Raisina Middle East: Region has ‘immense significance’ for India, says minister

Gulf is crucial to strategic interests, Dr Jaishankar tells conference in Abu Dhabi

Dr Subrahmanyam Jaishankar, India's Minister of External Affairs, outlined a sweeping set of realities during a speech at the Raisina Middle East conference in Abu Dhabi. EPA

Dr Subrahmanyam Jaishankar, India’s Minister of External Affairs, has outlined a sweeping set of realities evident in the world today during a speech at the Raisina Middle East conference in Abu Dhabi, referring to the “sharp departure of the United States from a century of Wilsonian foreign policy”.

“We are more interdependent in the very era when the propaganda of a global village stands firmly rejected,” he said in Abu Dhabi. “The global discourse pits progress against heritage, the future against the past. This has implications for both diplomacy and statecraft.”

Dr Jaishankar said the digital world had a “growing salience”, which placed a premium on trust and transparency.

He described several other key realities of the modern global order, including the competitive aspect of ties between the US and China and “the anxiety we all share of overconcentration manufacturing in a limited geography and the resulting search for more reliable and resilient supply chains”.

He also referenced “the frequent weaponisation of market shares, finance and technology” and the “unfolding insipient reglobalisation that now stresses national interests and identities”, as well as the emergence of a global workplace. He said that “regionalisation of power makes for more complicated decision-making”.

“In this world of change, challenges are best addressed, and opportunities exploited by forging a shared agenda and developing a common purpose,” he said.

During his address at the inaugural session of Raisina Middle East, Dr Jaishankar had earlier described the Middle East as a region of “immense significance” for India and noted that his country and West Asia are “inextricably linked through commerce and connectivity, ideas and beliefs, traditions and customs” over centuries.

He said the Gulf was crucial to India’s strategic interests, citing trade levels of more than $160 billion annually.

“An India with wider interests and growing capabilities today contemplates the world with confidence,” he said. “We certainly recognise the risks, but we are equally cognisant of the opportunities. For us, the Middle East is an extended neighbourhood, which we have reconnected with in full measure.”

Dr Jaishankar also met Sheikh Abdullah bin Zayed, Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Foreign Affairs, today, Wam news agency reported.

The pair discussed ties between the two countries and ways of strengthening collaboration. They were also reported to have exchanged views on several international developments.

At the Raisina event, several people in attendance discussed the changing global landscape since the beginning of US President Donald Trump's second term this month.

Brian Katulis, senior fellow for US Foreign Policy at the Middle East Institute, told The National that Mr Trump’s main approach was to be disruptive and unpredictable.” I think the real risk to global order is that I don’t see necessarily that he has a clear plan of what comes next. He wants to be unconventional and gain leverage.”

Ana Palacio, Spain’s former foreign minister, told The National that the next four years in the US could be characterised by “instant reward” policies and a continuation of the transactionalism and unpredictability that was evident in some periods of the first administration of Mr Trump.

Raisina Middle East continues on Wednesday in Abu Dhabi.