The Discourse of the United States in the Face of Xenophobia: Japan and India

In the midst of prevailing political and security uncertainty in the international system, Joe Biden, the current President of the United States and candidate for re-election, stated during a rally addressed to Asian Americans that China and Russia, the main rivals of the US, are economically stagnant because they are “xenophobic.”

From past administrations, China and Russia have been harshly criticized for promoting anti-democratic values. However, what has caught the attention of the international community is Joe Biden's statement about two of his main allies; Japan and India, classifying them in the same category as “xenophobic states.”

This has been surprising to many since the beginning of his administration, the President of the United States emphasized the importance of strengthening relations with both Japan and India, leading to various meetings with his counterparts, Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida and Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi.

However, Biden argues that this is an argument based on the Indian and Japanese rejection of the massive waves of migrants seeking asylum. In his statement, the President of the United States points out that the main support of economies is migrants, as they play an important role in the solidification of economies.

Xenophobia in Asia: The Cases of Japan and India

According to the International Monetary Fund, Japan, one of the promising economies of the East, currently shows economic growth of 0.9% compared to 2.7% in the United States. However, of all the G-7 members, Japan is the nation with the lowest levels of migration, with 2% of its population composed of immigrants compared to 14% in the United States. A multicultural difference between the two nations, but it does not qualify Japan as a politically xenophobic state.

In recent years, Japan has been opening its doors to migrants to compensate for its rapidly aging population. Although national sources from years ago reflected that 30% of foreigners surveyed by the government claimed to have been subjected to discriminatory comments by the Japanese population, a survey by the Asahi newspaper indicates that today, 62% of Japanese agree to admit more workers from other countries. The promotion of more comprehensive education on human rights for the Japanese, as well as the reformulation of their external migration policy, has positioned Japan as one of the Asian nations that receive immigrants unconditionally.

On the other hand, India, currently the most populous country in the world with 1,449,830,616 inhabitants, has implemented its New Citizenship Law, a criticized initiative that seeks to naturalize non-Muslim people from Afghanistan, Bangladesh, and Pakistan. While this initiative represents an opportunity for migrants from South Asia to be granted asylum, it is a discriminatory law in religious and human rights terms, a legal and constitutional mechanism that prioritizes and grants exclusive access to Hindu, Sikh, and Christian migrants, thus fostering Indian confessionalism.

Religious and identity radicalism in India dates back to the British Raj (1858-1947), which has been accentuated since the partition with its neighbor Pakistan in 1947, with whom it is currently in an arms race. The implementation of restrictive migration policies by India is not denied, but it should be remembered that the United States itself, a promoter of democracy and universal values in favor of human rights, has fallen into collective xenophobia at various times in its history, and that the statement made by the current President Joe Biden as part of his re-election campaign, which sought to sympathize with the migrant community in North America, has partly ignored what his strong relationship with two of his most valuable allies in Asia means.

Japan and India: Strategic Alliances, Eastern Actors

Since the end of World War II, Japan and the United States have solidified their relations through political, scientific, and mainly commercial cooperation.

The transition of Japan from an empire to a democratic state after the Allied occupation between 1945 and 1952 has favored its rapprochement with the United States as well as its presence in the international sphere, thus becoming one of the most solid Eastern economies in the modern era. On the other hand, the success of the relationship is attributed to the Japanese demilitarization by the United States, a series of reforms to the Japanese constitution that prevented the state from using its armed force. This not only reduced the effect of uncertainty in terms of security for the United States but also marked the occurrence of a deep economic-military relationship, which was formalized with the signing of the Treaty of Mutual Cooperation and Security in 1951, a geopolitical strategy to halt the growing communism in China and curb the Soviet presence in Asia as part of the well-known US containment policies during the Cold War.

Something similar happened with India, a nation that underwent political evolution as a result of the English occupation of its territory. The effects of the famous British Raj had some advantages that shaped India's future, especially in political and modernization terms for the country. The subsequent Democratic Republic was characterized by the adoption of nuclear weapons development as the guiding principle of Indian foreign policy in peaceful terms, a precept influenced by the principle of Peaceful Coexistence adopted after the Bandung Conference in Indonesia (1955).

The emergence of a nuclear-armed nation in the East caught the attention of the United States, with which it currently maintains a series of agreements, such as the Indo-US nuclear treaty, a civil nuclear agreement that has strengthened strategic energy and nuclear cooperation between both nations, positioning India as one of the key allies of the United States.

Both Japan and India share common political values with the United States. The latter sees them as invaluable allies due to their strategic locations in Asia, as both India and Japan have witnessed the abrupt political, economic, and nuclear growth of China, challenging the balance of power and reducing Japan's space to be a regional economic power and India's to be a continental hegemon.

However, while the United States sees in India and Japan a great opportunity to promote democracy in the East and curb Chinese expansionism in the region and internationally as active members of the Quad Security Grouping, it should be remembered that at the end of the day, both countries are Eastern, and despite sharing political ideals with the United States, the vision of democracy is different because it is a social construction originating from the West.

The United States is not wrong in the statement made towards India, as its migration policies have proven to be increasingly discriminatory. However, the categorizations it makes towards two of its key allies in the Eastern region show to be partly divisive between the Western and Eastern worlds, given the application of restrictive migration policies by various European Union countries that largely violate human rights, such as the controversial refugee policy between the United Kingdom and Rwanda, a contradictory classification when it comes to distinguishing the East from the West.