An economic corridor, the Israel link and the geopolitics

General Studies Paper 2

Context

• The 2023 summit of the G-20 under India’s presidency went exceptionally well given the group’s limited economic approach to the complex issues that the world faces, from climate change and underdevelopment, wealth concentration and poverty and, most critically for our times, falling democratic norms and principles of peace.

The G20 summit in India

• India’s remarkable success at the summit this year, in early September, was captured by the global press, except in China, for various outcomes such as the inclusion of the African Union in the G-20, a tangible offer of clean energy through a biofuel alliance, increasing substantial aid for Asia-Africa, an economic corridor that connects India, West Asia and Europe using an ambitious rail and shipping link, and the Delhi Declaration which was a joint statement of all the group.

A candid view

• The joint statement called the Delhi Declaration is newsworthy because of the fractured international order and power struggles between India and the United States with China or the U.S. with Russia.
• Despite the absence of China’s President Xi Jinping and Russian President Vladimir Putin at the summit, India still got their agreement for the declaration which sums up the achievement.
• Substantially speaking, the statement is pareve as it does not name Russia for aggression against Ukraine; but it does evoke the United Nations charter and principles of territorial sovereignty.
• But the boldest outcome, and unanticipated by many, was the announcement of the economic corridor (the “India-Middle East-Europe Economic Corridor”), of a rail-ship route, to transport goods to Europe from India via the United Arab Emirates-Saudi Arabia-Jordan-Israel.
• Such a project will change the geopolitics for the future. The fact that it challenges China’s Belt and Road Initiative is beside the more significant point.

Israel’s absence, possible factors

• India ‘set a precedent in G20 history by inviting the most Middle Eastern countries ever to take part as guests in the group’s key summit’, and one wonders why Israel, India’s strategic partner also from the region, was not given such an invitation.
• As a host, India invited nine non-member countries — Bangladesh, Egypt, Mauritius, Netherlands, Nigeria, Oman, Singapore, Spain, and the United Arab Emirates — to the summit.
• Perhaps factors such as a meet between Saudi Arabia’s Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman and Mr. Netanyahu may have been impossible unless there was diplomatic normalisation.

A push for peace

• Saudi Arabia is willing to end the diplomatic boycott of Israel.
• It is a historical change because such an acceptance of Israel by the most important, religiously speaking, Muslim country, will help Israel with other countries such as Pakistan (already willing), Indonesia and Malaysia.
• For such a change, Saudis demand that Israel commits to the two-state solution and the well-being of the Palestinian people, even if the occupation does not end soon.

Way forward

• Israel-Palestine peace is a very challenging aim and given the rise of extremism on both sides, it appears all the more impossible. Saudi Arabia is aware of it and is still interested in having deliberations to walk smoothly among Arabs and other Muslims while working with the Biden administration to make peace with the State of Israel. The India-Middle East-Europe Economic Corridor will have to wait until this happens.