India is not xenophobic, the country’s foreign minister has insisted, after comments by US President Joe Biden suggesting the South Asian nation and fellow ally Japan were struggling economically because they rejected immigrants.

Biden, who is seeking reelection against Republican rival Donald Trump in November, made the remarks at a campaign fundraising event in Washington this week.

Foreign minister S. Jaishankar told a media roundtable Friday that Biden’s comments did not match India’s reality.

‘First of all, our economy is not faltering,’ he said, according to a report of the discussion published Saturday by the Economic Times newspaper.

‘India has been a very unique country,’ he added. ‘I would say actually, in the history of the world, that it’s been a society which has been very open… different people of different societies come to India.’

India is one of the world’s fastest-growing economies with annualised GDP growth of 8.4 percent in the December quarter, according to official data in February.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s Hindu-nationalist government has been accused by critics of discriminating against Muslims, including through recently enacted reforms to India’s citizenship law.

The amended law sparked huge protests when it was first passed by parliament in 2019 and finally enacted in March, with Amnesty International warning that it still risked being used as a tool, alongside a mooted National Register of Citizens, to deprive some Muslims of citizenship.

‘There are people who publicly said on record that… a million Muslims will lose their citizenship in this country,’ Jaishankar said.

‘Why are they not being held to account? Because nobody has lost citizenship.’

Biden had clubbed allies India and Japan in with rivals China and Russia in remarks intended as a defence of US immigration policy.

‘Why is China stalling so badly economically? Why is Japan in trouble? Why is Russia in trouble? And India? Because they’re xenophobic. They don’t want immigrants,’ Biden had said at the Wednesday fundraiser.

Tokyo responded Saturday by saying it was ‘unfortunate that comments not based on an accurate understanding of Japan’s policy were made’.

Since taking office in 2021, Biden has strengthened ties with US allies in Asia, in particular India and Japan.

He has hosted state dinners at the White House for both Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida.

The White House has since had to downplay Biden’s remarks.

The president was merely trying to send a broader message that ‘the United States is a nation of immigrants,’ National Security Council spokesman John Kirby told reporters.

Japan hit back Saturday at US President Joe Biden’s comments about the Asian ally being ‘xenophobic’ like China and Russia, calling the characterisation ‘unfortunate’ and misguided.

Biden lumped together allies Japan and India with rivals China and Russia at a recent campaign event, arguing the four economic powers were struggling because of their unwillingness to accept immigrants.

‘Why is China stalling so badly economically? Why is Japan in trouble? Why is Russia in trouble? And India? Because they’re xenophobic. They don’t want immigrants,’ the president said on Wednesday.

‘One of the reasons why our economy is growing is because of you and many others. Why? Because we welcome immigrants,’ the president added.

In response, Tokyo on Saturday said it was ‘unfortunate that comments not based on an accurate understanding of Japan’s policy were made’, according to a government statement.

The Japanese government had already delivered this message to the White House and explained once again about its policies and stances, the statement said.

Biden’s remarks came less than a month after he hosted a lavish state dinner for his Japanese counterpart Fumio Kishida in a rare gesture of high-level diplomacy.

The 81-year-old Democrat’s unexpected digs at Japan soon prompted the White House to tone them down.

The president was merely trying to send a broader message that ‘the United States is a nation of immigrants,’ National Security Council spokesman John Kirby told reporters.

‘It’s in our DNA’, he said.

Tokyo, for its part, said this clarification hadn’t been lost.

‘We’re aware of the US government’s explanation that the comments in question weren’t made for the purpose of harming the importance and perpetuity of the Japan-US relationships’, its statement said.