Page 2 of 2 India tiptoes to the new Middle East
By M K Bhadrakumar
speech he delivered at the Emirates Center for Strategic Studies and Research
in Abu Dhabi last month. He described Iran as a "significant role-player in
regional and world affairs".
Mukherjee explained, "I believe that engagement with Iran is important. Such
engagement can play an effective role in promoting peace and stability in West
Asia, particularly in Iraq and Palestine as also in Syria and Lebanon, while
supporting the regional and global effort in combating extremism and terrorism.
In this regard, I must mention that Iran plays an important role in
Afghanistan. The international effort under way there would also benefit from
greater engagement with Iran."
He spoke effusively. The speech followed Iranian President
Mahmud Ahmadinejad's brief stopover in Delhi in April. Mukherjee is scheduled
to visit Iran for the second time in six months, in July. The broad thrust of
this flurry of activity is to place Delhi as a player in West Asia, which it
regards as a "part of India's extended neighborhood" and where, as Mukherjee
put it in his Abu Dhabi speech, "We need to look collectively at the common
regional challenges we face - political, economic and social and discuss these
issues and find solutions together."
In short, Delhi foresees a collective security system for the region in which
India "extends its hand of support and cooperation to the countries of the
[Persian] Gulf and calls upon them to set up vibrant partnerships with us".
The impetus for such forward thinking also comes out of an unspoken factor-
China's growing profile in the Middle East.
Anxieties regarding China
China currently imports 40% to 50% of the oil it consumes, out of which close
to 60% comes from the Middle East. The dependence is expected to rise to 70% by
2015. "Therefore," as Professor Weiming Zhao of the Middle East Studies
Institute of the Shanghai International Studies University recently wrote,
"China has a significant interest in the Middle East, and any changes in the
situation there will affect China's energy security. It is only natural for
energy factors to play a role in China's policy toward the Middle East.
Although China's opposition to the Iraq war and to the use of force to resolve
the Iranian nuclear issue is not purely based on considerations of energy
security, this is a key factor. In a word, energy diplomacy constitutes an
important part of China's diplomacy."
Weiming concluded, "Therefore, it will remain the basic posture of China's
diplomacy for a long time to come to pay more attention to the development of
the situation in the Middle East, to be more concerned with Middle East affairs
and to establish closer relations with Middle East countries."
Delhi is learning to manage China's growing Middle East influence. The Indian
petroleum minister is currently visiting Saudi Arabia. Mukherjee visited Riyadh
in April. A visit by Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh is in the cards.
Saudi Arabia, which is India's principal supplier of oil, aims to double its
oil exports to China in 2008. By 2010, Saudi exports to China are expected to
touch 1 million barrels a day, which would place China as Riyadh's number one
destination for its petroleum.
Again, China has an agreement with Iran to buy 250 million tonnes of liquefied
natural gas over a 30-year period and to develop Iran's Yadavaran oil field,
which has the estimated potential to yield 150,000 barrels a day over a 25-year
period.
China also takes great care to develop energy cooperation with the US. The
fourth round of the China-US Strategic Economic Dialogue held in the US this
week focused on the two countries taking "shared responsibilities" on energy
issues on the basis of developing "a lot of converging points of interest",
exploring "broad cooperation prospects with great mutual complementarities",
tapping the "tremendous business opportunities involved" - to quote from a
People's Daily commentary.
The commentary pointed out that in the energy sector, "China and the US are not
only each other's stakeholders but construction partners ... the US has become
the nation to be involved in the most cooperative items in China's petroleum
industry. Persevering, unremitting efforts made by both sides have enabled such
kind of cooperation to be imbued with an increasing global significance ... By
working hand in hand, China and the US are meant not only to have common
interests but to bear their shared responsibilities."
Equally, India sizes up China as a rival investment destination for sovereign
wealth funds (SWF) of the oil-fired economies of the Persian Gulf. The
cumulative value of SWF in the Middle East currently is estimated to be in the
region of $1.5 trillion and is expected to triple or quadruple in the coming
five to 10 years if oil prices remain at their current high level.
Apart from foreign markets, the funds make direct investments to help develop
the local market. According to experts, $1.9 trillion worth of investments were
either on the way or had been announced for the next seven years in the
oil-and-gas producing Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) countries. The GCC groups
Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain, Oman and Qatar.
Mukherjee pointed out in his Abu Dhabi speech that India's sees itself as an
"important partner" for the funds as an investment destination besides seeking
to partake of the development of the services sector in the GCC countries "as
contractors, sub-contractors and as contributors of human resources".
India must size up Islamism
But India's approach to the new Middle East must tackle an ideological
dimension. Unlike China, can India, which has a large Muslim population with
deep cultural links with the region, afford to stand aside from the battle for
political ideas in the Middle East?
Iraq has transformed as a religious government. Several streams of Islamist
activism have appeared in the region, but the Indian perceptions narrowly focus
on the fringe manifestation, al-Qaeda. The mainstream Sunni Islamist movement
is the Muslim Brotherhood and its affiliates such as Hamas, which are
essentially non-violent movements with a quasi-legal political presence willing
to become part of democratic life.
The mainstream Islamists spearhead mass movements that will not fade away. They
are there to stay on the political landscape of India's "extended
neighborhood". Hamas and Hezbollah have demonstrated that, given the
opportunity, they are capable of making pragmatic political choices. Israel is
way ahead of India in sizing up Islamism. With the distinct possibility of an
Obama presidency in Washington, India needs to make haste in tiptoeing to the
new Middle East. Plainly speaking, there is a lot of catching up to do.
M K Bhadrakumar served as a career diplomat in the Indian Foreign Service
for over 29 years, with postings including India's ambassador to Uzbekistan
(1995-1998) and to Turkey (1998-2001).
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