Tshering22
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There is no quid pro quo.
The US is a technological powerhouse and there is nothing India provides that the US can't get elsewhere.
I agree. US is indeed a technological powerhouse. But even that has limits.
When the US sells advanced technology to India, it is doing India a favor. The US is not flogging substandard merchandise that it must discount to find buyers. It provides top of the line technology, and there are a dozen countries who would gladly pay top dollar for it. It is the US who decides to whom it will sell, pursuant to its national interests.
They are already paying top dollars for it in the middle east. That is not the concern. The first rule of business is that customer is the king when there are multiple suppliers. Honestly, it is a give and take like buying anything else. If they didnt' sell it to us, there was no dirth of other sellers either.
Again, US is a fifteen trillion dollar economy. It can substitute India's billions from a dozen countries around the world. The US doesn't need India. India needs US technology.
I think you need to understand the concept of business development. In order to induce the willingness to buy anything, even a multi-billion dollar firm like Samsung goes into rural villages of India to sell their phones.
Now make that concept a thousand times more critical by adding strategic elements, job creation, politics and international interests to it.
The game is pretty big.
These technologies are NOT open to all countries; only a select few.
I agree. But the reason US saw us in that light was because our interests coincide.
See, you need to understand; we are not getting these systems in handouts and free to pursue their economic interests. They are selling it to us and we are buying them with our money. It is a simple give and take deal like France-India, Korea-India, Israel-India etc relationship.
We are a stable country who has a strong democratic institution (though there could be some changes made to it but still), a mature government structure and a rational population that is aspiring to be a part of the global citizenry. That's why they opened up to us.
You need to see that everything is not a zero sum game. Even in cold war, it was not the case.
But opening good relations doesn't mean ignoring all problems
We all know the reality of what India is up to behind the diplomatic cover in Afghanistan, nor do we expect India to acknowledge it.
Our interest is to ensure an India-friendly government in Afghanistan. Now an India-friendly nation doesn't automatically mean anti-Pakistani.
That we leave upto you as to what you make of it.
There were several rounds of exemptions and not every country got exempted every time.
U.S. exempts India, not China, from Iran sanctions| Reuters
We have an oil issue. We have to import oil from whatever sources we get. Why? Because we produce only a third of what we actually need for domestic consumption.
Saudi can't fullfill are their needs because of their commitments which will shoot up oil prices needlessly.
Oil and gas has only started emerging in Vietnam with ONGC involved which means it will take some time to get a regular supply from there.
We import Russian oil but there is no robust regular structure which we expect to be complete by 2020.
So who will provide us? US?
That is the simple reason.
You must understand that US doesn't see us as an enemy.
It wants to mould our country into the way they themselves think but that is something we cannot agree.
Very much so.
It was the US which elevated India into the Asia-Pacific group of countries aligned against China. In particular, it was the US sponsorship of India which propelled it to a major role with Japan and Australia. India has had relations with these countries for decades, but the recent upsurge in strategic ties just happens to coincide with the US pivot to Asia?
Again, it is mutual interest. Define anti-China.
There is NO ALLIANCE in which we are there.
If tomorrow Japan and Australia join hands to invade China hypothetically, we are not obliged to join in. If US-Australia-Japan decide to 'settle this out' with China, we won't be taking either side. So how is it an alliance?
How is developing cordial wargames with other countries anti-China? Just because there are issues between China and Japan?
It is like saying US-India wargames are done to threaten Pakistan.
It has nothing to do with Pakistan. Just our own skill improvement and confidence building measures.