The Future of US-India Digital Relations

Outgoing U.S. President Donald Trump has prided himself on his deft handling of personal relationships, continuously touting during his administration the power of his negotiating tactics in a room, his win-at-any-cost mentality, and his “very large brain.” 

“I’ve made a lot of deals,” he said in May 2018, when addressing the media alongside South Korean President Moon Jae-in. “I know deals, I think, better than anybody knows deals.”

The bonhomie that marked his meetings with Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi might superficially appear to support Trump’s self-view – the president’s February 2020 visit to New Delhi included, after all, a MAGA-style rally and the two leaders repeatedly hugging and shaking hands. If all one cared about in diplomacy was how politely two leaders addressed each other at press briefing podiums, then perhaps U.S.-India relations satisfied this definition of success.

Yet the reality is that U.S.-India relations during the Trump administration in the digital sphere, once an observer looked below the surface, plainly did not reflect the Trump façade of masterful statecraft (as with many of Washington’s global relationships in the last four years).

The Trump administration had limited success in its campaign to ban Chinese telecom Huawei from India’s 5G infrastructure. It pushed back on proposed data localization rules but perhaps only partly succeeded because of simultaneous lobbying from American firms. And it certainly failed more broadly in building a strong bilateral partnership to address China’s technological rise. 

Even outside the digital sphere, the White House took some notably bad stances in the U.S.-India relationship, especially when Trump praised Modi’s religious tolerance even as months of anti-Muslim rhetoric and policies from Modi and other Indian politicians fed violence in the streets of New Delhi. Mosques were set ablaze, and more than 50 people, most of them Muslims, were attacked and killed in what Indian journalist Rana Ayyub called “the cost of Narendra Modi giving his blessing to bloodshed.” In line with Trump’s playing-the-strongman-attitude, his comments were not just ignorance manifested but deliberate lying about, and excusing, clear ethnonationalist, Islamophobic violence.

The incoming Biden-Harris administration therefore has many challenges and opportunities at hand in the U.S.-India relationship, particularly in the digital sphere. Data localization, internet governance, 5G telecommunications, artificial intelligence norms-development, and supply chain security are key areas where the United States needs to bring a far more comprehensive agenda to the table than that put forward by the Trump administration. The Biden-Harris administration will, of course, have to return meaning to the word “strategy” itself, too.

Modi already expressed a shifting focus onto the elected officials soon to take the helm of American leadership: Shortly after the U.S. media officially reported the election results, Modi was quick to congratulate U.S. President-elect Joe Biden, tweeting on November 7, “Congratulations @JoeBiden on your spectacular victory! As the VP, your contribution to strengthening Indo-US relations was critical and invaluable. I look forward to working closely together once again to take India-US relations to greater heights.” 

But, of course, that was just a tweet. Much remains up in the air with regard to U.S.-India digital relations, which exist inside the broader context of U.S.-India relations on issue areas like trade, democracy, and human rights. Other than nominees at the Cabinet level, many Biden-Harris appointments remain unannounced; so is the incoming administration’s plan for foreign travel and specific policies on specific bilateral issues.

Nonetheless, looking back over the last four years of U.S.-India tech relations underscores that the Biden-Harris administration has the opportunity to break new ground on issues like 5G telecommunications and digital trade. But what the new White House occupant should do, however, is place these opportunities for cooperation in the context of addressing digital repression, understanding simultaneously that not every issue can be tackled in the same way.

Looking Back: Clear Zones of U.S.-India Digital Divergence

There has been much tension in the U.S.-India technology relationship under the respective Trump and Modi administrations. Security questions around Chinese telecommunications giant Huawei are perhaps the most high-profile (though not the most deep-seated) zone of current divergence between the United States and India on digital policy.

5G is poised to revolutionize internet communication by connecting many devices together at once with low communications latency – enabling thousands of internet-connected devices like autonomous vehicles or temperature sensors on a building to be linked into sub-partitioned segments of the same cellular network. Data will flow quickly, constantly, and at great volume, and 5G telecommunications will notably move more computation in the network to the “edge.” Core network functions, like data routing, that are historically tethered to a centralized network “brain” are increasingly getting pushed to edge devices and individual radio towers that compose the network, making 5G networks more software-driven than previous generations.

Huawei, a Chinese telecommunications company, has been a centerpiece of conversation in the geopolitics of 5G, as the firm has become a market leader through a combination of technological innovation; heavy support from the Chinese government, in the form of subsidies and tax breaks, that enable it to significantly undercut competitors; and its ability to sell, as part of one package, the whole 5G technology “stack” from the radio towers broadcasting 5G signals to the smartphones connecting to them. 

On several of these factors – subsidies from Beijing, preferential treatment domestically, incorporation in an authoritarian country – the United States and India could have shared economic and security concerns about Huawei 5G technology and pursued cooperation to counter its permeation. After all, the view goes, the Chinese government might compel Huawei to spy on its behalf or use Huawei equipment to spy or conduct cyber operations abroad; plus, the company has received strong help from the Chinese government, which also continues expanding its Belt and Road Initiative capacity-building campaign. (Huawei dismisses the espionage risks and also denies claims of receiving special help from Beijing.)

Nonetheless, the Trump administration could not convince the Indian government to ban Huawei equipment as it desired. In December 2019, the Indian government allowed Huawei to participate in 5G trials (alongside other firms like Ericsson, Nokia, Samsung, and Cisco). In February 2020, despite all the public theatrics of unity, the Trump administration left New Delhi without persuading Modi to fundamentally shift position. By the fall of 2020, the Indian government was effectively sidelining Huawei domestically – not officially banning the company’s 5G equipment but certainly pushing providers to avoid it – though such actions came after violence on the India-China border and a clear political desire to expel Chinese technology from India; the result was not a pure product of successful U.S.-India diplomatic relations.

Data regulation is another issue on which the United States and India could not agree, and one where disputes have far deeper roots. The latest version of India’s Personal Data Protection Bill was introduced into parliament in December 2019, putting forth what a parliamentary committee report described as a fourth model for data governance – “distinct from the approaches in the US, EU and China” and “not only relevant to India, but to all countries in the Global South which are looking to establish or alter their data protection laws in light of the rapid developments to the digital economy.” Among many other provisions, many of which mirror or echo the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) in the European Union, are those that would require data on Indian citizens to be stored within India’s geographic borders. These “data localization” rules would impose costs on U.S. firms that would have to comply, which explains why the Trump administration and American internet companies pursued a lobbying campaign to have the data localization proposals eliminated from the bill.

At the 2019 G-20 summit in Japan, for instance, Trump said “the United States opposes data localization,” as Google, Facebook, and other companies pushed the same message. It fit into the larger context of U.S. campaigning against perceived digital trade barriers worldwide, with an Indian diplomat even pointing to Missouri U.S. Senator Josh Hawley’s domestic data localization proposal as a sign of hypocrisy. But it also fit into a complex array of domestic forces. As Arindrajit Basu has laid out, Mukesh Ambani of Reliance Industries, the richest person in India, promoted data localization as a pushback against Western “data colonialism.” Meanwhile, Chinese firms that had already built domestic infrastructure “considered data localization as an opportunity to compete in India with Western companies like Amazon that had not done so,” Basu wrote. Some of the lobbying paid off, with data localization requirements narrowed in the latest draft of India’s personal data protection framework, but a strong possibility of data localization by law remains.

Many other issues could be selected, but a third worth mentioning is the fact that Indian officials shut down the internet domestically more than any other country on earth in 2018 and 2019. Countries described as democracies can, in fact, engage in digital repression – and while some of the shutdowns might be considered genuine (albeit harmful) attempts to limit the spread of violence-causing misinformation, many of the shutdowns were outright crackdowns on free information flows and attempts to curtail physical demonstrations. The continued internet shutdown in Kashmir – which officials allow to persist in defiance of international outcry and a Supreme Court order – is a prime demonstration of these digitally enabled rights restrictions. Over the past four years, this internet shutdown problem was not meaningfully addressed by the Trump administration. U.S.-India divergence on these and several other digital issues thus remains pronounced.

Strategizing Ahead: Digital Cooperation Meshed With Confrontation

Looking forward, however, it’s not all that gloomy. Having a new administration in the White House, and a highly competent and functioning one at that, opens the door to new areas of engagement between the United States and India in digital areas like 5G, internet governance, and development of artificial intelligence norms. Yet an effective U.S. strategy for the U.S.-India tech relationship should mesh pursuing cooperation with addressing, head-on, human rights issues in the country; they are messily entangled, but any semblance of democratic technology leadership from the United States should not brush the likes of internet shutdowns aside. All the while, tensions between India and the United States from economic and power-imbalance perspectives are likely to continue limiting the scope of common ground.

On 5G, the United States and India are more aligned now than a year ago. New Delhi’s recent sidelining of Huawei is not a clear product of any kind of improvement in Trump administration diplomacy, but since the president’s visit to India in February, India banned 59 mobile apps from China (TikTok and WeChat included) in June, 118 more in September, and of late has been discouraging Indian companies from using Huawei 5G equipment. This renewed hostility toward Chinese technology has impacted many sectors of the digital market, especially the landscape of cloud computing competition – with American firms already capitalizing on political moves against firms incorporated in China.

The Chinese government-controlled Global Times wrote in September, after the second batch of app bans, that India was being “reckless” and that the second ban “is a double-edged sword which will cause losses to both China and India, while offering a perfect opportunity for the U.S. to take over the market.” But for an incoming U.S. administration that by all indications will continue with a strong position on digital threats from China – though with a real policy process behind it – the latest developments might hand U.S. officials the chance to provoke further conversations about 5G and other supply chain security issues. In particular, the Biden administration could consider coalition-building, with India as a key partner, on policies to mitigate cybersecurity concerns from Chinese tech infrastructure suppliers like Huawei. It will also have to craft a position on historically free-and-open internet countries banning mobile apps.

Internet governance fits into this picture, too. The Biden administration should confront the relatively rampant internet shutdowns in India, particularly harmful and prolonged in Kashmir. Unlike in some countries where the central government calls on internet service providers to implement widespread traffic filtering or even turn off networks altogether, internet shutdowns in India have been enacted on a regional basis. That said, authorities continue strangling online access in Kashmir, curbing residents’ ability to access and share information, run businesses, and use public and private internet services for tasks like bill paying and education. Other times, authorities have turned to regional internet shutdowns in concert, such as when Indian citizens mobilized at the end of 2019 to protest an Islamophobic citizenship bill.

Fixating purely on the digital realm is a mistake; this internet repression exists in a context of broader assaults on democratic norms and institutions. As author Kapil Komireddi put it in the New Statesman, “Though pluralism was long the linchpin of India’s robust democracy, Modi has recast the republic as a Hindu nation. He has bullied critics, silenced dissidents, and suffocated the press into endorsing his sectarian vision for modern India.” Reporters Without Borders’ 2020 press freedom ranking put India at 142, two spots down from its position the year prior. What this means is that potential convergence (e.g., concern over Chinese government security threats) exists alongside this digital repression and democracy-undermining. Both need to be core factors in the U.S. formulation of digital engagement with India. 

There are several policies the Biden administration could pursue on the shutdown issue, whether legal contestations of internet shutdowns as a practice or echoing the resolution in the U.S. Congress urging India to lift its telecommunications restrictions in Kashmir. Not addressing these repressive behaviors is not only wrong but would undercut U.S. credibility on promoting a free and open internet.

Artificial intelligence is another suite of technologies, among many others, where U.S.-India cooperation has potential for substantial global norm-shaping. Between Silicon Valley’s global technology dominance and the large and ever-growing AI space in India, bilateral dialogues on ethics issues around artificial intelligence (plus dialogues among industry, academia, and civil society) could have particular influence. Not to mention, India’s National Strategy for Artificial Intelligence is framed around “#AIForAll” and contains numerous discussions of AI’s impact on inclusion. One possibility for American policymakers, should they pursue this route, is framing AI cooperation as a “counterbalance” of sorts to China — though such an approach risks resorting to the deeply flawed “AI arms race” analogy, and it’s unclear if that positioning vis-à-vis China is optimal from a diplomatic perspective. It’s also possible these dialogues could fit into some of the newly formed democratic coalitions on technology, like the Global Partnership on Artificial Intelligence (of which the U.S. and India are both members).

Yet as with other potential areas of cooperation, U.S.-India AI relations will have their challenges, including the idea of “digital colonialism” that characterizes Silicon Valley’s global dominance in the context of historical and geopolitical exploitation and power imbalances; that India’s draft personal data protection bill institutes many rules around corporate data collection but heavily exempts state authorities from those restrictions; and that the United States is home to plenty of AI-propagated harms driven by, among other things, an unregulated technology sector that doesn’t prioritize harm minimization for the most vulnerable. Washington and New Delhi will not agree on everything AI-related, nor will some of these ideological differences go away. In addition, U.S. and Indian bilateral cooperation on “democratic AI norms” will not be viewed as legitimately as possible without both countries curbing AI-related abuses and harms from both the public and the private sectors. It won’t be easy, but the cooperative opportunities are there.

Conclusion

Speculating how the Biden administration will strategize about these issues is just exactly that – a game of speculation. It’s likely the Biden administration will be more assertive on human rights issues in India (to be certain, it’s a low bar to clear after the Trump administration, but a probable improvement nonetheless). For instance, Aakar Patel, former head of Amnesty International in India, told Al Jazeera that “Biden’s win has come on the back of a Democratic party that has been very supportive of human rights within [the] U.S. and lot of the people who are now rising stars in the party have an interest in the rights situation in India.” How much, though, remains to be seen.

It’s also likely the administration’s foreign policy will heavily focus on China, including in the various national and economic security challenges that Beijing’s technological assertiveness poses to the United States. Again, the specifics of any such policies are presently unknown. At the time of writing, many appointments to both foreign policy- and technology-focused posts have yet to be announced, though in late November Biden announced Antony J. Blinken, a former deputy secretary of state in the Obama administration as his secretary of state pick. 

There are more tech executives than tech academics or tech activists on the Biden administration’s transition team, but again, whether that means anything is unknown – speculation about future administration officials is just that. Also shaping the landscape are myriad other factors, from the U.S. Congress’ partisan rancor on tech regulation to how Beijing will respond to a Biden presidency to all the numerous opinions and players that form the India side of the relationship. The Modi administration, to give a recent example, previously withdrew from discussions over the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP) trade agreement that was just signed on November 15 between 15 Asia Pacific countries, China included. That coalition may very well shape some of these policy topics, such as cross-border data flows.

For now, the best path forward for the United States on U.S.-India tech relations is to enter the new era with a clear-eyed understanding of the damage done to U.S. diplomacy and credibility over the past four years, and the potential to explore cooperation on tech with New Delhi alongside a calculated confrontation on human rights problems. It is in these areas of intersection – where concerns about Beijing’s tech behavior meet U.S.-India battles over data localization; where hypothetical cooperation on democratic internet norms meets the reality of repressive internet shutdowns – where the United States’ handling of the tech relationship could be the most impactful.