On May 24, US President Joe Biden convened the leaders of Japan, India and Australia to hold a Quad Security Dialogue (Quad) summit in Tokyo. India's Asia International News (ANI) quoted a senior Indian official as saying that in a closed-door meeting with Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi on the same day, Biden praised the Indian government for successfully responding to the new crown epidemic in a "democratic way".
At the talks, Biden also called India's success "shattering the myth that countries like China and Russia can better respond to changes in the world," the official said, comparing it to "China's failure to respond to the epidemic."
As of now, the cumulative number of confirmed cases of COVID-19 in the United States and India ranks first and second in the world, respectively.
Screenshot of the Indian media report
Biden's trip to Asia is in its fourth day. On the second stop, Japan, in addition to holding a head of state meeting with the Japanese prime minister and launching the "Indo-Pacific Economic Framework", Biden will also hold a "Quadrilateral Security Dialogue" summit with the leaders of Japan, India and Australia.
The leaders of the four countries declared that they would work together to create a so-called "free and open Indo-Pacific" and take steps to address climate change and China's growing military and economic clout. Japanese media expect the joint statement to emphasize "addressing the challenges to the 'rules-based maritime order'" and "the importance of abiding by international law" to curb so-called "China's maritime expansion."
On the same day, Biden also held closed-door meetings with Australian and Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi.
According to India's Asia International News (ANI), a senior Indian official revealed that during the closed-door meeting, Biden highly praised the Modi government's success in fighting the epidemic because China and India are of equal size and compared it to "China's failure to successfully respond to the epidemic".
Biden added that India's success shows the world what a "democracy" can achieve and shatters "the myth that countries like China and Russia can better cope with a rapidly changing world because their leadership can make and implement decisions without going through a long 'democratic' process."
According to the official, Biden's remarks appear to have been improvised because he specifically inserted them before reading the speech.
Biden and Modi held a closed-door meeting with a screenshot of the tweet
In addition, Biden's praise for the epidemic in India did not appear in the press release released on the White House website on the 24th. In the case of the outbreak, the White House press release only mentioned the "Vaccine Action Plan" that the United States and India are updating. According to reports, the plan is used to discover, develop and manufacture India's first indigenous low-cost vaccine to deal with rotavirus and THE NEW CROWN epidemic.
Biden also pledged to deepen the defense partnership between the two countries, encourage economic engagement between the two countries, and expand partnerships on global climate health, outbreak preparedness, and critical and emerging technologies. The two sides reaffirmed their commitment to working together to build a more "prosperous, free, interconnected and secure" world.
Biden announced the launch of the U.S.-India Critical and Emerging Technologies Initiative (iCET), led by the national security councils of both countries, and that the U.S. plans to join India's six technology innovation centers. In addition, India will join the Bahrain Joint Maritime Force (CMF) as an associate member.
Biden also condemned Russia's "unjustifiable war" against Ukraine, which Modi did not say anything about, promising only to continue to provide humanitarian aid to Ukraine and how to deal with the global impact of the war. "Biden talked about the Russian-Ukrainian conflict, and Modi did not mention anything about it," CNN wrote on the 24th.
After the outbreak of the Russian-Ukrainian conflict, under the frequent pressure of the United States, Britain and other Western countries, the Indian government insisted on refusing to condemn or sanction Russia, and also bought Russian energy. The latest statistics from S&P Global, an international financial data agency, show that India bought Russian oil in large quantities at a steep discount, becoming the largest international buyer of Russian oil in April.
The United States and India commit to deepening the partnership between the two countries
As of now, the United States and India are the first and second highest cumulative confirmed cases of COVID-19 in the world, respectively. India has the third highest number of COVID-19 deaths in the world, behind the United States and Brazil.
According to the latest data released by the Ministry of Health of India on the 24th, the cumulative number of confirmed cases of new crown pneumonia in India rose to 43140068 cases, with a cumulative death rate of 524,490. On the 23rd, India added 1675 new confirmed cases and 31 new deaths. According to the statistics of Johns Hopkins University in the United States, the cumulative number of infections in the United States has exceeded 83.36 million, and the cumulative number of deaths has exceeded 1 million.
In June last year, the Financial Times published an article saying that the Indian government's response to the epidemic had "undermined" the quadripartite coalition gathered to resist China, and that "India's COVID-19 disaster has also exposed the weakest link in the US-led 'quartet' coalition.".
WHO released estimates in early May that in 2020 and 2021, COVID-19 has caused about 15 million "excess deaths", which is about three times the official statistics of the original countries. Among them, the number of "excess deaths" in India is about 10 times that of the official statistics (4.7 million), accounting for almost a third of the global death toll.
As soon as the data was released, it immediately triggered a strong reaction in India. The Indian government immediately issued a statement opposing it, saying that the India-related data released by the WHO were "statistically unsound and problematic". Indian media have also posted articles questioning the WHO organization's "one-size-fits-all" approach.
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