear Cooperation Agreement that, by the way, now President then Senator Biden helped shepherd through this institution, through the Trump administration as well.
01:53And prior to that, the Obama administration, and now through ours.
01:58President Biden has spent a lot of time directly engaged with Prime Minister Modi and India's leadership, of course, as you know very well.
02:07We have energized the quad that brings India together with Australia and Japan and us.
02:14This has been a very important vehicle for strengthening our collaboration across a whole variety of fronts with India.
02:21I've spent a lot of time with my Indian counterpart and very much agree with you.
02:26What's interesting, and we talked about this a little bit yesterday in the Foreign Relations Committee, is this is a moment of, I think, strategic inflection, by which I mean this.
02:37A number of countries are now relooking at some of their relationships and some of their interests, particularly when it comes to their relationships with Russia.
02:48And, of course, in the case of India, there's a relationship that goes back decades.
02:52And Russia for India was out of necessity a partner of choice when we were not in a position to be a partner.
03:03Now we are and we are investing in that effort.
03:07I think there is a growing strategic convergence between the United States and India.
03:13And, of course, China is a big a big part of that.
03:17But I very much share your perspective.
03:20And this is a major area of focus for the administration and for me to make sure that we are doing everything we can to strengthen and to build on that partnership going forward.