Since the turn of this century US diplomats have invested grand ambitions in the promise of a “natural alliance” with a rising India. Yet as is often the case with India, promise has run far ahead of reality. Narendra Modi’s current visit to the US is a chance to put India-US relations on a more practical footing.
Mr Modi has made it clear his priority is to restore India’s near double-digit growth rates. His agenda is not geopolitical. Diplomacy will play handmaiden to economic development. President Barack Obama should welcome this change in emphasis. India is neither willing nor yet capable of acting as a serious counterweight to China. But as a growing economic force, which aims to become the world’s third largest economy by 2025, it will naturally hedge a rising China without needing to spell it out. Mr Modi’s visit is the right time for such a reset. Given his party’s large majority, he will be at the helm in New Delhi for the next five years.
The two countries’ biggest task is to overcome a growing list of economic irritants. Trade between the US and India has risen almost tenfold since 2000 to more than $100bn a year. But it is still a fifth the level of China and less, even, than South Korea, which has a population below that of Gujurat, Mr Modi’s home state. The Indian leader wants to give his nation the manufacturing boom it never had. It is a tall order given the trend towards more automated production – India’s cheap labour costs are no longer such a plus factor. But a switch to labour-intensive growth is essential if it is to absorb the roughly 12m new entrants to the workforce every year.