India, US are committed to rule of law unlike China, say US Senators

Senator John Cornyn on Wednesday said that the United States and India relationship will grow as both countries, unlike China, are committed to the rule of law which gives confidence to business and investors.

Speaking in a virtual interaction on the theme "U.S. and India: Post Election Perspectives", US Senator Mark Warner said that China follows the policy of authoritarian capitalism as it allows "ferocious domestic competition until the national champion arises" and then the champion is backed by the government in the world market.

"I think what we have seen is that China has this model where they allow ferocious domestic competition until the national champion arises on Huawei. That national champion then gets 75 per cent of the Chinese domestic market, and that translates into 20 per cent of the global market. And then the Chinese government would back that national champion with, in the case of Huawei 100 billion dollars," Warner said.

He further said, "There is no American or Indian company, alone, that can compete with that. I think what I have seen is a growing consensus, both from Indian government representatives and particularly from Indian Americans that maybe a decade ago India wanted to kind of skirt, not being on the China side or on the American side. But I think echoing what Senator Cornyn said we both are nations that operate under the rule of law."

Reiterating the strong India-US relations, Senator Cornyn said, "We have a large diaspora of Indian Americans in Texas. This is really how I got involved and, of course, through the Indo-American chambers in places like Dallas... We have earned a lot, and also learned about the incredible potential of the enhanced relationship between our two countries."

He further said that China doesn't play by the rules as India does. "Both the US and India are committed to rule of law, which gives confidence to business and investors. To me, that's one of the greatest strengths of the US-India relationship. The Anglo jurisprudential heritage of both of our countries, and observing the rule of law and playing by the rules --in my opinion give greater predictability and competence to job creators and investors, and, I think, this is one reason why we are continuing to grow closer and closer together," he added.

Another speaker in the discussion, former US Ambassador to India Richard Verma recalled the talks held between Prime Minister Narendra Modi and President-elect Joe Biden.

"You may have seen that Prime Minister Modi had a good call with President-Elect Biden. They talked about building out the strategic partnership, vaccine development, COVID-19 and climate change," he said.

To this, Warner said, "I think both India and the United States need to rethink the supply chain. I think the US should rejoin some of these international efforts. I think we need to be like the trillion-dollar effort led by the European Union on vaccine distribution. The recent news on vaccination is very positive. But we need to have an international distribution system."

On the US-India defense relationship, Cornyn said amid China's continuous threat in the international waters the countries (QUAD) need to support each other.

"Yesterday (on Tuesday), I was talking to Indian Ambassador to USA Taranjit Singh Sandhu about this. While America has friends like India, China does not have many friends. I think we need to recognise the strength of friendship among ourselves like through the recent military exercises that were never undertaken," he said.

He further said, "It's obvious that China is not going to stop to threaten freedom of navigation and international sea lanes and jeopardise trade the economy of countries like India and the world. Hence, we have to continue to support one another."

(ANI)

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