Joe Biden reassures India

His early interventions show India has no reason to worry even if power shifts

Offering clues about his broader worldview, the Democratic presidential candidate, Joe Biden, has spoken glowingly about India. But Mr Biden also made one or two critical comments about the Narendra Modi government’s policies, for instance on Kashmir. All of this had led to much debate in India — most of which reads too much into far too little.

A United States (US) presidential candidate will make comments to please different voter and funding groups. These comments will sound contradictory because, at this point, they are far from having a well-thought-out foreign policy programme. A non-incumbent candidate will be particularly prone to have little or no view on what are marginal issues that do not affect US voters. This US election is unusually dominated by domestic issues, with a sprinkling of concern about China. All else is immaterial.

What matters is how much the core foreign policy views of the candidates differ from the mainstream. And this is where Mr Biden’s comments are reassuring. He sees China as the primary strategic challenge of the US, making India geopolitically vital. He puts climate and terrorism as overriding global concerns, which resonates with New Delhi. On immigration and trade, he promises to be more generous than President Donald Trump. His foreign policy aides have indicated differences with India will be left to the diplomats to resolve. In other words, the drivers of the Us-india relationship are shared by both candidates and India has little to worry about if a new administration comes to power.