British Prime Minister Boris Johnson yesterday arrived in India touting job-creating investment, but facing long odds to get his reluctant counterpart, Narendra Modi, to back Western action against Russia.
Johnson arrived in Gujarat — Modi’s home state and the ancestral home to half of the UK’s British Indians — where he was meeting business leaders and taking a cultural tour of the historic city of Ahmedabad.
He is to leave today for New Delhi to meet Modi, providing him some respite from the “partygate” controversy over his criminal violation of COVID-19 pandemic lockdown rules.
Photo: AP
Johnson likely missed a parliamentary vote yesterday into whether he deliberately misled the House of Commons in previously denying any Downing Street rule-breaking.
The India trip has been twice postponed because of COVID-19 flare-ups in each country, and was briefly in doubt again this week when the vote was announced, with opposition leaders insisting Johnson stand down.
However, UK sources said it was seen as too important to put off again. Downing Street said it would seal more than US$1.3 billion in two-way investment deals, creating almost 11,000 jobs in Britain.
“What we’re focusing on today is the incredible opportunities to deepen this partnership,” Johnson told reporters while visiting a factory in Gujarat.
Downing Street said the visit would yield new partnerships on defense, artificial intelligence and green energy, along with investment deals in areas including robotics, electric vehicles and satellite launches.
However, London acknowledged that it is some way off clinching a post-Brexit trade deal with Modi’s government, which wants more visas for Indians to work or study in the UK.
Meanwhile, India has refused to openly condemn Moscow for its invasion of Ukraine, reliant as it is on Russian imports of energy, agricultural goods and military hardware.
“India and Russia have historically a very different relationship, perhaps than Russia and the UK have had over the last couple of decades,” Johnson said. “We have to reflect that reality, but clearly I’ll be talking about it to Narendra Modi.”
Johnson is to tout the benefits of India moving more quickly toward renewables — a pertinent strategic issue as countries attempt to pivot away from Russian energy.
“Both our countries are excessively reliant on foreign hydrocarbons, and we need to move away from that together,” Johnson said. “One of the things that we’re talking about is what we can do to build partnerships on hydrogen, on electric vehicles, on offshore wind, on all the ways that you can reduce the cost of energy for people with green technology.”
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