Asserting that the US ought to counteract the influence of Chinese authoritarianism early and often, a top American think tank on Thursday said that one relatively low-cost way is to encourage India to engage more deeply as a competitor with China in the global economy.

In its latest report titled "A US-India Trade Agenda for the Biden Administration", the Washington-DC based think tank Hudson Institute said that India should aim for better relations with American corporations as increased US investment and trade relations will enhance the potential for US-India cooperation in confronting the rise of China.

The report, written by Husain Haqqani and Aparna Pande, says that it was in America's interest to assist the rise of India.

"The US ought to counteract the influence of Chinese authoritarianism early and often. One relatively low-cost way is to encourage India to engage more deeply as a competitor with China in the global economy," it said.

The report calls upon India to move away from protectionism.

"For Indian consumers and business, protectionist practices deliver the opposite of protection. Softened restrictions could attract American and European companies that are moving away from China," it said.

Not only would India's economy grow but this would also help with employment generation, it said.

It also suggested that Indian bureaucracy's antipathy to foreign corporations has become an obstruction in closer India-US relations.

"Preventing competition within the Indian market," the report points out, and "using regulation to benefit indigenous companies" will only impair India's growth and limit its potential.

The Hudson Institute, in its report, calls upon the Biden administration to "encourage India to lower tariffs, to remove barriers to foreign retail, to roll back unnecessarily restrictive data privacy rules, and to provide economic incentives for foreign investment."

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