Jaishankar’s 8 Points

External Affairs Minister (EAM) S Jaishankar visited the United Arab Emirates on January 27-29. This was a significant visit for it came when there is bound to be great churn in West Asia on account of the policies of US President Donald Trump. During his visit Jaishankar met the top leadership of the UAE, including President of the country and the Abu Dhabi ruler Sheikh Mohammed Bin Zayed. UAE and India have a Comprehensive Strategic Partnership. UAE leaders and Jaishankar would have discussed the great progress in bilateral ties over the past decade and also the direction the region would take because of the changes which Trump will bring about. Some of these—like his strengthening the sanctions regime against Iran—Jaishankar and his UAE interlocutors may have anticipated but it is doubtful if they could have imagined what Trump had in mind about Gaza!

After Jaishankar’s visit the Ministry of External Affairs, in a media statement, noted that he and his UAE counterpart Deputy Prime Minister and Foreign Minister Sheikh Abdullah Bin Zayed “review(ed) the entire gamut of bilateral cooperation, including technology, defence and security, education, culture and connectivity”. It is a measure of India’s rise that the UAE government and its business classes recognise the increasing importance of India to their country’s varied interests. This also includes the security sector.

Five decades ago, when the UAE began its journey to modernity on the strength of its oil wealth India was looked upon largely as a source of unskilled and semi-skilled workers. At that time the UAE like some other Gulf countries had strong defence ties with Pakistan. In the case of the UAE this was especially as far as the Air Force was concerned. However, even then the core of the UAE decision makers knew that India’s importance to the Gulf region would only grow. That is why when Prime Minister Indira Gandhi visited Abu Dhabi and Dubai in 1981 the then UAE President Sheikh Zayed Bin Sultan and the Indian Prime Minister agreed that the security of India and the Gulf region were interlinked.

The India media statement on the visit noted: “Dr S Jaishankar was the Chief Guest at the first edition of the Raisina Middle East Conference organised by Observer Research Foundation (ORF) in Abu Dhabi and delivered the keynote address at the inaugural session of the event on January 28. He highlighted the importance of India – UAE engagement and the significance of this partnership in an increasingly turbulent world. EAM and HH Sheikh Abdullah participated in a conversation on ‘The World in 2025’ at the Conference on January 28”. Jaishankar is a person of considerable erudition and has had an almost uninterrupted innings at the top diplomatic level, as Foreign Secretary and EAM for a decade. This has naturally given him great insight into how the world works, the global trends of the times, the existential crises facing humanity and how they are being coped—or not being coped—and the power games between the great powers. His keynote address therefore merits close and serious attention.

In his speech Jaishankar dwelt on the progress of the India-UAE partnership, the changes and developments in India and on how India is seeking to move ahead through ‘technology and tradition’. However, for this writer, his perspective on the changing nature of the global order merited special attention. It deserves to be quoted in full. I will do so and then comment briefly on his insights.

Jaishankar highlighted “One, the sharp departure of the United States from a century of Wilsonian foreign policy. Two, the competitive aspects of ties between two leading players, the US and China. Three, the anxiety we all share of over-concentration of manufacturing in a limited geography. And the resulting search for more reliable and resilient supply chains. Four, the growing salience of the digital world and the premium put on trust and transparency. Five, the frequent weaponization of market shares, finance and technology. Six, the unfolding I would say incipient re-globalization, that now stresses national interests and national identities, even while recognizing trans-national economic collaboration. Seven, the emergence of a global workplace, a process that is hastened by the rapid advancement of digital technologies. And Eight, a re-distribution and even regionalization of power that actually makes for much more complicated decision making. Our times have to take all these into account, these eight realities that I have spelt out, while managing some key contradictions. We are more interdependent and inter-penetrative in the very era when the propaganda of a global village stands firmly rejected”.

The first three points made by Jaishankar are largely currently valid. The US, especially under President Trump, has turned inwards but it not certain if this can really last over the long term. The Sino-US relationship is more competitive and is likely to remain so. Also, there is need to disperse manufacturing; that is the lesson of Covid. However, it is easier said than done because of the enormous manufacturing facilities in China. Jaishankar is correct on the growing importance of the digital world and it is here that India has particularly to worry because even though it is doing well in digital applications the gap between the West and China on the one part and India on the other in science and technology is increasing. Jaishankar’s points five, six and seven are mainly correct but is there really a regionalisation of power taking place or is the US-China rivalry subsuming regional actors, even if they wish to assert their independent roles in regional decision making?

One last point: It would have been preferable for Jaishankar to stick to the traditional name of the region—West Asia—instead of using that old colonial phase, Middle East, even if it has always had greater global currency.