India’s new Prime Minister won while campaigning against corruption, and supporting more growth. Narendra Modi is spreading the message that India is a good place to do business. Accelerated economic development is expected under his leadership. On Dakota Midday, USD Associate Professor of Political Science Dr. Eric Jepsen discusses what this means for the US.
Dr. Eric Jepsen is an Associate Professor of Political Science at USD. He says officials in the US are looking to India as a key partner in helping to balance against the rise of China in the years ahead. But he says officials in India are nervous about how close of an alliance they should forge with the US. They have concerns over strategic autonomy.
“The ability to make decisions about all sorts of aspects of energy policy, which India needs to import a tremendous amount of its energy and a lot of this comes from places like Russia and Iran,” Jepsen says. “So toeing the company, or toeing the US line about sanctions or what should India do or not do relative to Russia or Iran makes India nervous because they have their own self-interested objectives here which is growing their economy. In order to grow their economy they need energy. And this is coming, right now, from places like Russia and Iran.”
Jepsen says India also has interests in China, relying on that nation for trade and investment. He says India isn’t willing to forgo that relationship and turn themselves toward an alliance with only Japan, Australia, and the US.
“India, I think makes decisions on a case by case basis,” Jepsen says. “It doesn’t mean that they don’t have a larger strategic picture or strategy that they might be utilizing to make decisions but at the same time they are moving forward with relationships with all sorts of countries, not just one camp or another.”
Jepsen says Indian officials are also looking to establish investment relationships with non-resident Indians, including those in the US.
He says there are factors that bring India and the United States together. They’re both democracies and two of the larger economies in the world. But he says there are limits to how interdependent the two countries will become.
Click here to listen to the full discussion on Dakota Midday.