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Abstract

Indian economic and strategic involvement in the Middle East has seen a transformation over the past two decades. This development has happened as many observers remark a gradual decline of US influence juxtaposed with China’s growing presence in the region. This article aims to assess how India has managed its bilateral relations with China within this region of increasing economic and strategic interest. Despite a growing literature on the China-India rivalry in Southeast Asia, South Asia or Central Asia, there is a notable dearth of scholarship on the China–India rivalry and its implications in the Middle East. Filling this gap, this article focuses on explaining how India has adapted its policies towards China’s rising influence in Middle Eastern politics. The core argument is that India’s strategy has been shaped by both a perception of declining US’ engagement in the Middle East and by opportunities created by new strategic hedging strategies from key regional players such as Israel, Saudi Arabia, the UAE and Iran. The article determines that India moved over the last decade from a strategy of buck-passing on US’ security provision to one of partial soft balancing of China’s strategic presence in the Middle East. However, the article also notes the limitations of standard theories of balance-of-power and strategic hedging to account for India’s multifaceted approach towards a regional order in flux.

Keywords

USA China rivalry Middle East

Introduction

Since the nineteenth century, European powers, the United States and Russia, were dominant extra-regional powers in the Middle East (Barr, 2018; Takeyh & Simon, 2016). These powers had a vital interest in accessing and controlling strategic goods, such as crude oil and gas, as well as maintaining freedom of navigation in the region. Over the last two decades, however, China and India have become increasingly involved in Middle Eastern affairs. China has increased its trade with the Middle East and, in 2020, replaced the European Union as the Gulf Cooperation Council’s (GCC) largest trading partner (Aluwaisheg, 2021). Additionally, China is now Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates (UAE’s) largest non-oil trading partner globally, and the UAE is China’s second-largest trading partner (Abdulkader & Hassan, 2022; Alhamawi, 2022). Similarly, India’s bilateral trade with the GCC was estimated at $154 billion in 2021–2022, accounting for 10.4% of its total exports and 18% of imports (PTI, 2023).

Accordingly, the two rising Asian powers have recognised the critical role of the Middle East for their future economic growth and development and have integrated the region into their strategic planning. The region has been key for India and China’s energy security, and, to some degree, for their own domestic political stability. This development has happened as many regional actors have remarked a gradual decline of US interest and involvement in the Middle East (Alterman, 2024; Colley, 2023; Kavanagh & Wehrey, 2023; MacDonald & Parent, 2024). Furthermore, India and China’s growing involvement in the Middle East has been happening as both powers are still locked into a long-time spatial and positional rivalry in Asia (Ganguly et al., 2023; Garver, 2001; Paul, 2018). One could also ask whether deteriorating India–China relations since the border standoff of 2020 also further complicated their interactions in the Middle East.

Until recently, these geopolitical developments had received scant attention from policymakers and scholars. Although there is an expanding scholarship on China’s relations with the Middle East (Chaziza, 2020; Dorsey, 2019; Ehteshami & Horesh, 2018; Ehteshami & Miyagi, 2015; Fulton, 2022; Horesh, 2016; Reardon-Anderson, 2018; Scobell & Nader, 2016; Zoubir, 2023), there have been fewer studies on India’s Middle East policies (Abhyankar, 2008; Blarel, 2022; Mudiam, 1994; Pant & Alhasan, 2023; Quamar, 2023; Singh, 2024; Ward, 1992) and even fewer works on the implications of India–China rivalry in this region (Fulton, 2022; Huwaidin, 2022; Janardhan, 2022; Kemp, 2010). This stands in contrast to the significant literature analysing relations between India and China in other Asian sub-regions (Grare, 2017; Grare & Smaan, 2022; Kavalski, 2019; Mohan, 2002).

This article seeks therefore to examine the different foreign policy choices adopted by India in the context of US–China strategic competition against the background of the regional order transition in the Middle East. With India and China’s economies increasingly reliant on resources and trade prospects in the Middle East, potential areas of conflict have emerged. Furthermore, the India–China rivalry has evolved from territorial disputes to an intensifying positional rivalry that has extended beyond their immediate borders, and potentially now to the Middle East (Blarel, 2020). As a result, this article also aims to critically assess whether the expansion of the strategic presence of both Asian powers in the Middle East has automatically led to similar antagonistic relations in this other sub-region. Specifically, this article argues that while India faces direct security challenges from a rising China on its borders in South Asia and the Indian Ocean, the competitive dimension of Sino-Indian relations is not as acute in the Middle East, and this has led to the absence of explicit hard balancing from India. India has not yet developed a notable military presence or joined any military alliances in the Middle East.

Alternatively, this article builds on literature focused on explaining the shifting behaviour of middle powers amidst the strategic rivalry between the United States and China (Goh, 2006; He & Feng, 2023; Kuik, 2008; Medeiros, 2005; Paul, 2018). Precisely, the article contends that the interplay between (a) the varying strategic involvements of the United States and China in Middle Eastern politics and (b) the agency and hedging behaviour of key regional players (namely Saudi Arabia, the UAE, Israel and Iran) has shaped India’s own regional policy choices over the last three decades. The article then asserts that India has opted for two strategic options depending on the evolving interaction between the two factors mentioned above. First, US military and political activism along with limited Chinese involvement in the Middle East initially led India to opt for a buck-passing strategy from 1992 to 2014. Buck-passing refers here to India, due to either lack of capacities or willingness, passing the buck when it defers responsibility to other powers, here, the United States, to manage regional security issues (Christensen & Schneider, 1990). Second, since 2014, rising Chinese influence and a widespread perception of US’ declining authority in the region, as well as the development of hedging strategies from the GCC members and Israel have incited India to gradually adopt a mix of (limited) hard and soft balancing strategies. Arguably, the mixed and fluid nature of India’s strategy between these varying components makes India’s behaviour partially align with what some have defined as a hedging strategy (Paul, 2014). Here I build on the definition of hedging as a middle-position policy between cooperation and containment of two rival powers (Goh, 2006). Building on He and Feng (2023), this article notes that this is also an evolving strategy to limit India’s exposure to geopolitical risks given the uncertainty in a key region. One other contribution of this article is to demonstrate that geopolitical rivalries and their inherent balancing mechanisms do not travel systematically across geographies, where threat perceptions might vary.

To evaluate these claims, this article is organised into four sections. First, this article outlines a brief historical background of India’s engagement with the Middle East and explains how India came to buck-pass and outsource the security of its growing regional interests to the US security umbrella in the 1990s and 2000s. The second section discusses China’s growing strategic involvement in the Middle East and the declining interest and influence of the United States since 2014. The third section demonstrates how the combination of these dynamics, along with the search for hedging options of Middle Eastern actors led India to embrace a partial strategy of hedging in the region. Finally, the article concludes by summarising the theoretical and empirical findings of this study and discussing India’s possible foreign policy choices in the coming years.

Historical Background of India’s Approach to the Middle East: From Limited Engagement to Buck-passing on US’ Security Provision

Given its geographical location, long history of commercial ties and shared colonial experiences with the region, India developed early political ties with various Middle Eastern states (Mudiam, 1994). In 1947, Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru deliberately sought to distinguish independent India’s foreign policies from the imperialist practices of the British Empire. This is why India regarded newly decolonised states in the Middle East, or what Indian policymakers referred to as West Asia, as natural partners. For instance, India supported Palestinians and new Arab states in their quest for independence (Blarel, 2015). Nehru and India were also regarded as significant extra-regional actors actively engaged in resolving regional issues such as the Suez crisis and the Lebanon crisis of 1958 (Nayudu, 2018). During this period, India’s engagement in Middle Eastern affairs was guided by the objectives of facilitating trade and ensuring access to sea lanes and the Suez Canal (Bishku, 1987). Indian leaders were particularly concerned about ensuring secure access to important trade routes such as the Strait of Hormuz and the Suez Canal, leading to adjustments in India’s regional policies to protect its economic and trade interests. By the late 1960s, oil emerged as a vital necessity for India’s expanding industrial sector. Since gaining independence, Iraq and Saudi Arabia had been major suppliers to India, while relations with other Gulf states, including the UAE, were also cultivated. The events surrounding the October 1973 oil crisis further propelled India to align its Middle Eastern policies with its oil and trade imperatives. Furthermore, given its limited material capacities and its dependence on energy imports, India mainly played a passive role in the background of US–Soviet competition in the Middle East.

Various global and regional political changes in the early 1990s pushed India to revise its approach to the Middle East. The end of the Cold War and the dissolution of the USSR deprived India of one of its main diplomatic and military partners. In the Middle East, the invasion of Kuwait and the Iraq war, and then the beginning of the Oslo peace process negotiations, led to significant divisions and led to realignments within the Arab–Muslim world, providing India with not only new diplomatic challenges but also opportunities to engage with all regional actors in the region (Baral & Mohanty, 1992). A notable signal of New Delhi’s foreign policy change was the establishment of diplomatic relations with Israel in January 1992 (Blarel, 2015; Kumaraswamy, 2010). After 1992, India also bolstered its economic and diplomatic ties with other regional actors, including Iran and the GCC states. India’s reliance on petroleum, coupled with sustained economic growth since liberalising its economy in the early 1990s, had positioned it already as a significant market for energy exports from the Middle East.

However, as India’s economic engagement in the Middle East increased, so did both its regional stakes and their associated vulnerabilities. New Delhi accordingly began to develop a new active approach tailored to protect its energy and economic interests. In 2004, the External Affairs Minister referred to the region as ‘an integral part of India’s extended neighbourhood’ and noted that ‘developments in West Asia today have a direct impact on India’s economy and society’ (Singh, 2004). In 2005, India announced its first ‘Look West’ policy, which aimed to strengthen ties with West Asian countries. During Prime Minister Manmohan Singh’s tenure, India also engaged in security cooperation with some Gulf states, particularly following the terrorist attacks in Mumbai on 26 November 2008. During this period, India signed the Delhi (2006) and Riyadh (2010) declarations with the Saudi government, laying the groundwork for further consolidating India–GCC relations.

New Delhi has increasingly prioritised the Middle East presented as part of its ‘extended neighbourhood’ with its growing stakes manifested in Indian energy dependencies, the Indian expatriate community and other trade interlinkages (Scott, 2009). However, in doing so, India has also deliberately pursued a low-key security and diplomatic role to preserve relatively cordial terms with all Middle Eastern actors. From the 1990s to the 2010s, India has focused on the promotion of economic interests and adopted a policy of keeping aloof from regional differences and disputes. Since the early 1990s, India has carefully put in place various formal and informal partnerships with a range of regional actors, such as Israel, Iran and Saudi Arabia, as a means of ensuring India’s access to resources and strengthening its status in the region (Blarel, 2022). While framed as India’s ‘multi-alignment’ strategy, underlining its deliberate quest for access and leverage in a multipolar and fluid Middle Eastern order (Hall 2016; Quamar, 2023), in practice however, India’s multi-engagement strategy was facilitated and ‘strategically grounded in an American-policed regional architecture’ (Janardhan, 2020).

Consequently, India was able to buck-pass and outsource the security of its regional interests to the US security umbrella in the region during this period. Buck-passing is understood here not as an explicit endorsement of US policies in the region but as a passive role which in practice is deferent to US security interests, which are themselves not considered as threatening, in order to pass on the costs of risks of security provision to others (Christensen & Schneider, 1990). Nevertheless, without a limited alignment, India would not have been able to pass ‘bucks’ or risks to others. Except for the Iraq war of the early 1990s when India had initially opposed the use of force to resolve the Kuwait crisis (Baral & Mohanty, 1992), Indian decision-makers saw no need to challenge and benefit from the US security order in the region which had created a favourable environment for India’s increasing economic interdependence with the region. India benefitted since the 1990s from the US management of regional crises. Following the end of the Cold War, most of the Gulf states such as Kuwait, Bahrain, Qatar and the UAE signed defence cooperation agreements with the United States, deals which involved arms sales, military cooperation and joint training exercises (Zenko, 2018).

With a deeply militarised presence on the Arabian Peninsula, US preponderance shaped the options available to India. For example, in January 1992, India established and normalised diplomatic relations with Israel under US pressure (Blarel, 2017). Moreover, even if India regularly criticised US actions in the region, such as its interventions in Iraq or Syria in the 2000s and early 2010s, or refrained from bandwagoning with the US’s punitive approaches to promoting democracy and human rights in the Middle East, New Delhi did not seek to actively undermine American regional dominance, as it suited its own regional interests. In fact, India even seriously considered a US request to deploy Indian military troops in Iraq in 2003 for peacekeeping purposes, notably in an effort to upgrade ties with Washington. After a heated domestic debate, India turned down the US request (Lancaster, 2003). Additionally, India committed during this period to enforce UN sanctions supported by the US against Iran in the context of its nuclear programme, even though Iran had historically been one of India’s main suppliers of crude oil (Kumaraswamy, 2008).

However, in the past decade, New Delhi has increasingly acknowledged the growing discrepancy between its growing interests in the Middle East and the restricted resources allocated to safeguard these interests and has therefore been pushed to reconsider its buck-passing strategy. This has become an even more acute issue in the context of perceived US disengagement juxtaposed with growing Chinese involvement in the Middle East.

China’s Growing Economic and Strategic Involvement in the Middle East After 2014

In parallel to India’s increasing engagement, the Middle East also became China’s main source of imported energy resources since 1995 (Alterman & Garver, 2008). By 2020, oil from the Gulf region accounted for about ‘47% of China’s total imported oil’ (Aluf, 2022). Since 2013, China has also emerged as the primary trade partner for all actors in the region, primarily serving as a supplier of goods. For instance, trade between China and the GCC surged from ‘under $10 billion in 2000 to $76 billion in 2019’ (Interesse, 2022). Moreover, China has injected $100 billion into infrastructure endeavours in the region through its Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) (Ehteshami, 2018). Middle Eastern countries have also expanded their cooperation with China and received ‘about 23% of Chinese BRI investment in 2022’ (Wang, 2022).

This increasing involvement in the regional economy has prompted China to adjust its foreign policy to recognise these new realities. In 2004, China established the China-Arab States Cooperation Forum to expand and institutionalise cooperation with the region. In January 2016, the Chinese government released a white paper dedicated exclusively to its approach to the Middle East. This publication underscored China’s efforts to build and consolidate economic ties with the region, focusing on investing in the local port and trade infrastructure. By 2016, China had emerged as the leading foreign investor in the Arab world (Dagher et al., 2023). Furthermore, China has formally or informally integrated its investments and infrastructural projects in various Middle Eastern countries into its broader BRI structure (Fulton, 2017). The region provides significant trade connectivity, notably with the Mediterranean and Europe. Funding for projects like the high-speed train route between the Red Sea Port of Eilat and the Mediterranean port of Ashdod was, for instance, delivered by the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB) (Shichor, 2018). Most Middle Eastern states have also become AIIB members, while Chinese banks and state-owned enterprises such as the China Civil Engineering Construction Corporation and the Shanghai International Port Group have expanded their regional operations to finance and oversee BRI investments in the Middle East (Rakhmat, 2019). China has also, for instance, invested in Oman’s special economic zone in the Duqm Port, Kuwait’s Silk City, Qatar’s special economic zones, the Jeddah Port in Saudi Arabia and the Khalifa Port in the UAE (Fulton, 2019).

China quickly understood the importance of the Middle Eastern, and especially Gulf, countries for the success of its broader BRI investments in the Indian Ocean. Chinese investments in infrastructure projects in the Gulf region can be perceived to complement the connectivity to the Arabian Sea initiated with the Gwadar port in Pakistan. To safeguard these investments and ensure access to this economic corridor, China has also had to ramp up its military and naval activities across the Indian Ocean, illustrated by the construction of its first overseas military naval base in Djibouti in 2016. China has since maintained a significant navy presence in the region to protect its interests, as cited in its first National Military Strategy published in 2015 (The State Council, 2015). This presence has involved the sending of Chinese vessels to the Gulf of Aden, as part of a broader policy to combat piracy and to protect key sea lanes of communication. Since then, Chinese vessels have visited various ports in the region, including the Sultan Qaboos and Salalah Ports in Oman, Jeddah Port in Saudi Arabia, Bandar Abbas Port in Iran and Aden Port’ in Yemen (Arab News, 2017).

China also benefitted from the US security umbrella to foster closer ties with Israel and the GCC states, but, unlike India, it has been increasingly reluctant to endorse and align with Washington’s policies (Alhasan, 2024). Chinese officials have notably criticised American approaches to Iran following the US withdrawal from the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) and the adoption of the ‘maximum pressure’ strategy (Zhou, 2020). Shortly after the assassination of General Qasem Soleimani, China’s Foreign Minister Wang Yi also voiced concerns that the ‘reckless U.S. military operation violates the fundamental norms of international relations and will exacerbate regional tensions and instability’ (Fulton, 2020). Since then, the bilateral relationship between China and Iran has strengthened, culminating in the establishment of a strategic partnership in 2021. The same year, the Shanghai Cooperation Organization initiated the process of granting Iran full membership. Finally, in 2023, China brokered the normalisation of ties between Iran and Saudi Arabia (Gadzo, 2023). Also, while criticising the US’ role in the Gaza crisis after October 2023, China has been trying to present itself as an alternative peace broker in the region by mediating between the rival Palestinian factions of Fatah and Hamas (Rasgon & Wang, 2024).

Despite this contestation of US interests in the region, China’s military power in the Gulf cannot compete with the United States, even in a period of relative disengagement. Beijing only has one military facility situated in Djibouti. Yet, it has made substantial investments in ports throughout the region, capable of accommodating both civilian and military operations (Lubold & Strobel, 2021). China has also undergone a series of joint exercises with Saudi Arabia and Iran and has sold weapons to Gulf states, notably precision-guided ballistic missiles and drones, albeit on a modest scale (5% of arms sales to the region) and as a default option when the exports restrictions inhibited such transactions with the United States (Fulton, 2022). Mainly, the recent pivot of Middle Eastern powers towards Chinese investments, as mentioned above, was not so much a reaction to Washington’s declining military presence than a quest for diversification in infrastructure and technology support, areas where they perceived that the United States had been less able or willing to help (Kavanagh & Wehrey, 2023). China’s foreign policy towards the region has also been less critical of authoritarian regimes and Beijing has regularly delivered logistical support to Arab governments to address their domestic security challenges, including access to sophisticated surveillance technologies. Although China’s security presence in the region remains limited, Beijing has offered different defence and economic opportunities than the United States. These have, therefore, not been replacements but complementary prospects for regional actors.

While US diplomatic and military commitments to Israel and Gulf partners like the UAE and Saudi Arabia have remained strong, there has been a steady perception that US interests in the region have been shifting away. Historically, US core interests centred around ensuring the safe supply and transport of energy supplies to global markets and ensuring Israeli security. Until October 2023, the protection of these interests did not seem to necessitate a hegemonic US presence in the Middle East (Sullivan, 2023). For instance, the responsibility to maintain open shipping lanes has increasingly been shared among other extra-regional powers. Operation Sentinel, a multilateral coalition comprising nine countries, has notable aims to enhance maritime security in the international waters surrounding the Arabian Peninsula. Another initiative has been the European-led maritime surveillance mission in the Strait of Hormuz. These coalitions have demonstrated the emergence of regional security configurations beyond the United States. Among many key Middle Eastern actors, like the GCC or Israel, there had been a perception of diminishing US interest, influence and impact in the wider region, leading decision-makers to look for and diversify their economic and security partnerships (Samaan, 2019).

Hard and Soft Choices for India in the Middle East

While China’s engagement in the Middle East is of a recent nature and has accelerated over the last decade, India has long considered the Gulf region to be part of its ‘extended neighbourhood’, both because of its geographical proximity and as an area where India’s interests and influence have grown over the last two decades (Roy-Chaudhury, 2014; Scott, 2009; Singh, 2024). For instance, the Indian Navy’s 2015 maritime security strategy has recognised this region as a key area of interest and framed China’s growing naval presence as a potential security threat to its maritime interests (Indian Navy, 2015).

Over the last decade, India’s energy and economic interaction with the Middle East has also exponentially grown. As of 2021, the Middle East was supplying over 80% of India’s oil and gas needs, with 53% of the imports coming from Iraq, Saudi Arabia and the UAE, underscoring its critical role in India’s energy security (Times of India, 2021). The GCC countries were also keen to expand their oil market shares with India. As the global economy has been slowing down, the GCCs have been aiming to diversify revenue streams and secure markets for their oil output. In a move away from the traditional buyer–seller relationship, Saudi Aramco and Abu Dhabi National Oil Company announced in 2018 that they would be 50% stakeholders in a $44 billion mega-refinery plant in the state of Maharashtra (Samaan, 2019). Reciprocally, a consortium led by India’s Oil and Natural Gas Corporation has purchased in 2018 a 10% stake in Abu Dhabi National Oil Company’s 40-year offshore oil concession. This series of cross-investment ventures in the energy sector has further strengthened India’s partnerships with Middle Eastern actors (Carvalho & El Gamal, 2018).

While India’s trade with the Middle East constituted only 3% of the GCC’s total trade in 1992, by 2023, it had surged to $240 billion. Trade between India and the GCC soared from $5.5 billion in 2001 to $184 billion in 2022–2023 (PTI, 2023). In 2022, India–UAE trade reached $85 billion, with the UAE emerging as India’s third-largest trading partner, second-largest export destination and the principal source of Arab investment in India, comprising 80% of GCC investments in India (PTI, 2023). India’s ties with Saudi Arabia have also been robust. During a March 2019 visit to New Delhi, Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman announced Saudi Arabia would invest $100 billion in India (Miglani, 2019). In August 2019, Saudi Arabia’s Aramco acquired a ‘20% stake in the hydrocarbon and chemical divisions of Indian conglomerate Reliance Industries’ for $15 billion (Batrawy, 2019).

Consequently, owing to its demographics, expanding consumer market, industrial and technological capabilities, and ensuing economic prospects, India emerged in the 2010s as an attractive market for the GCC’s oil exports, and a favourable destination for long-term investments (Narayan, 2023). For instance, Dubai port operator DP World and India’s National Investment and Infrastructure Fund have jointly invested in a ‘$3 billion equity in the transport and logistics sectors in India in 2018’ (Kumar, 2023). Saudi and Abu Dhabi sovereign wealth funds have also invested ‘$3.5 billion in Reliance Industries’ Jio Platforms in 2020’ (Reuters, 2020). Additionally, India’s relations with the Middle East have been reinforced by the presence of a sizeable diaspora in the region, including approximately 8–9 million individuals, accounting for ‘62% of all remittances received by India’, and contributing around 3% of India’s GDP annually in 2018 (Blarel, 2024).

As a result, the simultaneous economic, political and strategic involvement of India and China in the region has generated the conditions for tensions between the two Asian powers. As China and India are engaged in a long-standing rivalry, it is expected that tensions do not remain limited to their border disputes and can lead to competition over partnerships in other Asian sub-regions like the Middle East. India has notably been historically mistrustful of China’s intentions in South Asia and the Indian Ocean (Ganguly et al., 2023). As a result, increasing naval and port deployments in the Gulf have been another indicator example of New Delhi’s security dilemma.

Even if it has yet to compete with the United States and India in the Indian Ocean, China has increased its naval presence in the region. This deployment has been visible through regular calls on Gulf ports as technical stops, but also the construction of ports in Gwadar in Pakistan and in Djibouti (Kardon & Leutert, 2023). Given the lack of trust in China’s intentions, India has perceived these visits and the construction of Chinese ports with dual-use capabilities, serving both commercial and naval purposes, as direct threats to its own access to vital sea lanes and regional resources (Alhasan 2024). The competitive nature of Sino-Indian ties in the Gulf region has been most acute in Iran, where the two Asian powers have competed for control over the Chabahar port project. For Beijing, Chabahar’s geographical location is particularly key. Iran stands as the sole Middle Eastern state with the potential to supply oil and gas to China via land routes, bypassing the Strait of Hormuz, the Indian Ocean and the Strait of Malacca. In parallel, India has long supported the establishment of the Chabahar deep-sea port to facilitate its own access to Afghanistan and Central Asia, as well as to challenge Pakistan’s naval superiority in the Northern Arabian Sea. Consequently, Prime Minister Modi committed a $300 million credit line for the Chabahar port shortly after Iranian President Hassan Rouhani invited China to invest in the Chabahar economic zone (Ramachandran, 2019). India has also suggested to include the Chabahar port in the Mumbai–Moscow International North–South Transport Corridor.

However, India’s relations with Tehran have been complicated by the deterioration of US–Iran ties. Following the signing of the JCPOA in 2015, Iran emerged again as an important energy partner to both China and India. When the Trump administration withdrew from the JCPOA in 2018 and imposed new sanctions, India was forced to drastically reduce its energy imports from Iran. While India’s preference would be to collaborate with Iran on Chabahar, especially to balance China’s own strategic ties with Tehran, it has also been unwilling to openly oppose the United States (Taneja, 2023). Though the United States granted a sanctions waiver to India’s participation in the Chabahar port project in 2018, the sanction regime and the constraints placed on investments in Iran have hindered India’s plans. Moreover, both China and India hold access and commercial interests in ports located in Oman and the UAE (Panda, 2018). In May 2024, India signed a 10-year agreement for the operation of Chabahar port, a deal which could help India boost trade with Afghanistan and Central Asian countries despite US warnings of sanctions (Vaid, 2024). The contest over access to and control of strategically significant ports for access to the Middle East underscores the increasing spill-over of the Sino-Indian rivalry to this region.

Beijing’s growing investments in the Middle East have also not all been perceived as beneficial opportunities by actors in the region. Concerns have notably emerged over a possible dependence vis-à-vis the Chinese economy (Ghiselli, 2018). In addition, partnerships with China have been seriously criticised by the United States as global competition with China has escalated. For instance, the provision of port access to China in the form of bases was considered a costly signal which could lead Washington to revise its ties with some GCC partners. For instance, a US congressional hearing directly mentioned in 2018 the negative strategic implications for Sino-UAE relations in the context of reports that China planned to build a military installation in Abu Dhabi’s Khalifa Port complex (Lubold & Strobel, 2021). The UAE ultimately ended the project (Salem et al., 2021).

Similarly, from 2009 to 2021, Israel embraced the growing engagement of developing markets like China (and India) to diversify its export destinations and limit its traditional dependence on ties with Western partners. Tel Aviv and Beijing established the Israel–China Joint Committee on Innovation Cooperation. In reaction, China increasingly saw Israel as a vital strategic outpost in its regional interests—a small but vital stopover for its BRI projects, a land bridge connecting trade and energy routes between East Asia through the Middle East and North Africa and onto Europe. As a result, Chinese companies expanded their investments in Israeli infrastructure projects after 2009, like the Carmel tunnels, the railway line from Eilat to Ashdod, and the Northern Haifa Bayport Terminal. In reaction, Washington expressed concerns that China was gaining too much ground in Israel’s infrastructural projects and sectors involving dual-use technologies. Under American pressure, the Israeli government formed an advisory committee to consider the national security implications of future foreign investments in Israeli companies (Scheer, 2019).

The GCC countries and Israel have continued to engage with China but have become increasingly aware that the repercussions of directly challenging US interests were not worth the expected diplomatic and strategic costs. Although the Middle East order has been in flux when it comes to cooperative partnerships, it is not multipolar. Despite the perception of US’ relative disengagement in the region, the United States remains by far the Middle East’s leading security patron, and that position seems unlikely to be challenged over the short term (Byman, 2024). Consequently, the GCC countries and Israel, while maintaining strong ties with their traditional ally and security guarantor, the United States in this case, have simultaneously been looking for alternative partnerships, with other extra-regional actors, including India (Guzansky, 2015; Samaan, 2019). Accordingly, Middle Eastern actors have been more careful in their dealings with China and looked for strategic hedging alternatives vouched for by the United States, notably in Asia, Africa and even South America. In this foreign policy reorientation, Israel, Saudi Arabia and the UAE have therefore encouraged an influx of lower-risk Indian investments to effectively hedge against China’s intensifying efforts to penetrate the region.

Given that the Middle East is a regional order in flux, India has moved away from buck-passing on the US security architecture. To limit risks and costs to its interests in the region and to adapt to the evolving economic and security situation, India has gradually adopted a mix of policy options, ranging from limited hard balancing of China’s naval expansion in the region to soft balancing China’s economic presence via partnerships with Middle Eastern actors. India indirectly exploited the increasing concerns over China’s geo-economic importance and assertiveness in the Middle East (Kamrava, 2022). Over the past decade, India has promoted its ‘Think West’ policy to institutionalise its rapprochement with the Middle East (Jaishankar, 2015). Through repeated visits to the region, Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi has personally been active since 2015 in developing stronger ties with the GCC states, Iran and Israel, with an emphasis on leveraging historical trade and business connections. For instance, Modi selected the UAE as his inaugural destination in the Middle East in August 2015, followed by subsequent visits to Saudi Arabia, Iran, Qatar, Oman, Bahrain and the UAE on four additional occasions.

On the security front, India built on the growing perception of Middle Eastern and other Asian actors that they should stop free riding on US naval presence in the Middle Eastern waters and find their own means of securing the supply chains. For instance, some GCC states have gradually assumed the role of security provider in an evolving Middle East, notably in the Horn of Africa. Several GCC leaders have therefore promoted the identification of new security arrangements, notably with Asian powers (Janardhan, 2019). This shift away from the Gulf’s exclusive reliance on the decades-old US-centric protection has been perceived as an opportunity for India to develop new collective security architectures. Over the last decade, New Delhi has therefore developed security ties with various Middle Eastern states, notably by reinforcing its defence partnership with Israel. Security cooperation with the GCC states also accelerated under Prime Minister Narendra Modi (since 2014) as India also signed a strategic partnership with the UAE in 2017, established a strategic security dialogue with the UAE, firmed up bilateral defence cooperation agreements with Qatar, Oman and Saudi Arabia, and expanded intelligence and counter-terrorism cooperation with Saudi Arabia, UAE, Bahrain and Qatar (Blarel 2022; Kamat, 2021; Quamar 2023).

In addition, armed forces personnel from the Gulf states receive training in Indian defence and military academies (Economic Times, 2024). India’s growing naval capacities, notably in the Northwestern Indian Ocean, have attracted the attention of the Gulf states. For instance, the 2016 Saudi–India joint statement already noted ‘the close interlinkage of the stability and security of the Gulf region and the Indian sub-continent and the need for maintaining a secure and peaceful environment for the development of the countries of the region’ (MEA, 2016). Since then, India has also participated in anti-piracy patrols off the coast of Somalia. In 2019, India deployed two warships and surveillance aircraft after several tankers were attacked. India also made it clear that this security provision was independent of the US-led coalition efforts in the region (Economic Times, 2019). Moreover, India has also conducted military exercises with the UAE in 2018 and with Saudi Arabia in 2019 to signal its active and dominant presence in the region (Gulf News, 2018, 2019). Oman also provided the Indian Navy with access to the port facilities in Duqm following Prime Minister Modi’s visit in 2018 (Chaudhury, 2023). The increasing push for diversification of partnerships in the region was clearly illustrated by Oman’s decision to allow port access to various important and rival extra-regional powers, namely China, India, the United States and the United Kingdom.

While India has expressed a growing interest in keeping the Gulf region’s sea lines of communication open, it also does not aspire to replace the US security architecture. Similarly, while India proactively committed diplomatic and economic resources to partly balance China’s rising influence in the region, this cannot be qualified as hard balancing as India has not yet deployed a strong military presence to counter China’s own naval expansion, nor has it joined a US alliance architecture. India’s growing deep ties to the GCC and Israel support both its own economic, energy and defence interests as well as the US-preferred status quo, but not through traditional balancing coalitions. In parallel, the United States has adapted to the strategic hedging tendencies of Middle Eastern actors by moving away from promoting exclusive partnerships and security blocs in the region. In 2020, The Abraham Accords were an opportunity for New Delhi to engage in new minilateral frameworks with Israel and partner Arab states that had recently normalised relations with Israel. Among the initial outcomes of the Abraham Accords was the establishment of a quadrilateral coalition named I2U2, comprising India, Israel, the UAE and the United States.

Washington has therefore moved to broker new ‘minilateral’ partnerships, between the United States, regional actors and extra-regional actors, including India, to support economic diversification and support to governance and climate change issues (Gray, 2023). These are soft balancing initiatives in the sense that they are meant to indirectly counter China’s influence short of military counterbalancing. In this context, India has been able to seize upon these new soft offshore balancing initiatives initiated by the United States to build common ground with Israel and the UAE against China, such as the Abraham Accords and the I2U2 minilateral. UAE–India and India–Israel ties had been thriving over the last two decades, and the signing of the Abraham Accords and I2U2 helped to move India’s engagement with the region beyond the bilateral and to build on trilateral synergies in technology and infrastructure projects, further enhancing political and economic cooperation. Furthermore, the I2U2 structure reportedly facilitated the acquisition of Israel’s Haifa Port by the Indian Adani Group for $1.8 billion in 2022, at the detriment of a Chinese company also competing for its operation (Dorsey, 2022). This set of new minilateral initiatives, experimented in the Middle East, has enabled India’s push to promote its economic diplomacy and to counter Chinese influence.

The I2U2 minilateral dovetailed with India’s strategic preferences in the region of not directly embarking on a hard balancing strategy against China. It established links between governments from three different regions, focused on trade and development cooperation, and did not directly aim to counter China in the military dimension. In 2023, representatives from India, the UAE, the United States and Saudi Arabia met in Riyadh to examine a project to link the Middle East to India through roads, rails and seaports (Ravid, 2023). The connectivity project aimed to leverage India’s experience as an infrastructure provider, notably in building the world’s largest rail system in Asia. Building on this initiative, India, Saudi Arabia, the European Union, the UAE and the United States signed at the G20 summit in New Delhi in September 2020 a Memorandum of Understanding with the aim of establishing the India–Middle East–Europe Economic Corridor through shipping routes and rail links. Through these various initiatives, Indian officials hope to increase their presence in Middle Eastern infrastructural projects and to partly counter China’s BRI. India’s participation in I2U2 and the 2023 connectivity projects therefore advanced its credibility as a service provider in the region which can directly compete with China’s own financial and infrastructural capacities.

I2U2 and follow-up initiatives that have emerged from the Abraham Accords and featured India have helped advance New Delhi’s core foreign policy principle of strategic autonomy and a preference for soft balancing options. India has aimed to maintain some flexibility to engage with as many regional actors as possible, and for that reason, it has eschewed traditional hard-balancing alliances. In both initiatives, the United States also acted as a catalyst rather than engaging directly, and India has been instrumental in providing the technical and infrastructural services. I2U2 and the joint connectivity projects are not alliances, and both have no military-related components or objectives. While some have argued that these initiatives emerged as direct reactions to Chinese involvement in the Middle East, it is not explicitly targeting any one country. As mentioned, Israel and the UAE have also concurrently strengthened commercial cooperation with China but have also aimed at diversifying their partnerships. In both these initiatives, India presented itself as a credible strategic alternative to Chinese investments, especially with US backing. By contrast with China, India has not published any white paper or official strategy towards the Middle East. India’s more limited and less centralised economic involvement, notably through the involvement of private economic actors, has generated more goodwill among local actors. For instance, to compete with the Shanghai International Port Group’s bid to manage another terminal of the Haifa port, India was indirectly involved in the tender through the Indian company Adani Group’s joint bid with Israel’s Gadot Group. The bid came as the leaders of I2U2 were holding a virtual conference, which was seen as a move to counter the growing influence of China (Filiu, 2023).

Conclusion

In the Middle East, intense regional rivalries in combination with a growing perception of US’ relative disengagement have led to the current unstable regional order. India, which has increasingly relied on Gulf energy and investments, has therefore strong economic incentives to maintain relations with the GCC as well as defence ties with Israel. As a US partner and an extra-regional power which has benefitted from US’ security umbrella as well as recent US efforts to normalise ties across the region such as the Abraham Accords, India can be expected to pursue regional policies that partly align with Washington’s preferences and which can alleviate some of the potential risks of a reduced security role for the US combined with the emergence of China as an important economic power in the region. India’s behaviour is anomalous in the sense that it does not clearly fit into a category of directly balancing Chinese interests, but it also does not resemble a typical hedging behaviour as it mainly aligns with US preferences and has limited diplomatic engagement with China in the region.

In the meantime, the India–China relationship should be understood as a complex and evolving process. A study of India–China ties in the Middle East cannot be limited to examining their pursuit and competition for energy resources, as well as for naval and port access. Some have argued, for instance, that the India–China rivalry has been less conflictual and more manageable than in other Asian sub-regions (Huwaidin, 2022). Due to the geopolitical risks of swinging into hard balancing behaviour, New Delhi has opted for soft-balancing initiatives like joining minilaterals, to promote economic and infrastructure projects, but also engaged China when interests seemed to align. In some cases when India and China have shared commercial and strategic interests, then dialogue and cooperation have been possible. For instance, India and China put in place in 2019 a joint working group to cooperate in the energy sector, notably to develop common mechanisms to mitigate the risks of crude oil price volatility, and to coordinate their positions when negotiating with the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (Choudhary, 2019).

Another important finding is that the India–China rivalry in the Middle East is also shaped by local and regional dynamics, as well as how the rising presence of China and India has been viewed by regional powers. China’s rise has, for instance, led to strategic hedging policies from regional powers like the UAE, Saudi Arabia and Israel. One advantage for India is that China has been perceived as seeing the region mostly as a market for resources, and an infrastructural corridor to link its broader BRI project. India’s historical and societal links to the Middle East, as well as limited political involvement in the region, have encouraged states such as Israel, the UAE and Saudi Arabia to develop economic relations with India to balance Chinese investments. It is also notable that the mentioned Middle Eastern states have decided to continue to hedge between the two Asian powers, and sought to maintain an equidistance between them to achieve their economic interest of ensuring sustainable buyers of their oil or weapons (Israel), while not explicitly taking sides on the border crisis between India and China.

However, a growing Chinese geo-economic footprint in the region could be perceived as more directly threatening New Delhi’s interests, given the escalation of their border dispute and deterioration of bilateral relations since 2020. As discussed above, there are several conditions, such as the quest for energy and influence, which can lead to competitive relations between India and China in the region and encourage India to move towards a clearer adversarial balancing policy. For example, India has been concerned with the increasing Chinese naval presence and investments in dual-use ports in both the Indian Ocean and the Gulf. Nonetheless, the relationship between India and China has not yet escalated into an irreconcilable zero-sum competition for resources and allies in the region. Both powers have succeeded in cultivating robust economic and strategic connections with all relevant stakeholders simultaneously. Moreover, both have some common interests, such as maintaining access to energy resources, and there is some space for cooperation. The question remains open where further retrenchment of US commitments to Middle Eastern security could lead to a security vacuum and the conditions for a more direct rivalry between India and China.

Footnotes

Declaration of Conflicting Interests

The author declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship and/or publication of this article.

Funding

The author received no financial support for the research, authorship and/or publication of this article.

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Navigating US–China Rivalry in a Multi-aligned Middle East: Understanding India’s Shifting Strategy Towards the Region

Abstract

Keywords

Introduction

Historical Background of India’s Approach to the Middle East: From Limited Engagement to Buck-passing on US’ Security Provision

China’s Growing Economic and Strategic Involvement in the Middle East After 2014

Hard and Soft Choices for India in the Middle East

Conclusion

Footnotes

Declaration of Conflicting Interests

Funding

References