US President Joe Biden’s passing reference to India while speaking of autocrats and the Quad in his address at the Democratic National Committee fundraiser on Thursday has left Washington-watchers here guessing.

Saying he had told China’s Xi Jinping of his intent to pull together the Quad, Biden said: “The point being that one of the things that the autocrats fear the most — and India has its own problems; all those countries have their own problems — is the notion that somehow we can work together in concert and contrary to what are essentially dictatorships, which a lot of countries have become,particularly not only China, but Russia and many other countries — the Philippines.”

Biden made the comments after recalling Xi responding to the plans to pull together the Quad as an effort to target China. “I said, ‘No, it’s because we’re trying to put together those folks who have an opportunity to work together in the Indo-Pacific.’”

What Biden meant by “India has its own problems” is not clear.

Biden brought up India in the context of his long telephone conversation with Xi when the Chinese leader called to congratulate him for winning the presidential election in November 2020.