White House national security adviser Jake Sullivan on Wednesday said US President Joe Biden is expected to bring up US concerns about democratic backsliding in India, but he will not lecture Prime Minister Narendra Modi on the subject.
Biden welcomed Modi for two days of talks that the White House sees as bolstering "one of the defining partnerships of our age," despite ongoing US concerns about human rights in India, said Reuters in its report.
It said US wants “India to be a strategic counterweight to China while PM Modi is seeking to raise the influence that his country, now the world's most populous, has on the world stage.”
It said Joe Biden and PM Modi are expected to announce a variety of agreements related to defense cooperation and sales, artificial intelligence, quantum computing and investments in India by Micron Technology and other US companies.
When the US sees challenges to press, religious or other freedoms, "we make our views known," Sullivan was quoted in the report as having said.
He as per the report added: "We do so in a way where we don't seek to lecture or assert that we don't have challenges ourselves."
"Ultimately, the question of where politics and the question of democratic institutions go in India is going to be determined within India by Indians. It's not going to be determined by the United States," Sullivan said, the report mentioned.
“Modi has been to the United States five times since becoming prime minister in 2014, but the trip will be his first with the full diplomatic status of a state visit, despite concerns in the US over human rights,” it mentioned.
Biden is under pressure by his fellow democrats to bring up human rights with PM Modi.
PM Modi is being warmly greeted by US CEOs, including at a Friday reception. On Tuesday, he met with Tesla's Elon Musk in New York.
Both Joe Biden and PM Modi are grappling with Bejiing's flexing its muscle in the Indo-Pacific region and beyond.
PM Modi will visit the National Science Foundation with first lady Jill Biden on Wednesday and have a private dinner with the president Wednesday night at the White House.
Earlier, a group of American lawmakers on Tuesday wrote to US President Joe Biden, asking him to raise directly with PM Modi "areas of concern" including human rights.
