Immigrants Over Two Centuries Built America, But Biden Must Know Japan, India, Russia & China Are No Xenophobic Slouches

President George W Bush was famous for his quite often hilarious gaffes, but he has been receiving steady competition from the 81 year-old President Joe Biden. The latest Biden pronouncement may be more by way of a clumsy and ill- informed analogy gone wrong. Luckily for him, his presidential election rival, the almost 78 year-old Donald Trump makes quite a few bloopers too.

Republican contender, former President Donald Trump may be tough on Mexican immigrants with his infamous if not too effective border fence and wall, but Democrat Joe Biden, the incumbent president, is in harmony with the Democratic Party pro-immigration stance. This even in the face of internal advice that he should tough talk on the same border issue.

Of course, hordes of poor and largely illiterate illegal immigrants in 2024 who don’t speak English are not as welcome as they were in the 1870s. In the 19^th century and before, immigrants, largely from Europe, slaves brought in from Africa, and some immigration from China, helped to populate the vast country. They threw out the British colonisers, pushed back the French and Mexicans, subdued the native Red Indians, built the engines of growth, and even fought a civil war amongst themselves.

 Immigrants into the most deliberate ‘melting pot’ that is America, many originally poor and persecuted in their erstwhile home countries, have been a crucial feature of the American DNA. This is what Biden meant, but perhaps he should have stopped right there.

Immigrants into America are known and lauded for their hard work, ingenuity and grit. And Biden was addressing a crowd of mostly Asian Americans.

More recently, the brilliant IIT educated ones from India, its ‘brain drain’ and America’s gain, have been most useful in building America’s pre-eminence in IT, other technology, and commerce. Scores of Indian origin CEOs of marquee companies on the Nasdaq and S& P 100 indices have led to the joke that you can’t be CEO in America if you aren’t Indian. It is a complete makeover of the earlier American image of India as a land of teeming poor, with tigers, snake charmers and fakirs thrown in.

President Joe Biden, keen to distinguish his candidature from that of Donald Trump, decided to praise immigrants at a campaign reception fundraiser. On the campaign trail for Biden 1.0, he had vowed to enact legislation to make the immigration process more ‘humane’ in contrast to President Trump’s mostly intended, but not implemented, harsh measures. This time too, Trump is speaking of deportations.

However, as president, Biden could not make much progress on immigration legislation without bipartisan support, because of surges of illegal immigration at the southern border. And calls, from Republicans certainly, but even from Democrats, to seal the border and crack down on asylum seekers. Some went so far as to call for banning asylum altogether.

 But, the consensus is, at this fundraiser, Biden let his analogies run away with him. Biden said American allies and partners Japan and India are struggling economically ‘because they’re xenophobic’.  He included frenemy China and combatant Russia in the illustration as well.

Japan is opening up to a cautious immigration policy as it grapples with its diminishing and ageing population, and its economy has been showing signs of recovery from a 25 year-long recession. It is keen however not to import terrorism and other social upheavals into its very well-ordered culture.

India is the most populous country in the world, with 65% of its people under the age of 35. It is the fastest growing major economy in the world, with 6-7 percent GDP growth per annum, and harbours, willy nilly, nearly 50 million illegal immigrants, mainly from Bangladesh and Myanmar.

These immigrants have not been rounded up and deported in the main, in order to observe diplomatic niceties with essentially friendly neighbouring countries. However, border defences with both countries have been considerably strengthened of late. Economically, what President Biden said makes little sense. India will grow into the 3^rd largest economy in the world by 2030 or earlier, driven in large part by its domestic economy and burgeoning exports.

Japan is a NATO and QUAD ally. India is a QUAD ally and a crucial partner in America’s quest to contain Chinese geopolitical ambition. Both deserve not to be used in clumsy examples by the US president.

China, the frenemy of the US, is suffering from the difficulties of an ageing population, a consequence of its long-held one-child policy that has now been scrapped. Still, it will take 30 years to achieve a demographic dividend even if more Chinese marry and decide to have children. It is doubtful however how much immigration a communist dictatorship can attract, even if it were to try. Hong Kong, a part of China, is chafing at the bit against all the state controls that have increasingly been imposed on it. Taiwan firmly refuses to merge with mainland China in the face of constant threats, and is running an independent democratic polity. That China is doing badly in its economy is due to multiple reasons and policies of its President Xi Jinping and the CCP, but has little to do with immigration into Red China. Some of the slowdown in the Chinese economy is due to American realignments and reduction in imports.

Historically, China which called itself ‘The Middle Kingdom’ certainly was xenophobic. Likewise, so was Japan, in the days of its Shogunates.  Tsarist Russia, the USSR, and contemporary Russia, were more or less suspicious of foreigners for much of their history. India has had a long tradition of welcoming foreigners, quite often to its detriment. But, it is unlikely that President Biden was taking all this into account when he called this quartet ‘xenophobic’.  

Russia is vast but underpopulated in comparison with its mass, but it is also a relatively small $1 trillion or so economy. It cannot support a surge of immigration. However, in emerging from the erstwhile USSR, Russia is already a mixture of ethnicities from all the territories that comprised it. This, in addition to its essentially Slavic people. It is currently at war with Ukraine, where its opponent is supported by the US led NATO, and the EU, with modern armaments, training, and money.  

Russia has always been close to India and this continues despite India’s neutrality vis a vis the Ukraine war. It is India’s largest supplier of petroleum at present, and continues to be its biggest defence armaments partner.

Russia is now pulling closer to China, Iran, and North Korea, owing to their covert support in the war, and stringent Western sanctions against it. Right now, Russia cannot countenance an immigration surge. It would be both an economic burden and a security risk.

White House Press Secretary Karine Jean Pierre, an African American, while defending Biden’s emphasis on America’s immigrant identity, said, ‘Our allies and partners know very well how much this president respects them... obviously, we have a strong relationship with India, with Japan, and the president if you just look at the last three years has certainly focused on those diplomatic relationships’. It is true that President Biden has hosted state dinners for both India and Japan, and that he probably had no intention to disparage either of them. White House National Security Communications Advisor John Kirby also chimed in with similar comments.

President Biden’s remarks were made at a Washington DC fundraiser that marked the start of Asian American, Native Hawaiian and Pacific Islander Heritage Month which celebrates diversity in the US.

Illegal border crossings have contributed over 2 million people per annum since 2021, higher than ever before, and is a hot button election issue.   

(1,274 words)

May 3^rd, 2024

For:Firstpost/News18.com

Gautam Mukherjee