A Corridor in their Minds!

 

New Delhi. 10 September 2023: Biden, Modi, and G20 allies unveil rail and shipping project linking India to the Middle East and Europe. It is claimed that the projected Corridor, conceived at the annual summit of the world’s top 20 economies, will facilitate boosting trade, enhance transportation of energy, and further improve digital connectivity. It would include India, Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Jordan, Israel, and the European Union, stated Jake Sullivan, Biden’s national security adviser. 

In economics, the "Company", defined by a juristic person, does not possess the body of a natural being. It exists only in "contemplation of law". Being an artificial person, it has to depend upon natural persons, namely, the directors, officers, shareholders, etc., to get its various works done. Likewise, the sea lanes and land routes constituting the proposed corridor have existed since ancient times, but the corridor itself will only exist in the minds of Modi, Biden, and the Gulf rulers.

The so-called Middle East Corridor will consist of two separate routes: the Eastern Route will link the port of Mundra on India’s West coast to Fujairah port and then transport goods through containers to the Israeli port of Haifa using the railroad via Saudi Arabia and Jordan. The Western Route will start at Piraeus in Greece, traverse the Mediterranean, enter the Middle East at Haifa, and thereafter follow the same alignment as the Eastern Route. The Corridor is seen as a rival to China’s Belt and Road initiative, particularly the CPEC, and is expected to provide an alternative route for shipments to Europe. However, whereas China and Pakistan are the major stakeholders in CPEC, there are six stakeholders (mentioned above) in the Middle East Corridor – excluding the U.S. This will make decision-making and management far too complex and difficult compared to CPEC.

Uninterrupted oil/gas pipelines will link the eastern and western terminuses at Mundra and Piraeus, respectively. The ships carrying merchandise will load/unload at least at four destinations - Piraeus, Haifa, Fujairah, and the Indian ports on the Gujarat coast (Modi’s home state). As shown on the map, Mumbai will be a secondary Indian destination. Presently, shipping between India and Europe takes place through the Suez Canal, without the hassle of loading/unloading at intermediate destinations.  It takes Indian shipping 28 days to transport goods between Mumbai and Europe via the Suez Canal.   It is claimed that the Middle East Corridor will reduce the time to 16  days. We don't know if this accounts for the time spent in loading/ unloading at intermediate destinations, congestion at the ports, and unforeseen factors. So, why would the Indian and the European shippers go through the cumbersome motions of loading and reloading at the Gulf and Haifa ports and instead follow the more economical and direct route through the Suez Canal?

This is because the proposed corridor will provide Saudi Arabia, UAE, and Jordan access to the Mediterranean through Israel. In American slang, a "lemon" is a car that causes more trouble than it is worth, as in “I bought a car from that dealership, but it turned out to be a lemon”. This is what the Middle East Corridor will be for India - a lemon. So, what is the big deal? Why is this hype, generated by Modi, about the Middle East corridor to be a "Game Changer? The proposed corridor is Modi's latest brainchild, aimed primarily at winning the next Indian elections. Additionally, it will allow the Israeli camel into the Arab tent. Earlier, another of Modi’s hair-brained ventures failed when in 2017, he tried to establish an Air Freight Corridor between India and Afghanistan, bypassing Pakistan. How do we further explain the U.S.’ and India’s role in this likely “Fine Kettle of Fish”?

The U.S. is apprehensive of China’s growing economic and military might. It is particularly jilted by Chinese expansion in the South China Sea, and further into the Pacific Ocean.  To address the Chinese challenge, the U.S., in 2018.:1) Re-designated the U.S. Pacific Command as the U.S. Indo-Pacific Command; 2) Initiated a series of tri-service military exercises, the largest with any country, incorporating the U.S, India, Japan, and Australia;3) Signed the Communications Compatibility and Security Agreement (COMCASA) with India. The agreement allowed India's U.S.-origin military platforms like C-130J Super Hercules special forces aircraft, Chinook helicopters, and Boeing P-81 long-range maritime patrol (LRMP) aircraft to be fitted with state-of-the-art US communications equipment. Till then, these platforms used less secure, commercially available, electronic gear.

The cutting-edge U.S. equipment provided through COMCASA would enable India to launch operations during hostilities against Pakistan and China with a higher degree of secrecy. Likewise, the P-81 LRMP, in its anti-submarine operations, needed to communicate with the entire spectrum of the nearby naval forces which included surface ships and own submarines. The secure electronic equipment will be valuable during the Indian surveillance of the Malacca Straights choke point, a task the U.S. wants the Indian navy and Air Force to perform within the ambit of the Indo-Pacific Command.

The proposed corridor is the U.S. and its allies’ response to the much-talked-about Belt & Road initiative launched by China in 2013. CPEC, the almost aborted flagship venture of the Chinese initiative, was showcased by Pakistan and (to a lesser extent) China as an overland Suez Canal running about 2395 kilometers from Kashgar to Gwadar. Though presently moving at a snail's pace because of Pakistan's financial and internal instability, CPEC is to link Pakistan's Gwadar port with China's Xingjian region via a network of highways, railways, and oil and gas pipelines. The Corridor was programmed to open trade routes in Western China and provide China with direct access to the Gulf via the Arabian Sea, bypassing longer logistical routes. For Pakistan, it would bring hundreds of thousands of jobs and economic opportunities for the people, particularly those belonging to the backward province of Pakistani Baluchistan. 

India is an aspirant for regional power status and sees itself as a competitor to China.  It has the world's 5^th largest economy (US$3.7 Trillion). The U.S. and the European Union are propping up India in its quest to challenge China. National space programs are the symbols of geopolitical aristocracy.  In 2011, Fobos-Grunt was an attempted Russian sample-return mission to Phobos, one of the moons of Mars. Fobos-Grunt also carried the Chinese Mars orbiter Yinghuo-1. Due to a malfunction, the spacecraft got stuck in Earth’s orbit and eventually fell back to Earth. 

The U.S. to score a point on Russia and China (More on China) helped India in putting a satellite in Mars’ orbit. Mangalyaan - the Indian Mars mission, launched in November 2013, utilized NASA’s Deep Space Network (DSN), situated in Spain, California, and Australia, during its journey to the Red Planet. The NASA assets provided additional support during the Indian network’s “non-visible period.” America’s MAVEN Mars orbiter, which was launched two weeks after India’s Mangalyaan, overtook the latter during the last leg of the journey and acted as a pathfinder for the Indian spacecraft. China’s first Mars mission landed on the Red Planet in May 2021, six years after India was able to put Mangalyaan into Mars’ orbit (it didn’t have a lander though). In due course, the world will also know about the extent to which the US helped India in landing its recent Lunar mission – Chandrayaan, on the moon's surface.

Western powers justify their post-Cold War cozying up to India to their shared “moral values”. They consider India a benign, and somewhat persecuted country which is pitted against an expansionist, brutal, and totalitarian China. While doing so, they ignore that during the Cold War period, India, despite its professed non-alignment, had been a close friend and supporter of the Soviet Union, another expansionist and brutal power of the era. India had fully supported the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan when almost the entire world was against it.

Saleem Akhtar Malik

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