The Biden Administration Pursues Last-Minute Diplomacy With India

Welcome to Foreign Policy’s South Asia Brief.

The highlights this week: U.S. National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan makes an eleventh-hour trip to India, Pakistan’s government begins talks to resolve tensions with the beleaguered opposition party, and Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s resignation could create an opportunity for rapprochement with India.

Jake Sullivan Visits New Delhi

U.S. National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan met his Indian counterpart, Ajit Doval, Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi, and other top officials in New Delhi on Jan. 6. Sullivan’s visit came on the heels of Indian External Affairs Minister S. Jaishankar’s trip to the United States last December, which featured meetings with senior officials and lawmakers.

This flurry of high-level diplomacy at the tail end of U.S. President Joe Biden’s term highlights the depth of the U.S.-India partnership—as well as some shakiness as U.S. President-elect Donald Trump prepares to take office for a second time.

By visiting India just two weeks before the end of the Biden era, Sullivan sent a strong message. In a speech at the Indian Institute of Technology Delhi, Sullivan said that this overseas trip marked his last as national security advisor. “I cannot think of a better way to end my tenure in the White House—visiting India … to mark the advances we have made together,” he said, mentioning achievements in defense and technology cooperation.

Sullivan also announced that obstacles preventing the full implementation of a 2008 civil nuclear agreement—long envisioned as a cornerstone of U.S.-India cooperation—will soon be removed. There is strong bipartisan support in Washington for partnership with India, especially because of its envisioned role helping the United States counter China. Trump will undoubtedly support this position.

Still, Sullivan’s trip also hinted at possible concerns about momentum in the relationship amid the U.S. leadership transition. The visit can be read in part as an effort to foolproof what both sides regard as a signature achievement of bilateral cooperation during the Biden era: the U.S.-India Initiative on Critical and Emerging Technology (iCET), which was a major focus of Sullivan’s meetings in New Delhi.

The initiative has inspired collaborations on defense, space, and artificial intelligence. Significantly, iCET is led by both countries’ national security advisors, which reduces the risk of it getting bogged down by bureaucracy. But this advantage could become a vulnerability with a leadership change.

Trump will support technology collaborations with India, especially if they relate to countering China. But he has previously taken a hard line on export controls and threatened to impose tariffs on India—both of which could constrain tech cooperation. Sullivan’s discussions in India likely touched on how to ensure that iCET can withstand any resistance from the next administration.

Likewise, Jaishankar probably used his meeting with Rep. Mike Waltz, Trump’s pick for national security advisor, to reinforce the importance of iCET. The initiative may not be the only Biden-era achievement that Washington and New Delhi are looking to safeguard: Sullivan said that he was in touch with Trump’s team about the India-Middle East-Europe Economic Corridor, a connectivity initiative that was announced in 2023.

Finally, both Sullivan and Jaishankar’s visits probably focused on one of the biggest tension points between the United States and India: the U.S. Justice Department case against an Indian national accused of a failed assassination plot against a Sikh activist and U.S. citizen in New York on behalf of New Delhi.

The White House has sought India’s cooperation in the U.S. investigation through India’s own inquiry committee; Sullivan has reportedly been a lead interlocutor. The issue likely figured into many of his engagements in New Delhi and his meeting with Jaishankar in Washington.

The U.S.-India relationship will have a relatively easy transition to Trump’s second term, thanks to the many areas of cooperation publicly celebrated during the Jaishankar and Sullivan visits. But that heady rhetoric hides the hard work that remains. Eleventh-hour diplomacy is likely intended to help ease the burden.

What We’re Following

Opposition negotiations underway in Pakistan. Pakistani officials have begun talks with leaders from jailed former Prime Minister Imran Khan’s Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) party after months of tensions and government crackdowns on the party and its supporters. Khan has been in jail since August 2023 on charges that his supporters denounce as politically motivated.

The decision to hold talks is encouraging: There has been little dialogue between the two sides since Khan was ousted in a parliamentary no-confidence vote in 2022. Violent protests targeting military facilities after his arrest in 2023, an election last year criticized for irregularities, a crackdown against PTI protesters in November, and military court convictions of political protesters in December have further inflamed the political environment.

Khan likely agreed to talks because the PTI is in a tough spot. The November protests in Islamabad achieved little, and divides are growing among the party leaders who are not in jail. But the discussions have made little progress so far.

The PTI’s main demands are that its supporters be released from jail and for independent investigations into the 2023 protests targeting military facilities (which the PTI says that it was not involved with) and the November crackdown in Islamabad. The party has also called for “unfettered” access to Khan to discuss its negotiating strategy.

Of course, its most important demand is the release of Khan. Pakistan’s military leadership may be open in principle to a deal that would free him. But it would likely condition such a move on Khan going into exile or pledging to stay quiet—neither of which he would agree to. Ideally, each side would make a gesture of good will to provide a more conducive environment for talks, but in the current climate, that might be asking for too much.

India-Canada rapprochement? Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s impending resignation may clear a path for New Delhi to ease deep tensions with Ottawa. Relations are in deep crisis over Canadian allegations that the Indian government is sponsoring campaigns against Sikh separatists in Canada, including a 2023 assassination in British Columbia.

Meanwhile, India contends that Canada is coddling extremists who call for the establishment of a Sikh state in India known as Khalistan. Indian officials view Sikh separatists as dangerous terrorists. New Delhi has singled out Trudeau for the diplomatic crisis—its only major tensions with a Western state—and accuses him of appealing to Sikh separatists for political reasons.

Trudeau’s departure certainly isn’t guaranteed to stabilize the free-falling relationship with India. Canada’s investigations will continue under the next prime minister, which could bring fresh public allegations against India to light. And domestic political factors in Canada—including powerful Sikh constituencies—suggests that Trudeau-era policies won’t necessarily change.

Canadian opposition leader Pierre Poilievre, who may become the next prime minister, has criticized the rhetoric and actions of Sikh separatists in Canada—but some Indian commentators say that he hasn’t gone far enough. Still, the leadership transition provides an opportunity for a fresh start for New Delhi.

Tibet earthquake felt in South Asia. A massive earthquake that struck Tibet on Jan. 7 affected a few South Asian states. The epicenter was near the border with Nepal, and Kathmandu residents reported shaking in their homes. Tremors were also felt in Bhutan and the northern Indian state of Bihar.

Despite some injuries and property damage, no deaths were reported in Nepal, Bhutan, or India. But the earthquake was an unsettling reminder of how vulnerable these parts of South Asia are to temblors along the Indian and Eurasian tectonic plates. One of the most destructive of these seismic activities in recent years was the 2015 Nepal earthquake that killed around 9,000 people.

Under the Radar

On Jan. 7, former Bangladeshi Prime Minister Khaleda Zia flew out of Dhaka on an air ambulance sent by the Qatari government. After a brief stopover in Doha, she arrived in London the next day for immediate medical treatment.

Zia, the 79-year-old ailing leader of the Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP), suffers from liver disease and other chronic ailments. Her personal physician said this week that she may need a liver transplant, noting that she might travel to the Johns Hopkins Hospital in the United States for additional treatment.

The BNP is the main rival of the Awami League—the party of former Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina, who fled Bangladesh amid mass protests last August. Zia spent time in detention on corruption charges during the latter part of the Hasina era, and her condition may have worsened after her time in prison.

Zia’s health also might have raised succession questions. The BNP, like the Awami League, has long been run by a family dynasty. It was founded by Zia’s late husband, Ziaur Rahman, who served as president from 1977 until his assassination in 1981. Zia assumed leadership of the party soon afterward. In recent years, her son Tarique Rahman, who is based in London, has taken on a greater role in the party.

At the same time, a few senior BNP leaders based in Bangladesh, led by secretary-general Mirza Fakhrul Islam Alamgir, have also exerted more authority. The succession plan might take on more urgency when Bangladesh’s interim government, which has no formal BNP representation, announces a timeframe for elections. The BNP has called for polls to take place soon, and they would be favored to win.

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Regional Voices

A Dawn editorial expresses cautious optimism about a new peace accord intended to end years of violence in the northwestern Pakistani region of Kurram, but it warns that it shouldn’t be taken for granted: “The recently concluded peace deal offers a roadmap to lasting calm, but it can only work if the state has the will to enforce it, and the local tribes agree to abide by all its points.”

In the Kathmandu Post, journalist Dinesh Kafle laments the loss of Sachin Pariyar, a 15-year-old Nepalese singer who died last week after a long illness: “No child should die thinking that their utility in this world is over because their growth is stunted and they cannot earn for others anymore,” Kafle writes. “Let’s mourn young Sachin’s passing as the death of our collective conscience as a society.”

An editorial in the Hindu decries the apparent resurgence of Maoist militants, known as Naxalites, in central India but warns against militarized responses: “As tempting as it is to wipe out the Maoist movement through military means … it is still prudent to use civil society actors to work out a ceasefire agreement and utilize it to end the conflict.”