Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi shakes hands with Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman prior to a meeting in New Delhi on Feb. 20, 2019.Money Sharma/AFP via Getty Images
By Mchael Kugelman 10 May 2023 Foregn Policy Magazine
Last weekend, national security advisors from India, the United Arab Emirates (UAE), and the United States met with Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman in Riyadh to discuss an ambitious connectivity project to link the Middle East to India through roads, rails, and seaports. The idea emerged during meetings of the I2U2 group—which also includes Israel—over the last year, Axios reported.
The proposed initiative signals that India and the United States are ready to take their joint efforts to counter China beyond the Indo-Pacific region and into the Middle East. It’s clear the Biden administration views the connectivity project as a way to balance Chinese power in the region. “Nobody said it out loud, but it was about China from day one,” a former senior Israeli official told Axios.
This is a bit surprising: The I2U2 group—a relatively new vehicle for U.S.-India cooperation in the Middle East—was not envisioned as a China-focused entity, given the close commercial cooperation that both the UAE and Israel enjoy with China.
It’s easy to see why India would want to participate in a new minilateral effort to push back against China’s growing Middle East footprint—driven by Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) investments and by a recent strategic agreement with Iran. (Beijing also recently mediated a reconciliation deal between Tehran and Riyadh.) The Middle East is an increasingly significant space for India, given its trade interests there and the several million Indians who work in the region and send remittances back home.
The connectivity project aims to leverage India’s capacity as an infrastructure provider. Its track record includes the construction of the world’s largest rail system in Asia and contributions to cross-border electricity-sharing arrangements. Through the new initiative Indian officials hope to develop a deeper infrastructure footprint in the Middle East to counter China’s BRI.
To be sure, the Middle East-India connectivity initiative is still purely aspirational, but its potential is vast: linking New Delhi with a region critical to its interests and in cooperation with some of its top partners. According to one assessment, in a best-case scenario India could eventually benefit from land and sea trade routes stretching from Israel and the UAE all the way to Greece’s Piraeus port and onward into Europe.
Saudi Arabia hasn’t formalized relations with Israel, which means the latter isn’t a formal part of the project, but its membership in I2U2 suggests it will have a role. On Tuesday, Israeli Foreign Minister Eli Cohen visited New Delhi. Although he departed early because of a crisis with Gaza, he likely planned to meet with Indian interlocutors about the connectivity project. In a statement released before the visit, Cohen said India can play a key role in strengthening regional stability in the Middle East.
Ultimately, the connectivity project shows just how much India benefits from the Abraham Accords, the Trump-era agreement that normalized relations between Israel and several of its Arab neighbors. The deal allowed for the establishment of the I2U2 group, and discussions there gave rise to the new initiative.
India now has opportunities to scale up influence, trade, and diplomacy beyond the Indo-Pacific region—all in a year while holding the G-20 presidency, enjoying rapid economic growth, and overtaking China as the world’s most populous country.