The West Asia crisis has spilled into the Red Sea, which is vital for Indian trade
The oceans surrounding most regional powers are turning out to be new hotspots of clashes among individual nations over their sovereign spaces and deep dives into the choppy waters of global supremacy. The crisis brewing in West Asia with Israel and many of the Western forces, determined to provide Hamas terrorists a just response, has spilled out into the Rea Sea and near to maritime zones of India. The Red Sea serves as a crucial maritime route for global commerce and energy. Some rebel groups, with robust support from Iran, are targeting any ship or consignment headed towards Israel or any country sympathetic to it, forcing long circuitous routes for shipments, to avoid harm to life or goods on board. India which relies on the Red Sea route for nearly 50% of its exports and 30% of imports has taken up the matter with almost every stakeholder in West Asia, including with Iran. Interestingly Indian navy, this week also managed to sanitise an Iranian ship, hijacked by Somalian pirates off India’s west coast.
French President Emmanuel Macron was on a high-level visit to India where Prime Minster Modi raised the Red Sea crisis. The joint statement read “They also expressed grave concern at the possibility of further expansion of the conflict in the region, including in the Red Sea, which already has a significant economic impact in the world.”
All of this was occurring in the backdrop of China, pushing more spy vessels in the Maldivian oceanic territory. The new Maldivian government has retraced from previous regimes ’s ‘India First’, foreign policy approach to ‘India out’ stance. It has instead, decided to bring China as its strategic ally. China has been for the past many years snooping on Indian critical security assets near the oceans by sending what it calls ‘research’ boats. These boats besides spying on India’s critical security establishments, also scout for sea bed minerals. It has been regularly sending these research vessels to Sri Lankan and Thailand territories and now it has nearly secured a free run in Maldives.
The Indo-Pacific theatre which got a huge bipartisan sponsor In Washington till May 2023, in the form of several QUAD leaders and senior ministers’ summit, seems to have lost some steam. The QUAD is an alliance of the US, Australia, Japan and India for keeping the Indo-Pacific region rules bound, as China tries to steam in through the waters. Elections in the US and India, the failure of the IPEF’s(Indo-Pacific Economic Framework, also formed on the sidelines of the QUAD leaders’ summit), failure to come up with a concrete economically beneficial partnership among the partnering countries seem to have blown a hole through the QUAD. It is highly unlikely that there will be a high-level leaders summit of the QUAD till the election cycle is over for the US and India. US election outcomes would impact the future of QUAD and its strategic focus on cooperation among the participating countries.
Meanwhile, in a run-up to the interim budget which also was presented this week, the Chief Economic Advisor of India released a report on a review of the Indian economy. This document has huge references to geo-political headwinds and their impact on India’s growth story. One clear trend that the new government of India has to watch out as mentioned in the report is “The era of hyper-globalisation in global manufacturing is over, However, that will not deter governments from pursuing onshoring and friend-shoring of production with a consequent impact on transportation, logistics costs, and, hence, the final prices of products. Recent events in the Red Sea may have brought back concerns over reliance on global supply chains. In other words, exporting one’s way to growth will not be easy. This reinforces the need to lower logistics costs”. Geopolitics in 2024 and beyond would be more local than global.
(The writer is a policy analyst. The views expressed are personal)
