Outgoing US National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan will visit India on January 5 and 6 to meet his counterpart Ajit K Doval and other top government officials for a final round of talks with them on a wide range of bilateral, regional, and global issues and to finalize some ongoing initiatives that were important priorities for them to wrap up, the White House said on Friday.
Sullivan, 48, would also be delivering a major India-centric foreign policy speech at IIT, New Delhi during his last trip to India before leaving office when President Joe Bident appointed him as the youngest national security advisor on January 20, 2021.
Congressman Michael Waltz would take over on January 20 when Donald J Trump would be sworn in as the 47th President of the United States.
The primary objective there will be to have a capstone engagement and dialogue with his counterpart, National Security Advisor Ajit Doval, said a senior administration official during a conference call with reporters Friday afternoon.
It will cover a range of issues across the breadth of our partnership, but with a specific focus on the strategic technology cooperation that we have had across a range of domains, from defense to space to artificial intelligence, the official added.
The two national security advisors during this engagement will take stock of the progress we have made over the last four years, which has been a historic and transformative period in this relationship as well, and continue to finalize some ongoing initiatives that were important priorities for us to wrap up to continue our technology cooperation through the end of the administration and identify new opportunities that we hope with an upcoming team, will continue to take forward," said the official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity.
From the views of the Biden administration, the US-Indian relationship has not only been one of the bright points and a real foreign policy prairie and area of legacy achievement for the Biden administration, but it is also a relationship where they have seen continued bipartisan support and momentum from administration to administration in the United States, said the official.
Sullivan will be addressing IIT Delhi, where he will stress how India is at the heart not only of US priorities in Indo Pacific but around the globe. "We view this as a partnership which is actually pretty impervious to big swings in the Republican and Democratic parties in United States but has had really sustained basis of support that we expect to continue moving forward," said the official.
During his visit, he will also meet External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar, apart from other Indian leaders. The US delegation led by Sullivan will also have other members from other government departments.
"While we are there, we will have the opportunity to meet with business leaders as well as young entrepreneurs in India, and really emphasize how much the progress that we have made in this relationship under the Biden administration is not only due to the work that has been done at a GOV to Gov level, but I think increasingly, due to the fantastic and strong relationships that exist at the people-to-people level, at company-to-company level, between the United States and India," said the official.
Overall, the message that we intend to leave with at the end of this trip is one of real gratitude for the friendship and the close partnership that President Biden and Prime Minister Modi have enjoyed over the last four years, but also one of tremendous optimism because we see a lot of opportunity in the future for the things that we have started with over the last four years, whether that is commercial space cooperation, looking at opportunities in the future for civil nuclear cooperation, more cooperation on green energy technology.".
"We think all of these are poised, really, for exponential growth in the future. We are really proud that the Biden administration has put down such a solid foundation and made further growth possible," the official said.
A second senior administration official told reporters that for this particular trip, Sullivan will be taking up several issues.
First, building civil nuclear partnership with a focus on how they might advance cooperation over small modular reactor technology and other aspects of civil nuclear cooperation.
Then, the focus on overcapacity in People's Republic of China, whether regarding legacy chips or biopharma supply chains; and, naturally, alignment in strategies over risks and cyber-focussed measures to protect that technology, which might involve not just connected vehicles but the very recently announced probe into Chinese-made drones.
Third, discussions about AI and national security after finalizing their own national security memorandum on AI and other regulations.
Fourth, new commercial space cooperation as the US finalized its amendments to its Missile Technology Control Regime for licensing policies.
Fifth, unlocking funding for US-India R&D partnerships under the university-based local challenges institute, according to the second official.
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