When President Obama and Prime Minister Narendra Modi of India met last week at the White House,
many analysts puzzled over how and why the two leaders, so different in so many
ways, get along. Whatever the reasons, what’s important is that they have
significantly deepened the partnership between their two countries. It may be
one of Mr. Obama’s most important foreign policy achievements.
Relations between America and India, testy during the
Cold War, warmer under Presidents Bill Clinton and George W. Bush, are now
producing concrete gains under Mr. Obama. The two democracies are finding
common cause in countering China’s aggression in the South China Sea, resisting
climate change, fighting terrorism and investing in each other’s
economic growth.
The environmental community and indeed anyone worried about
global warming found much to cheer in Mr. Obama’s and Mr. Modi’s promise to
work together to realize the potential of December’s Paris treaty on climate
change, and in particular Mr. Modi’s agreement for a more
aggressive timetable for phasing out heat-trapping climate pollutants known as
hydrofluorocarbons, which are used in vehicle and household air conditioners.
Both sides also promised to keep driving the expansion
of renewable energy sources. In Paris, India pledged to invest heavily in wind
and solar power, and in just the first six months of this year has installed more solar
capacity than
it did all last year. The two sides also announced two new programs,
to be jointly financed, to attract new private investment in renewables and to
provide renewable energy to Indian villages that are not connected to the grid.
No less important is the growing cooperation between
the two countries on defense issues. The United States formally recognized
India as a major defense partner, making it eligible to buy some of the most
sophisticated American-made weapons and technology without first having to
receive a license. The two countries have stepped up joint military exercises.
If there was any doubt that a message to China was intended, Mr. Modi told
Congress that India appreciated America’s role in Asia and endorsed its
commitment to freedom of navigation in the South China Sea, which Beijing is
claiming largely as its own.
The two sides also
announced plans to complete a deal under which India will buy
six nuclear reactors from Westinghouse by June 2017, thus fulfilling a promise
India made when it persuaded Mr. Bush in 2005 to lift an American ban on
selling nuclear technology to India. The deal has dragged on for years.
Other vital issues will need work, now and far into
the future, including the India-Pakistan-China nuclear competition that
threatens the region. It will be up to the next president to build on a
relationship that is on stronger footing now than it has been for some time.
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