Himalaya Harbinger, Rudrapur Bureau
As External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar heads to the US to attend the inauguration of US President Donald Trump on January 20, a meeting of the Foreign Ministers of the Quad grouping is likely to take place in Washington DC.
This could mark the first meeting of the Quad foreign ministers — from US, Japan, Australia and India — under the Trump 2.0 administration and is expected to take place on January 21.
Ministry of External Affairs official spokesperson Randhir Jaiswal said that the four ministers are expected to be at the inauguration.
Japanese Foreign minister Takeshi Iwaya; Australian Foreign Minister Penny Wong; and Jaishankar will have the opportunity to meet US Secretary of State nominee Marco Rubio on the sidelines of the inauguration.
Rubio is known to be a China hawk, and in July last year, he had introduced a Bill proposing that India be treated similarly to allies like Japan, Israel, South Korea and NATO partners in terms of technology transfers.
Significantly, in the recently released regulatory framework on the export of AI software by the Biden administration, India doesn’t figure in the first category of 18 US allies which have no restrictions. India is in Tier 2 with the vast majority which will face a limit on how much computing power they can import from US firms if they can host it in trusted environments.
Rubio’s Bill had aimed to support India in addressing threats to its territorial integrity and seeks to block security assistance to Pakistan if it is found to sponsor terrorism against India.
Rubio had said China continues to aggressively expand its domain in the Indo-Pacific region and seeks to impede the sovereignty and autonomy of US regional partners.
In September 2014, during Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s visit to Washington DC, Rubio had written an op-ed and had faulted the Barack Obama administration for neglecting Indo-US ties.
Indian officials and outgoing Joe Biden administration officials have been in touch with the Trump team, including Marco Rubio’s, about continuing the initiatives between India and US. This includes the Initiative for Critical and Emerging Technologies (iCET).
