The US National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan’s visit to India — the last of his foreign visits as the top official of President Joe Biden’s security establishment — highlights three important features of the bilateral relationship. First is the expansive commitment of the Biden Administration — including the special contribution of Sullivan and his team at the White House — to take the relationship with India to a higher level and the determination to prevent unanticipated crises from derailing the India-US strategic partnership.

Second, is the special effort by the Biden Administration to deepen advanced technology cooperation between the two nations. The Biden Administration has gone beyond the phase of government-to-government engagement on tech issues and launched a new era of techno-industrial collaboration in sectors like AI, semiconductors, space, and biotechnology that are set to dominate the global economy this decade and beyond. This has involved drawing in industry, start-ups and research communities from both sides.

The policy instrument for this has been the initiative on Critical and Emerging Technologies (iCET) that was unveiled by Sullivan and the Indian National Security Adviser, Ajit Doval, in January 2023. The iCET has involved massive and detailed negotiations on a range of complicated issues and several difficult bureaucracies in Delhi and Washington. It will endure as an important legacy of the Biden years for India-US relations.

The iCET is at the very heart of Biden’s larger strategy. It seeks to rearrange the global economy by derisking from the massive dependence on China that emerged over the last four decades, build new technology partnerships with allies and partners, and create a structure of regional balance of power in the Indo-Pacific that will limit the Chinese dominance in Asia and its........

© Indian Express