New Delhi suspicious of Washington after latest H-1B move from Trump • FRANCE 24 English

New Delhi suspicious of Washington after latest H-1B move from Trump • FRANCE 24 English

Hello and welcome to Access Asia. I’m Dana Duza. Coming up, New Delhi opts for a muted response after US President Donald Trump goes after H1B visas allotted overwhelmingly to Indian nationals. Historically close to Palestine, but now Indonesia’s president calling for the safety and security of Israel in securing a two-state solution. And a throwaway line in a Kdrama escalates into an allout incident between China and South Korea. We’ll tell you why The Tempest is stirring up a storm. But first, the US President Donald Trump has taken aim at the US’s H1B visa program. It’s primarily used by big tech and outsourcing firms in the United States. Companies will now be required to pay a $100,000 fee for new applicants. While critics of H1Bs argue they undercut the American workforce, supporters of the program, including Elon Musk, allege it allows the United States to attract top talent from around the world. Musk transition to an H-1B after completing his studies in the United States. So did India born Sundar Pichai, the CEO of Alphabet, the parent company of Google, and Satya Nadella, Microsoft’s chief executive. In fact, Indians make up the overwhelming majority of H1B visa recipients. To talk more about this, we can bring in uh Nikolola Black, associate professor in international relations at the University of Leiden. Thank you so much for joining us on the program. Given that all foreign nationals can be part of this H1B visa program, but Indians take up the majority, the chunk of it, is New Delhi being singled out? Yeah, know you you point out an important factor. It’s mostly Indians. about 71% I think last year of Indian of uh recipients of the H1B were Indians and that’s due to a lot of um investment in STEM education notably technological engineering etc. So a lot of and it there’s been this uh effort over years for Indians to the Indian the US dreams for a lot of Indians to invest and go educate themselves in US and then apply to this H-1B visas. During the UN General Assembly, we had the US President Donald Trump uh who took aim at India during his speech. Take a listen to what he had to say. China and India are the primary funders of the ongoing war by continuing to purchase Russian oil. Now, this H1B visa policy comes on top of the 50% tariffs that were slapped on New Delhi just a couple of weeks ago. Uh could this be another way for the US to go after India for purchasing Russian oil? It’s it’s a it could be seen or at least it’s probably perceived as such by New Delhi as a series of unfortunate announcements uh that have deter that are impacting the relationship as you said the 50% tariffs the 25% imposed because of the tariff negotiations and then the 25% as secondary sanctions visa v what was just mentioned by Donald Trump with the uh buying oil from Russia as a sanction against that this is another uh potential sanction it’s directly targeting mostly Indian uh immigrants, but it also is a long-term issue within the domestic constituencies supporting Trump, the MAGA constituencies that always has seen this as a way for Indians to get easy access to certain visas and taking over maybe jobs that usually could be uh opportunities for US citizens. And what do you make of uh Delhi’s response so far? Because it’s been rather muted. Do you think Indian officials are hoping this gets struck down in the courts? So there’s that there’s actually if you remember under Trump’s first term he already had suspended the H-1B uh system and he was overturned by a court. So this could be due to the muted response. There’s also the fact that there are still negotiation going on for a trade deal that could reduce this tariffs. So they have to be careful about these multiple negotiations going on and there’s also part of the uh Indian uh political and e economic ecosystem that are seeing this as an opportunity to bring back talent back home. Now most Indians don’t just turn up to the United States to work. They go to the US uh to educate themselves first and then they stay on to get jobs in H1Bs. So will this policy force Indians to look elsewhere? Definitely because a lot of the H-1B applicants are people that have studied in US. You mentioned a couple of examples Nadella Bich these are invested already close to 100,000 uh dollars for higher for higher education in US and then would have to bear the cost of another 100,000 to apply for the H1B visa. So this is actually would uh would become a very costly and then unattractive options for a lot of Indian middle class uh that are looking at that have looked at the US as the the best option. They might look now in other markets. There’s been efforts from Germany, Canada and UK to try to even France and even France to some degree maybe less. It hasn’t been as uh strandy in social media but there’s been efforts from these different countries to try to attract these talents that would look at other opportunities. Has the relationship with the United States between the United States and India fundamentally shifted? Because uh we saw that yes, Donald Trump did wish Narendra Modi a happy birthday on his birthday. Then we see this H-1B visa announcement. Can this relationship be fixed? Because it seemed that it is being tested time and time again. There there was a there were very good strategic relations over the years but this series of measures which are hurting Modi at home domestically. Uh so Modi has to be seen as uh finding other diplomatic options. So that’s why he went to the Shangghai Cooperation Organization Summit in Tanzin. Uh and he’s going to have to diversify um uh notably when it comes to military supplies, when it comes to economic uh and trade. There’s the negotiation the FDA with the EU which is also ongoing because this is this is this you know there used to be a lot of suspicions about uh greater partnership with the US until maybe the early 2000s. The last 10 years I’ve seen a dramatic qualitative increase in the relationship. But the last 6 months have put a lot of these uh bases, these foundations since the nuclear deal of 2008 into question. Very briefly, last November uh when Donald Trump won the elections, officials in India were secretly celebrating. Do you think they regret that now? I think they regret and this is hurting them because the opposition is pointing that out that there was a if you see statements from uh Dr. J. Shankar the external affairs minister from Modi that they were welcoming the return of Trump. They had worked very well in dur with Trump or the Trump 1.0. They knew how to work with Trump. They were very optimistic. There was this first visit in February from Narendra Modi to DC talking about how Mika and MAGA can work together. We clearly see that make India great again and make America great again are not compatible and we could see some problems in the relationship in the future. Nicl, thank you so much for joining us on the program. Thank you for inviting me. Yeah. Now, most Asian nations except South Korea, Japan, and Myanmar recognize the state of Palestine. Indonesia did so back in 1988. While Jakarta has historically been tied to the Palestinian cause, its current president is calling for the safety and security of Israel. Oh, Khloe Dri reports. Indonesia, the world’s largest Muslim nation, ready to send 20,000 peacekeeping troops to Gaza. For the first time in a decade, an Indonesian leader addressed the UN General Assembly. President Po reaffirmed his support for a two-state solution. We must have an independent Palestine, but we must also guarantee the safety and security of Israel. Only then we can have real peace. Once again, experts say Indonesia’s relations with Israel are shifting. Jakarta was one of the first to recognize the Palestinian state back in 1988 when Yaser Arafat proclaimed independence. Officially, Indonesia has no diplomatic relations with Israel, but economic ties are on the rise. Cooperation in the tech space, surveillance, cyber security, manufactured goods, palm oil. Israel exports to Indonesia roughly $50 million last year. Modest, but boosted by President PBO. He’s a foreign policy president and he wants to raise Indonesia’s um status on the international stage. That is for sure. And joining the OECD would make Indonesia the first Southeast Asian country to do so. And if that means normalizing relations with Israel, then so be it. The process of joining the OECD, the group of countries promoting economic growth, is already underway. A smart political maneuver for some or a risky move for others. Moving to a cultural story next which has escalated into an all-out diplomatic incident between China and South Korea. It all started with a throwaway line in a TV series. And to tell us more about this, we can bring in Olivia Salazar Windspear. Olivia, so tell us how did this all get started? Well, apparently the rift between the two countries was prompted by one line uh from a character in the Korean TV series Tempest, which is screened by Disney Plus and Hulu internationally. Now, the show focuses on a diplomat and a special agent. And that diplomat is played by Jun Jihun. She’s a very famous TV and film star in Korea. She’s also known as Janna Jun. Her character says, “Why does China prefer war? A nuclear bomb could fall near the border.” Now, this was taken very badly by Chinese users of Waybo, the biggest social media uh platform in China. As you know, they blamed the actress personally, saying she shouldn’t have taken the part. She should have queried the script, not to say that. That the whole series puts China in a very bad light. It’s worth pointing out that Tempest was not officially broadcast in China. Those angry web users have seen clips online or illegally streamed it. Uh so, what have the potential consequences been for this actress? Well, she is a really famous face in Korea and as a celebrity, she’s fronted many high-profile international brand campaigns. She’s modeled for Louis Vuitton, La Mer cosmetics, Pia, the jewelry and watch outfit. And those endorsements are still very visible on her social media. But when you look at, for example, LVMH or La Mer, they don’t have any evidence of her on their accounts. This could be related to some of the pressure they’ve come under from angry uh web comments. for example, saying things like, “Remove her,” or, “We’ll boycott you on their social media channels.” Now, PJ still does feature uh Jano Jun. You can see from the comments on one of their posts, there’s a large number of people showing those emojis there saying, “Get rid of her.” Uh people are ready to blacklist the brands. So, we’ll see if her contracts with those fashion and beauty houses gets renewed. But what is so crazy about the story is it it’s a fictional character saying something. It’s not like she wrote it herself. Yeah, it does seem a bit disproportionate. I I agree. It’s not actually the first time that artists have been caught in the crossfire between South Korea and China. There’s been a sort of unofficial boycott of South Korean cultural products for almost a decade now because before that we had the Halu Kwave of K-pop, TV, films that was sweeping the world and China was a major market for that. The freeze seems to have started in 2017 just after Seoul decided to deploy a US anti-missile system which Beijing interpreted as a threat to its military operations in the region. What happened then was that Chinese broadcast regulators canled or delayed Korean TV imports despite there being a lot of popular Kdramas at the time. It affected music. K-pop bands saw their tours cancelled in China or they couldn’t get the necessary visas to perform there. There’s been significant economic consequences for Korea. Of course, China’s their biggest trading partner, and that cultural output is a big part of their economy. Now, China’s never actually admitted to this ban. Some people thought it was actually easing off in recent months, but one feature I did notice was very noticeable by its absence. The mega hit movie K-pop Demon Hunter, you’re aware of it, Dano, broke all records. You’d have to be sleeping under a rock if you didn’t know. On Netflix this year, it’s a record breaker. It’s screened to millions around the world. It’s not yet been shown in China despite clear demand. There’s no real talk of it it happening, just vague talk of distribution perhaps in or after uh October of this year. Thank you very much for that, Olivia. Olivia Salazar Winspear there. And that’s it for this edition of Access Asia from all of us on the team. Thank you very much for watching. [Music]

Is India being forced to reconsider its relationship with the United States? In Access Asia, we explore how the aftershocks of the US’s new H-1B visa policy are being felt in New Delhi. We also bring you the latest on Indonesia making overtures towards Israel after recognising Palestine back in 1988. Plus, we tell you why the Disney+ K-drama “Tempest” is stirring up a storm in China.
#India #US #visas

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