Lexington |Joe Biden's passage to India

摘要

As AN INDISPENSABLE fan of George W. Bush's approach to India, Joe Biden, the then chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, said his "dream" was that by "2020 the two closest nations in the world will be India and United States." For much of the intervening time they have looked more like two English-speaking nations separated by a strategic partnership.Mr Bush's approach to India, which involved bringing its nuclear industry into the global fold, among other opportunities for co-operation, was based on its future potential to balance China, not its feebler present. Yet he often seemed to confuse the two. "The classic opportunity for our American farmers and entrepreneurs and small businesses...is there is a 30om-person market of middle-class citizens here in India!" he marvelled. It is a sentence that, 16 years on, still exaggerates the number of Indian consumers and their government's willingness to let foreign firms near them.