Indian Minister of External Affairs Subrahmanyam Jaishankar rejected US President Joe Biden’s comment that “xenophobia” was hobbling economic growth in India and Japan, the Economic Times reported yesterday, while Tokyo called the characterization “unfortunate” and misguided.
Jaishankar said at a round table hosted by the newspaper on Friday that India’s economy “is not faltering” and that it has historically been a society that is very open.
“That’s why we have the CAA [Citizenship (Amendment) Act], which is to open up doors for people who are in trouble... I think we should be open to people who have the need to come to India, who have a claim to come to India,” Jaishankar said, referring to the 2019 law that allows immigrants who have fled persecution from neighboring countries to become citizens.
Photo: EPA-EFE
Biden on Wednesday lumped together allies Japan and India with rivals China and Russia, saying that the four economic powers were struggling because of their unwillingness to accept immigrants.
“Why is China stalling so badly economically? Why is Japan in trouble? Why is Russia in trouble? And India? Because they’re xenophobic. They don’t want immigrants,” the US president said.
“One of the reasons why our economy’s growing is because of you and many others. Why? Because we welcome immigrants,” Biden said at a fundraising event for his re-election campaign and marking the start of Asian American, Native Hawaiian and Pacific Islander Heritage Month.
Tokyo yesterday said in a statement it was “unfortunate that comments not based on an accurate understanding of Japan’s policy were made.”
The Japanese government had already delivered this message to the White House and explained once again about its policies and stances, it added.
Biden’s remarks came less than a month after he hosted a lavish state dinner for Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida in a rare gesture of high-level diplomacy.
The 81-year-old Democrat’s unexpected digs at Japan soon prompted the White House to tone them down.
The president was merely trying to send a broader message that “the United States is a nation of immigrants,” US National Security Council spokesman John Kirby told reporters.
Tokyo said the clarification had not been lost.
“We’re aware of the US government’s explanation that the comments in question weren’t made for the purpose of harming the importance and perpetuity of the Japan-US relationships,” its statement said.
Former Nicaraguan president Violeta Chamorro, who brought peace to Nicaragua after years of war and was the first woman elected president in the Americas, died on Saturday at the age of 95, her family said. Chamorro, who ruled the poor Central American country from 1990 to 1997, “died in peace, surrounded by the affection and love of her children,” said a statement issued by her four children. As president, Chamorro ended a civil war that had raged for much of the 1980s as US-backed rebels known as the “Contras” fought the leftist Sandinista government. That conflict made Nicaragua one of
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