Indian Press on Afghan Taliban and Abraham Accord: New Age Islam's Selection, 22 September 2020
By
New Age Islam Edit Bureau
22 September 2020
•Afghan
Taliban On China’s ‘Side’: Should India Be Worried?
By
Haidar Abbas
•India
And the Abraham Accords
By
Mahesh Sachdev
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Afghan
Taliban On China’s ‘Side’: Should India Be Worried?
By
Haidar Abbas
21 Sep 2020
Behind the
facade of the US as a superpower is also a dark underbelly – one that is not so
visible in the mainstream media or primetime debates: a startling fact that,
around 5,00,000 US military men – who have at some point in time served in Iraq
or Afghanistan – have been diagnosed with Post Traumatic Stress Disorder
(PTSD).
This has
emerged after the US remained locked in battle with its 40 allies, against the
Afghan Taliban, over the last twenty years, and in its wake lost more than 3000
of its soldiers, wounded 20,660, and incurred damages worth USD 975 billion.
Now that
the US is leaving Afghanistan – after signing a deal with the same Afghan
Taliban it had fought for two decades – it has totally shifted its focus
towards getting Israel to scuttle the Arab states into normalising their
diplomatic ties with it.
No wonder
US President Donald Trump has ‘gotten himself nominated’ for the Nobel Peace
Prize for the same.
Strange are
political bedfellows. The Afghan Taliban fought against the Soviet Union with
the help of the US, and today, the erstwhile Soviet Union and now Russia is
totally supportive of the same Afghan Taliban and against the US. Vietnam
fought against US with Chinese support, and today Vietnam is against China with
US support.
There is a
new churning of the world order as China, Pakistan, Iran, Malaysia, Turkey and
Russia are forming a new bloc, while the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia (KSA), UAE,
Israel, US, India, Japan are forming another bloc.
The
long-standing friendship of Pakistan and KSA has soured, and Pakistan has
started to align with Turkey. At the same time, Pakistan has also been
instrumental in making the Afghan Taliban come to an understanding with China,
the scourge for US and India alike, as India always wanted the Afghan Taliban
to be kept at bay due to concerns over Kashmir. India and China are also
embroiled in a conflict in the Himalayas over their border areas.
The US had
imagined that when it would leave Afghanistan it would be far more wrecked than
twenty years ago, as infighting is the hallmark of the Afghans and the ‘kept’
US government of Ashraf Ghani would give a bloody-nose to the Afghan Taliban,
who are now almost at the doorstep of Kabul.
While the
US is packing its bags, a news report in the Financial Times on 8 September
2020, says that China now is intending to go ahead with a promise to invest in
Afghanistan, which would proverbially mean rushing into a zone where even
angels fear to tread – that is, the decision to develop infrastructure in
Afghanistan in exchange for peace, as ‘Beijing hopes infrastructure investment
can prevent instability in Afghanistan after US troops withdraw’. The report
also says that China has ‘offered to build a road network for the Taliban’, if
they can ensure peace in Afghanistan after the US military withdrawal,
‘according to two senior tribal leaders in Pakistan with close ties to the
militants’.
The same
report informs us that, according to tribal leaders from Balochistan, diplomats
from Beijing offered “sizeable investments in energy and infrastructure
projects” in the country during talks that have been taking place over the past
three months in Beijing.
“Chinese
officials have told the Taliban to bring peace [to Afghanistan] and China will
invest in roads to begin with,” said one leader, as per the report. “In future,
China also wants to look at energy projects like generating electricity and
then transporting oil and gas from Central Asia [through Afghanistan].”
The Chinese
are thinking ahead on Afghanistan and laying the ground for the future, said
security expert James Dorsey, as per the FT report. A second tribal leader in
Balochistan, who returned from Afghanistan in late August after spending a
month there, told FT that ‘China had pledged to build motorways that would link
Afghanistan’s main cities.
The US now,
even more aggressively than before, wants China’s most ambitious project – the
China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC) – ‘killed’.
Why?
Because China and US’s ‘bête noire’ Iran have entered a USD 400 billion
‘military and trade’ deal recently. And unsurprisingly, Iran, Turkey, Pakistan
and China are becoming closer.
CPEC’s end
line is the Gwadar port in Balochistan province in Pakistan, from where its
goods will reach the world – and acting on the possibility of India and US
choking Chinese ships in the Malacca Strait, China has started to build a
railway line – from its Kashgar province into Balochistan.
China wants
to connect Gwadar port with the Chabahar port in Iran, from where, ironically,
India was asked to move out, and the recent visit of India’s Defence Minister
Rajnath Singh to Tehran also turned out to be a damp squib. The Gwadar port is
what Israel wants to keep an eye on, as Israel-UAE have decided to make an
intelligence base on Socotra island in Yemen, which overlooks the Gwadar. This,
after Israel and UAE decided to enter diplomatic relations on 14 August 2020.
Growing
Trust Between China & Afghan Taliban
China is
now laying the groundwork for the future, particularly in nations which are
close to its borders and which conform to Chinese interests. Pakistan will
always be in the middle of Chinese policies as it is Pakistan which helped the
US ‘hash up’ the peace deal with the Afghan Taliban, and now with the job done,
the US is on its way to abandoning Pakistan, as India is ‘replacing’ it.
Now, as
suggested by some reports, China and the Afghan Taliban may have joint
meetings, followed by delegations from Afghanistan and Turkey visiting each
other; this suggests a growing trust between the two.
A meeting
in Islamabad might also happen (Russia and China included) where regional
stability in the wake of the new, emerging scenario would be the object of
discussion, as Pakistan has walked out of its relationship over KSA, which
forced the latter to seek the return of USD 1 billion from Pakistan, and snap
the oil supply on deferred loans to Pakistan. China helped Pakistan return the
KSA money. KSA is now an advantage to India and has also threatened to deport
Pakistani workers – a space India is ready to fill.
What Next?
What merits
attention is, while China has been slammed for ‘persecuting’ its Muslim
Uighurs, all the majority-Muslim nations – Turkey, Iran, Pakistan and even
Malaysia – have cozied up to China. This has annoyed the US which has raised a
hue and cry over the Uighur cause, while the US itself has, ironically, been
‘responsible’ for the deaths of millions of Muslims in Iraq, Pakistan,
Afghanistan, Syria etc.
How the
situation unfolds is for the future to see. But China, with the Afghan Taliban
on its side, has been assured the safety of its CPEC from the Balochistan
Liberation Army (BLA).
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Haidar
Abbas Rizvi, is a former State Information Commissioner in India. He writes on
international politics.
(This is
an opinion piece, and the views expressed above are the author’s own. New
Age Islam neither endorses nor is responsible for them.)
https://www.thequint.com/voices/opinion/china-pakistan-afghanistan-taliban-connection-cpec-gwadar-iran-india-new-world-order
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India And
the Abraham Accords
By
Mahesh Sachdev
September
22, 2020
Israeli
foray into the Gulf could disrupt the politico-economic architecture India has
built with the GCC
The White
House ceremony on September 15 marking the formal normalisation of Israel’s
ties with the United Arab Emirates (UAE) and the Kingdom of Bahrain has created
a significant inflection point in regional history and geopolitics. Indeed, it
helped ring in the Jewish new year (Rosh Hashanah 5781) last weekend with some
extra cheers!
Two New
Friendships
The two
Gulf states have, thus, joined Egypt and Jordan which had their peace treaties
with Israel in 1979 and 1994, respectively. Still, several nuances make the
September 15 reconciliation different. For one, the UAE and Bahrain do not have
any territorial dispute with Israel, nor have they ever been at war with it.
Although formally committed to an Arab consensus over a two-state resolution of
the Palestine cause, these two countries have steadily, albeit furtively, moved
towards having substantive links with Israel in recent years. Hence, the
‘Abraham Accords’ entered with the UAE and Bahrain are ‘peace-for-peace’ deals
without any physical quid pro quo by Israel. Multiple drivers are likely to
spur the two new friendships to grow faster and deeper than the ‘cold peace’
Israel has had with its two Arab neighbours. Externally, Israel, the UAE and
Bahrain share the common threat perception of Iran against the backdrop of the
ongoing diminution of Pax Americana in the region. Internally, while all three
have their respective hotheads opposing this reconciliation, these seem
manageable. They are relatively more modern societies which share the
overarching and immediate priority of post-pandemic economic resuscitation.
They have lost no time to set up logistics such as Internet connectivity and
direct flights to pave the way for more active economic engagement. If these
sinews evolve, other moderate Arab countries are likely to join the Israel fan
club.img
Israel’s
detente with Egypt and Jordan did not have any major impact on India as our
ties with them were relatively insignificant. However, now India has stronger,
multifaceted and growing socioeconomic engagements with Israel and the Gulf
countries. With over eight million Indian diaspora in the Gulf remitting
annually nearly $50 billion, annual merchandise trade of over $150 billion,
sourcing of nearly two-thirds of India’s hydrocarbon imports, major
investments, etc., it is natural to ask how the new regional dynamic would
affect India.
Implications
for India
Geopolitically,
India has welcomed the establishment of diplomatic relations between the UAE
and Israel, calling both its strategic partners. In general, the Israel-Gulf
Cooperation Council (GCC) breakthrough widens the moderate constituency for
peaceful resolution of the Palestine dispute, easing India’s diplomatic
balancing act. However, nothing in West Asia is monochromatic: The Israel-GCC
ties may provoke new polarisations between the Jihadi fringe and the
mainstream. The possibility of the southern Gulf becoming the new arena of the
proxy war between Iran and Israel cannot be ruled out, particularly in Shia
pockets. India would have to be on its guard to monitor and even pre-empt any
threat to its interests in the Gulf.
Even more important
for India is to manage the economic fallout of the Israel-GCC synergy. With
defence and security cooperation as a strong impetus, both sides are ready to
realise the full potential of their economic complementarity. The UAE and
Bahrain can become the entrepôts to Israeli exports of goods and services to
diverse geographies. Israel has niche strengths in defence, security and
surveillance equipment, arid farming, solar power, horticultural products,
high-tech, gem and jewellery, and pharmaceuticals. Tourism, real estate and
financial service sectors on both sides have suffered due to the pandemic and
hope for a positive spin-off from the peer-to-peer interactions. Further,
Israel has the potential to supply skilled and semi-skilled manpower to the GCC
states, particularly from the Sephardim and Mizrahim ethnicities, many of whom
speak Arabic. Even the Israeli Arabs may find career opportunities to bridge
the cultural divide. Israel is known as the start-up nation and its
stakeholders could easily fit in the various duty-free incubators in the UAE.
Israeli
foray into the Gulf has the potential to disrupt the existing politico-economic
architecture India has carefully built with the GCC states. India has acquired
a large and rewarding regional footprint, particularly as the preferred source
of manpower, food products, pharmaceuticals, gem and jewellery, light
engineering items, etc. Indians are also the biggest stakeholders in Dubai’s
real estate, tourism and Free Economic Zones. In the evolving scenario, there
may be scope for a profitable trilateral synergy, but India cannot take its
preponderance as a given. It needs to keep its powder as dry as the shifting
sands of the Empty Quarter.
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Mahesh
Sachdev, a former Indian Ambassador, is President, Eco-Diplomacy and
Strategies, New Delhi
https://www.thehindu.com/opinion/op-ed/india-and-the-abraham-accords/article32662790.ece
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