President Biden arrived in New Delhi on Friday for a world summit assembly the place he’ll current the United States as an financial and strategic counterweight to China and Russia, making the most of the absence of leaders from these two nations, who’re skipping the gathering.

Arriving in India on Friday night, Mr. Biden shook palms with Eric Garcetti, the United States ambassador to India, earlier than touring to the residence of Prime Minister Narendra Modi for a bilateral assembly. Jake Sullivan, Mr. Biden’s nationwide safety adviser, accompanied the president.

Mr. Biden is bringing to India the promise of as much as $200 billion in new growth funds for local weather change, meals safety, public well being and different infrastructure wants in much less developed nations by means of revamped worldwide financing establishments just like the World Bank, leveraged by a comparatively small funding by the United States.

He and Mr. Modi ended their 52-minute assembly — the place they mentioned India’s current moon touchdown, investments within the Indian know-how sector and dealing collectively within the Indo-Pacific — by issuing a prolonged joint promise to additional deepen a relationship that they mentioned was “based on trust and mutual understanding.”

The initiative represents an American-led response to China’s Belt and Road venture offering loans to poorer nations to construct ports, rail strains and telecommunications networks, a enterprise that has expanded Beijing’s affect in elements of the world the place it hardly ever performed a lot of a task earlier than. Mr. Biden’s plan would match solely a fraction of the Chinese investments in recent times however provides an alternative choice to Beijing’s presence as an omnipresent and infrequently unforgiving creditor.

The president can have an vital alternative on the Group of 20 assembly because of the choices by President Xi Jinping of China and President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia to not attend. Mr. Biden can have room to current a case to a big group of vital world leaders that they need to align with the United States on issues that embrace condemning Russia’s battle in Ukraine and curbing China’s rising assertiveness within the Indo-Pacific.

Mr. Biden landed in New Delhi on a unique political footing than he had lower than a yr in the past on the G20 summit in Bali, when he was bolstered by better-than-expected midterm election outcomes by Democratic candidates and held a high-stakes assembly with Mr. Xi centered round rebuilding a relationship that was threatening to boil over.

This yr, Mr. Biden faces heightened considerations round his age — he’ll flip 81 in November — as he campaigns for a second time period. A ballot launched by CNN on Thursday confirmed that his approval scores remain low. A particular counsel has indicated that he planned to indict the president’s son Hunter on a gun cost by the tip of the month.

On high of all of it, there may be concern {that a} resurgence of Covid-19 might have an effect on Mr. Biden in some unspecified time in the future throughout his journey to India and Vietnam after Jill Biden, the primary woman, was identified with the coronavirus this week. The president examined unfavorable earlier than boarding Air Force One on Thursday and can proceed to be examined whereas abroad.

The president plans to make use of the journey to shore up his relationship with the G20 host, Mr. Modi, who’s utilizing the economic-focused assembly to showcase the promise and potential of a juggernaut Indian economic system. Mr. Modi is so intent on a profitable occasion that his authorities declared a three-day nationwide vacation surrounding the assembly, closing many companies and eating places and rising safety all through the capital.

Mr. Biden, who hosted Mr. Modi for a state dinner in Washington in June, met the prime minister shortly after his scheduled arrival in New Delhi on Friday night. He plans to attend conferences with different leaders on Saturday and go to the Raj Ghat memorial to Gandhi on Sunday earlier than leaving for Vietnam, the place he’ll seal a strategic settlement.

“What Modi has demonstrated, and what the U.S. is leaning into, is a leader who is willing to make bets on the future of the country,” Nirav Patel, the chief govt of the Asia Group and deputy assistant secretary of state for East Asia and the Pacific below President Barack Obama, mentioned in an interview. “The diplomatic as well as political stability that Modi enjoys allows this relationship to be more fruitful, and Biden has leaned into that.”

Mr. Modi, who’s looking for a 3rd time period subsequent yr, has been criticized for his authorities’s report on human rights and faces considerations that he’s presiding over a backsliding democracy. During Mr. Modi’s state go to to Washington, Mr. Biden coaxed him into answering questions from reporters throughout a information convention, one of many uncommon occasions the nationalist prime minister has accomplished so in his almost decade-long tenure.

Challenged on his report on human rights and non secular freedom, Mr. Modi insisted that democracy is “in India’s DNA” and denied that his authorities has fostered prejudice.

It stays to be seen how a lot of a accomplice Mr. Modi will in the end be in Mr. Biden’s broad efforts to counter China’s rising aggression within the Indo-Pacific. India, which remained staunchly nonaligned throughout the Cold War, has likewise refused to affix the American-led coalition aiding Ukraine in its battle towards invading Russian forces.

Officials within the Indian authorities have steered that any joint communication on Ukraine on the G20 incorporate Russia’s and China’s views, a conciliatory strategy that’s at odds with the extra aggressive stance taken by Western leaders. China might be represented in New Delhi by Premier Li Qiang and Russia by Foreign Minister Sergey V. Lavrov.

“The reality is that Russia’s illegal war has had devastating social and economic consequences, and the poorest countries on the planet are bearing the brunt of that,” Jake Sullivan, the president’s nationwide safety adviser, informed reporters this week. Mr. Biden, he added, “will continue to emphasize that the United States will support Ukraine for as long as it takes to redeem these principles.”

Mr. Biden can also be anticipated to carry separate conferences with a number of different leaders whereas he’s in New Delhi, discussing a variety of shared threats, together with the rise of synthetic know-how and local weather change.

The White House has not recognized which leaders he’ll meet with, however many are watching to see if Mr. Biden sits down with Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman of Saudi Arabia. Mr. Biden’s envoys try to dealer a diplomatic opening between Saudi Arabia and Israel that might remodel the Middle East.

Mr. Sullivan mentioned the president would spend a lot of his time in New Delhi urging different leaders to bolster international growth banks, together with the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund, to make it simpler for poor nations to achieve entry to credit score.

The White House requested Congress final month for $3.3 billion to increase growth financing each by means of the World Bank and individually, which it mentioned would leverage greater than $27 billion for creating nations. It additionally requested Congress to authorize the federal government to lend to 2 International Monetary Fund belief funds, which it mentioned would unlock as much as $21 billion in new lending with out extra American cash. Altogether, the White House mentioned it believes it might leverage these funds into $200 billion in credit score with the assistance of accomplice nations over the subsequent decade.

“Those are crucial additional resources for reducing poverty, advancing global health security and combating climate change,” Treasury Secretary Janet L. Yellen informed reporters in New Delhi.

Mr. Biden is scheduled to journey on Sunday to Hanoi, Vietnam, the place he’ll deal with positioning the United States as a secure and dependable ally within the Indo-Pacific. Vietnam has agreed to raise its diplomatic relationship with the United States to its highest standing, equal to its ties with China and Russia.

If the journey goes nicely, Mr. Patel mentioned, “it will send a global signal” that Vietnam has “made a determination over how it seeks to determine its own strategic future.”