As the global economy shifts toward Asia, India will play an increasingly prominent role in global affairs. India’s large population and high-tech industry, among other assets, make it a vital counterweight against China’s rise. The United States recently became India’s largest trading partner, but there is still much to be sorted out in this growing partnership. Policymakers in New Delhi and Washington will need to collaborate more closely than in the past to sustain India’s economic development and strengthen international partnerships like the Quadrilateral Security Dialogue (Quad). Moreover, both countries have important elections next year, which will affect both the nature and timing of shared initiatives.
Join Hudson Institute and the India Foundation for an invitation-only event focused on the role Washington and the American business community can play in strengthening bilateral economic and strategic relationships between the US and India. American and Indian experts will discuss some of the most urgent issues facing the relationship. Then Hudson Distinguished Fellow Walter Russell Mead will interview Indian External Affairs Minister Dr. Subrahmanyam Jaishankar about India's role in the world and the future of the relationship.
John Walters:
Khan wrote extensively about Asia's rise and its implications for the global order coming in today and in the future. Hudson carries on that legacy today. We are grateful to have representatives from many of our international friends joining us here today. Many of them from some of our allies are research fellows and senior fellows here at Hudson Institute to improve our understanding and our ability to talk with friends and allies in substantive and continuous ways. I particularly want to thank Ambassador Sandhu for his work advancing Indo-American relationship.
He's been a great friend and we've had many conversations with him and I want to thank him for his great representation of India here and his diligent efforts to try to help us understand what's going on in India and in the Indo-Pacific. Thank you, Ambassador. For these and many other reasons, we are honored to host India's external affairs minister, Dr. Jaishankar. For this discussion, he's going to be joined by my colleague Walter Russell Mead. This discussion is important, I think as is evident to most people here because both of our countries are at a critical point in the history of the world.
And the future of that world is going to largely be shaped by our ability to work together and with other allies around the globe to create a better and safer future rather than a more chaotic and a future filled with conflict. Therefore, this is a critical time for us to not only better understand, but better figure out ways to work together as we have never worked together before. Dr. Jaishankar is a member of the Upper House of India's parliament. Before assuming his current role in government, he served as foreign secretary and has been India's ambassador to the United States and the India's ambassador to the People's Republic of China among other countries.
I think the only thing I have to tell this group he is one of the most respected diplomats in the world. He is considered one of the most competent. And around the world if people have problems, they frequently call him to help them sort it out. He is also the author of a bestselling book, The India Way: Strategies for an Uncertain World, which compellingly articulates India's current and future position in the world. And I recommend it highly. Many times people want to understand others through distance.
I think it's very important to use the expertise of people who are at the front line and have fought deeply and experienced deeply the issues that are going to shape our world. Joining him for this discussion is Walter Russell Mead. He is the Ravenel B. Curry III Distinguished Fellow in Strategy and Statesmanship at Hudson Institute. Many of you know him as the global view columnist of the Wall Street Journal, and he is the James Clark Chance Professor of Foreign Affairs and Humanities at Bard College in New York. Walter multitasks.
He's author of numerous books including the widely recognized Special Providence: America's Foreign Policy and How it Changed the World. His newest book, Arc of a Covenant: The United States, Israel, and the Fate of the Jewish People, has been recognized by the New York Times and the Wall Street Journal as best book of the year. Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for joining us for this important discussion. Please join me in welcoming Dr. Jaishankar and my colleague Walter Russell Mead.
Walter Russell Mead:
And I think we'll begin with Dr. Jaishankar speaking for a few minutes and then we will go to question and answer. Would you like to speak from the podium or from your-
Dr. Jaishankar:
This would be easier.
Walter Russell Mead:
Yes. Okay. Terrific.
Dr. Jaishankar:
Good morning. Good morning to all of you and it's a real pleasure to be back here. It's been some years, but of course we've been talking to each other. I was told that the topic for the day is India and the new Pacific Order. Am I correct? Now, I wasn't sure whether the Pacific was with a capital P or a small P, but either way we are into it. Now for many people, I think particularly in the United States, it's probably a new idea, something very different to think of India in terms of the Pacific Region, Pacific Order, the Pacific Community of Nations.
And the fact that we have such a title and it seems natural today actually is one indication of what has changed in the world. Viewed from India's perspective, we today do much more business to the east of India than we do to the west of India historically. We look at our key trade partners, we look at our important economic partners, we look at a lot of our strategic interest. A lot of it is today extending eastwards into the Pacific and beyond. Now, what this has given rise to in the last few years is a concept of Indo-Pacific.
That too has been readily embraced by many and contested by a few. But again, it's a concept that has actually gained ground. I often reflect on the fact that the separation in a way of the Indian Ocean and the Pacific region is something actually which was an outcome really of the Second World War, that everyone looked at a global strategy and global understanding. Before that, the Indian Ocean and Pacific Ocean were dealt with in a much more integrated way with the emphasis on the Indian.
And so in some ways what you are seeing today of the Indo-Pacific coming together, the idea of India contributing in many ways to a Pacific Order is something which reflects really the rebalancing that is today taking place in the world. A rebalancing in which the changed capabilities, positioning and attitudes of the United States is the central driving factor. But also in one in which the rise of China and its implications is obviously a very, very crucial issue, but to which makes, I mean there are many other moving parts, but one of an important one is also that of India.
Now related to the Indo-Pacific, again, over the last six years, another concept which has gained ground is start of the quad. It was revived in 2017 after a gap. It was attempted first in 2007. It did not last. It was revived after a decade. It's an interesting question why it worked this time when it did not work the first time. Not just worked, but if you see in '17 it was done at bureaucratic level at a undersecretary level in the US. In '19, it became a ministerial forum. In '21, it became a presidential, prime ministerial forum.
And at every stage there were people who said, well, this is where it sort of fizzles out and it seems to be growing from strength to strength and we will have the privilege of hosting the summit next year in India. In terms of the Pacific Order, I think a lot of the global concerns are most acute in the Pacific. One, of course, is the larger issue of how do you maintain stability in the middle of very major change taking place. Because often sharp changes in balances of power and interest and influence can create risks, which whose management therefore becomes a very crucial issue.
But there are some other, I think, key issues today in the world which center, particularly around the Pacific. One of them is the building of reliable and resilient supply chains because the experiences of the last few years have taught us their importance. The other is the promotion of trust and transparency on anything to do with digital. So whether it's telecom or whether it's artificial intelligence or whether it's the car that you're driving, really today the importance of trusted providers, trusted sources, trusted geographies, I think this is today a very, very big issue.
The third is the over concentration of production of especially of manufacturing that if you have over concentration, which is liable to be leveraged. Had it happened in any of our national economies, it would've attracted antitrust provisions. Yet it happens in the world and we are all blissfully ... We are sanguine about it. So what are the dangers of over concentration? What are the implications of over concentration? How are they leveraged? How are they weaponized? I think is a very big issue today in the world.
And if you put it together, I would suggest to you that the world is badly in need of some form of reglobalization. That globalization itself is undeniable. It has struck very deep roots. It has tremendous benefits. Nobody doubts that. But the particular model of globalization, which has evolved over the last 25 years, obviously has a lot of risks inherent in it. And today how to address those risks and create a safer world is part of the challenge facing the Pacific Order. So let me just end with one last remark because John, there was something you said which was India and the United States have never really worked before together.
I think that is a very thoughtful observation because dealing with each other is not the same as working with each other. And in the past we have always dealt with each other, sometimes not entirely happily. But working with each other is a new, is really uncharted territory. It is a territory which we have both entered in the last few years and it has required both of us really to overcome what my prime minister called the hesitations of history when he spoke to the Congress a few years ago. So how do we create that ability and the convergences and hopefully the comfort to work together?
I think that would be very crucial to the future of the Pacific Order. So perhaps with those remarks, Walter, if you would allow me, we can start the conversation.
Walter Russell Mead:
Terrific. Thank you. Thanks for those remarks and thank you so much for being here. You really do Hudson great honor. I want to say I'm especially grateful because while Hudson is a nonpartisan think tank and we work with people in both parties, many would say that Hudson has closer relations sometimes with the Republican Party. So we especially appreciate that you have reached out in a way, in a bipartisan way toward the opposition. It reminds us that both India and the United States, our democracies do believe in pluralism and we at Hudson appreciate this sign of India's concern, faith in that principle.
This is also, by the way, I just saw yesterday that Swaminathan had died at 98, I believe, he was an example of Indian American cooperation, not on the governmental level, but his work with Norman Burlog helped establish the green revolution, which has been transformational in the lives of literally billions of people in India and around the world. And this reminds me at least of what the US and India, what Americans and Indians can accomplished together and I hope we will be seeing more of it.
Minister Jaishankar between ... Oh, I should say first too before I get into my questions that he has agreed to take questions from the floor. And the way we do this at Hudson is we ask people to email questions. I know you all have cell phones here. I know you know how to text while listening. So, we ask you to send questions to press, P-R-E-S-S@hudson.org and those questions will come up to me. I'll have an opportunity to look at them, consolidate them where we have several questions on the same topic and perhaps also force stall the possibility.
It's not unknown that sometimes people confuse questions with speeches. So please do that and we will conclude the meeting with your questions. At the G20 and elsewhere, we hear that India is looking for a change in international architecture or in the way world politics works and world institutions. I've also heard India described as a reformist rather than as a revisionist power. It seeks real change in the status quo, but not necessarily in us in the way that perhaps some of our colleagues and friends in Russia and China might do.
What is it that India is looking for in change in the world's situation and how does that affect, do you think, India's vision of where we're all going?
Dr. Jaishankar:
Well, let me put it to you this way, that the world as we live it today is largely a Western construct. Now, if you looked at the world architecture, to use your words, there's been obviously enormous change in the last 80 years. If one looked at the major economies of the 1940s and '50s, they are very different from the major economies today and nothing illustrates it more than the G20 itself. So the list of the G20 will tell you is the easiest way of actually getting a sense of the changes in the world.
Now for India, when we confront a largely Western created architecture, obviously we would like to encourage and facilitate and induce and pressurize changes which are badly needed. But it is done as to add a non-Western layer and input. So I make this very important distinction where India is concerned, India is non-Western. India is not anti-Western. So when we speak about, and I give you an example which we discussed even at the G20. It's very clear today that we are serious about climate action.
If you're looking to sustain to ensure that sustainable development goals are well-resourced, then somewhere we have to find the financial muscle for that. Now, for us too, it is the international financial institutions, the bank, the World Bank and the fund, which will be at the core of that effort. So a lot of what we are seeking to do is to improve and I would say refresh institutions, make them more fit for purpose and that even applies to the United Nations. We do believe today that United Nations where the most populous country is not in the security council when the fifth-largest economy is not there when a continent of 50 plus countries is not there, that United Nations obviously lacks credibility and to a large degree effectiveness as well.
So when we approach the world, it's not with a pull down the pillars kind of approach. It is very much what can we do to make it better, fitter, efficient, purposeful. That's the kind of mindset we bring to bear.
Walter Russell Mead:
Well, I have to say I find myself in agreement with much of what you say, especially when I look at the United Nations, and I think that in the official UN system, India is sort of said to be equal to Luxembourg. They both have one vote in the general assembly.
Dr. Jaishankar:
I like Luxembourg.
Walter Russell Mead:
I have nothing against. Actually if you're ever in Luxembourg, eat the duck. It's fantastic.
Dr. Jaishankar:
Okay.
Walter Russell Mead:
But the idea that those two political entities should be equally weighted in the United Nations is I think an absurdity that future generations will not be able to understand when they look back at our times. Now over the summer, you said that there are three big Eurasian powers, Russia, China, and India, and that the Indo-Russian relationship is not transactional. This is geopolitical. How do you see India-Russia relations, especially at a time where Russia and China appear to be working much more closely together than before?
Dr. Jaishankar:
This approach is not something new. In fact, since independence in India, this has been the basic thinking about a geopolitical predicament. Which is if there are three major polities occupying the central landmass of the world, then how do you ensure that there is a balance and how do you ensure you are not facing an adverse balance? Now we had a phase, I would say late '40s, which were particularly testing for us. This is still Stalin's Soviet Union at that time, and I think the Indian diplomacy very sensibly set to work on the basic international relations principle of your neighbor's neighbor.
So your neighbor's neighbor is intrinsically well-disposed towards you. So since the '50s actually, there's been a very systematic mutual cultivation. It's not just us thinking about Soviet Union, now Russia, it's also the Russians thinking about India with the same principle and the same logic in mind. Now, that actually is such a powerful logic, at least in our part of the world, that if you consider international relations over the last 70 years, the US-Russian relations, the China-Russia relations, the US-China relations, Europe, pretty much every big relationship in the last 70 years has seen a great deal of volatility.
We had sharp ups and downs. The India-Russia is very exceptional. It's been very steady. It may not be spectacular. So it may have stabilized at certain level, but it has not seen that kind of ups and downs, which your relationship with Russia or China's relations with Russia or Europe's relationship with Russia has seen too. And that's in itself a statement. Now, if one looks at the world today, at Russia today, I think as a consequence of what is going on in Ukraine, it seems to me clear, and I assume it seems to them clear that in many ways Russia's relationship with the West has broken down.
And in that case, it's logical that Russia focuses more on the Asian side of Russia. Though historically, Russia has always seen itself as a European path. So you are actually seeing a reinvention of Russia as a consequence of what is happening in Ukraine. And you can see much of that will naturally focus on China because that's the first and the largest country and economy that Russia encounters when it turns, when it wheels around and looks at Asia. But then again, India will build and has come into calculations as well.
So I would predict actually Russia which would consciously focus on the non-Western world, away from Europe, away from the United States, look much more at Asia, look possibly at other regions as well. But Asia is economically the most active. So I guess that's what you're going to see.
Walter Russell Mead:
Okay. There's a growing recognition in the United States and India, I think bolstered by Prime Minister Modi's tremendously successful visit last summer that our two countries interests are broadly and even strategically aligned in a way perhaps they have not been in the past. And this is that shift from dealing with one another to working with one another that you mentioned. Where do you see the principal areas where our interests are aligned and what areas of tension and difference do you see at this point?
Dr. Jaishankar:
I would say they are aligned in a set of areas, in a kind of geo-strategic way they are aligned. That we both want to see a certain stability and a certain set of rules and a certain, I would say, distribution of power, which is advantageous to both of us and our interests are not clashing in that respect. So at the biggest picture level, I would say there's a very powerful case really for India and the US to work together. So if you look even within our systems, historically it was actually our national security side which had the greatest suspicion or reservations about each other.
Today, it's the national security side, which is the most enthusiastic, about it. The second is actually the economic side, but an economic side which is very heavily tech-focused.
Walter Russell Mead:
Yes.
Dr. Jaishankar:
Because if one looks at the direction of the global economy, in fact we look at our own lives, the tech component of what we use and do and live amidst is increasing, and this is what you can call it, the knowledge economy, the information-embedded economy, I think has created again a very powerful new convergence between us. Because at a global level, the United States will need partners, India will need opportunities and possibilities. So to me, if we are today talking about ISET, if you look at American priorities like the IRA and the CHIPS Act, I think these are all factors which will create a stronger bonding.
So if you can get the, I think if the politics works and the economics get stronger, then obviously there's a very, very strong convergence. Now you asked me where could they be or where are the problems? We are both, we are democratic societies, we are incredibly diverse, but we are diverse in very different ways and we are very internally argumentative and externally argumentative would be a mild word. So what happens is I think there will be occasions where there will be that rub or that friction and it will happen also because in a globalized world, our arguments are no longer contained in a national sphere.
People who think have a viewpoint in India-
Dr. Jaishankar:
People who think, who have a viewpoint in India will reach out to people who have a similar viewpoint in the US, and vice versa. Our, today, political arguments are very, very global. Often, if you are having a global conversation, but not necessarily a global cultural understanding of each other, I think there's plenty of room there for friction. Often, I read judgments or I hear people say things in the US and sometimes in India too, where we are looking at the other society completely from our own template, from our own experience. I think that would be an issue.
Walter Russell Mead:
Well, I certainly would agree that from my experience both Americans and Indians lead the world in moral lectures. Both of our societies are quite good.
Dr. Jaishankar:
We've been doing it longer though.
Walter Russell Mead:
Yes. No, you have a deeper experience, I won't deny. But along these lines, I know that when Prime Minister Modi was here, a number of American representatives boycotted his address to Congress.
Dr. Jaishankar:
Some did. I don't know if I'd use the word a number.
Walter Russell Mead:
Well, a number can be a small number.
Dr. Jaishankar:
Oh, okay.
Walter Russell Mead:
It doesn't have to be a big one. I know I wrote a column about India in the Wall Street Journal. There was a letter to the editor from Cardinal Dolan, who is a very well-respected man, I personally respect tremendously, to the Journal expressing his concern that I hadn't said enough in my column about problems of religious minorities in India. How would you try to shape the conversation, or how would you respond to some of these concerns that people have here?
Dr. Jaishankar:
It would be a mix because I think different people ... I don't know Cardinal Dolan. I'm a little more familiar with American politicians, including members of Congress. I know many of them have strong views, often electorally driven, sometimes culturally driven, all of that. So I'm a little hesitant to address specific examples, but as a broad proposition.
Look, as a broad proposition, all I can say where India is concerned is the underlying culture of India is deeply pluralistic. In fact, I cannot think of any society in the world, and I've lived in many of them, whether I look at Europe or look at North America ... US is very pluralistic. China. I've lived in Russia, the diversity and the layers that you get in India. You can slice it in different ways, it could be ethnicity, it could be faith, it could be language, it could be traditions. It's actually unique. It's truly in multiple axes, the most diverse space in the world.
Now, when you have that kind of diversity, that diversity will always have its own conversations and discussions. There will be attempts to get a certain balance. There will be corrections. There will be re-corrections. It's in the nature of diversity. The only way you won't have those dialogues is when you don't have diversity or when you have imposed something so strong that everything is okay in that place because everybody has either been forced to agree or conditioned to agree with each other. So we actually are a much more looser society, where there's almost a natural inclination to disagree. That is our national character.
Now, when you have people who have not come through that experience, who for them are listening ... It's like you are listening to the next room, you really don't know the people in the next room. You're picking snatches of conversation, and then you are making a judgment or a opinion based on that particular soundbite that you picked up.
Today, since you brought up the issue of minorities in India, look, what is the test really of fair and good governance or of the balance of a society? It would be whether in terms of the amenities, the benefits, the access, the rights, do you discriminate or not? In every society in the world at some point there's been some discrimination on some basis.
If you look at India today, it's a society today where there's a tremendous change taking place because people are ... The biggest change happening today in India is the creation of a social welfare system in a society which has less than $3,000 per capita income. Nobody has done that in the world before. Now, when you look at the benefits of that, you look at housing, you look at health, you look at food, you look at finance, you look at educational access, health access, I defy you to show me discrimination. In fact, the more digital we have become, the more, in a way, faceless the governance has become. Actually, it's become fairer.
But, as I said, this is a globalized world. You will have people gripe about it, and much of the griping is also political. Let me be very frank with you because we've also had a culture of vote banks, and there are sections who had in their own eyes a certain privileged access who today may resent the fact that they don't. It's a phenomenon with which you are not unfamiliar. I think these will be the turbulence of a democratic society.
Walter Russell Mead:
Okay. Well, now we in the United States have had the experience not only of lecturers from India, but lecturers from Canada. I think we-
Dr. Jaishankar:
They look at you as the global south.
Walter Russell Mead:
Yeah. It's one of the more interesting relationships. I think Dean Acheson once wrote an essay about Canadian criticisms of the United States, and he titled it Stern Daughter of the Voice of God. But certainly the Canadian Prime Minister has made some serious charges recently. But I also see that from press reports that you have met while you were in Washington with National Security Advisor Sullivan, with our Secretary of State Blinken and that this subject has come up. Can you give us any information about how this is or isn't affecting US-India relations, where this whole matter stands now from your perspective?
Dr. Jaishankar:
Okay, so let me start with Canada. Yes, the Canadian Prime Minister made some allegations, initially privately and then publicly, and our response to him both in private and public where that what he was alleging was not consistent with our policy and that if his government had anything relevant and specific they would like us to look into, we were open to looking at it. Now, that's where that conversation is at this point of time.
But to understand that conversation, you have to also appreciate that this has been an issue of great friction for many years with Canada, in fact, going back to the 1980s. Then it became dormant, but in the last few years it has come back very much into play because of what we consider to be a very permissive Canadian attitude towards terrorists, extremists, people who openly advocate violence. They have been given operating space in Canada because of the compulsions of Canadian politics.
For Americans, perhaps Canada looks very different, but it depends where the interest, where the shoe pinches. For us, it has certainly been a country where organized crime from India, mixed with trafficking in people, mixed with secessionism, violence, terrorism, it's a very toxic combination of issues and people who have found operating space there. So a lot of our tensions with Canada, which well preceded what Mr. Trudeau said, actually come out of that.
Today, I'm actually in a situation where my diplomats are unsafe going to the embassy or to the consulates.
Walter Russell Mead:
In Canada.
Dr. Jaishankar:
In Canada. They are publicly intimidated, and that has actually compelled me to temporarily suspend even visa operations in Canada. As I said, often countries look very different depending on how you see them and what your interests are. But I have this problem in Canada. So your question, did I speak about it with Jake Sullivan and Tony Blinken? Yes, I did.
Walter Russell Mead:
And?
Dr. Jaishankar:
Let's put it this way. They obviously shared US views and assessments on this whole situation, and I explained to them at some length. What I gave you was a summary of the concerns which I had. So I think hopefully we both came out of those meetings better informed.
Walter Russell Mead:
All right. Well, thank you. Well, we are about to go to audience questions and I see I have some here. But while I'm looking at them, do you have any advice for Americans who want to learn more about India? Where should young people or older people who are interested in this, where should they go to learn about this country that is looming larger and larger in American foreign policy and in world affairs?
Dr. Jaishankar:
It's hard to give general advice, but I would say, and this really flows from our own conversation today, that in whatever profession people are, I think it would be useful to try to see how that particular profession or that particular set of interests are doing in India because there may be experiences there, there may be thoughts there, ideas there which people would find useful.
For many, many years, India has been an absorber, an active searcher for best practices around the world. I think today we can also contribute to best practices. I'll give you some very, very different examples of this. You would've all seen that our very, very persuasive advocacy of yoga over the last decade has improved global health. So if anybody wants to get up in the morning and wants to have a better day, my suggestion is please look at your phone and find the most conducive yoga practice.
But on the other hand, if you are someone in the digital world and you see really how creatively today digital mediums and practices are being embraced. I'll give you an example. If you are going shopping in India today, you can leave your wallet behind. You can't leave your phone behind because most likely the person you're buying something from will not accept cash, will want you to pull out your phone, look at the QR code, and make a cashless payment. Last year, we clocked 90 billion cashless financial payments. Just for a reference, the US was about three, and China was 17.6. This year we probably would exceed ... I saw the June figures, it was nine billion transactions in June alone. So I'm giving you that as an example. Street vendors today will have a QR code on their cart and say just make your payment there.
So it could be digital, it could be wellness, it could be food habits, it could even be this whole discussion today we have about pluralism, identity, culture, or tradition. I think there are things to learn there. Just so that people don't think I'm back to that moralizing path, that I do think Indians too are getting very global there. The world comes at you every waking hour through this wonderful instrument we carry with us, and the more we absorb, the better off we are.
Walter Russell Mead:
Okay, great. Well, now I have some questions from the audience to ask. We have one from one of my fellow press reptiles who is here in the group today, has said that, "President Biden appeared confident enough in the intelligence about alleged Indian government involvement in the murder of Hardeep Singh Nijjar to raise the issue with Prime Minister Modi at the G20. He asks, "What have you done in response to the US and other Western concerns?" Maybe we've answered some of this already, but ...
Dr. Jaishankar:
Sure. I think I answered that.
Walter Russell Mead:
Okay, you've answered it. Okay, we move on. This is from someone at a think tank. "We see India playing an increasingly important role in new multilateral groups like the G20, Quad, I2U2, India-Middle East economic corridor, etc. Is the Indian government looking to utilize this diplomatic momentum to strengthen more regional groupings, such as SAARC, the Indian Ocean Rim Association, and particularly the IORA?"
Dr. Jaishankar:
Yep. We actually have an IORA meeting next month in Sri Lanka. I'll be going for that. We've even tabled an Indo-Pacific Oceans Initiative at the East Asia Summit, where we look at non-security aspects of protecting the ocean space.
Today, for us, the challenge is there are new opportunities, there are new combinations, and how do you do that without losing focus of what you have? It's a bird in the bush and the bird in hand, but you want to keep both of them. Part of the challenge is also to convince, keep the older partners convinced that your interest in what you've been doing for some time remains.
The SAARC, S-A-A-R-C, is an exception there. It's currently dormant because one of its members, who will remain unnamed, believes that they can practice terrorism at no cost. So that's an exception, but otherwise we've been pretty much active. The latest initiative we're looking at is this Middle East corridor, which has India at one end and Europe at the other. So it has for the moment Saudi Arabia and the UAE, but it's got the US as well as a guarantor partner, if you would. It really has a lot of possibilities because ... given if we can find a more seamless, effective competitive logistics between India and Europe, I think it will have enormous consequence for the global economy.
Walter Russell Mead:
I have a followup question from someone else on the same sort of general question. "How do you see India's role changing in the Middle East?" I would add, I think many Americans may understand that there's a close India-Middle Eastern relationship on energy, but also Israel is a primary defense partner with India. Then we have millions of Indians who work in the Gulf countries.
Dr. Jaishankar:
About nine million.
Walter Russell Mead:
Yeah. The relationship is really quite close. How do you see India's role developing in the Middle East?
Dr. Jaishankar:
Well, Walter touched on the energy side. You've touched on the fact that you have nine million expats in the Gulf. There's also the proximity, the historical connections out there. But we have to understand today that as India becomes a larger consumer, a bigger economy, our salience in Gulf, in the Middle East countries' calculations, especially the Gulf economies, is that much higher. I think we are the largest trade partner of the UAE, and we would be among probably the top three of the Saudis. It isn't just the volume of trade. They discovered during COVID that the Gulf is actually dependent on the daily food consumption for what comes out of India. So the economies have really got very, very deeply meshed.
Today, the Gulf itself is in transition. If you talk to the leadership in Gulf, they are talking renewables, they're talking green hydrogen. A lot of them are very enthusiastic in terms of digital progress. So we are finding new areas of intersection with them. If you look at Indian businesses, we are today far more entrenched in the Middle East than we've been for a long time.
Walter Russell Mead:
Yeah, I think that's right. We have a final question, and then we'll bring this part of the program to a close, which is, again, without mentioning any name, somebody's asked, "As we speak today, the situation in India's Western neighborhood is deteriorating at a fast pace. There could be a situation where a country could collapse or see unrest. How is India preparing for such an unknown event, or how could it prepare?"
Dr. Jaishankar:
In an unnamed country.
Walter Russell Mead:
In an unnamed country to the west of India?
Dr. Jaishankar:
We have a few countries-
Walter Russell Mead:
There's more than one option.
Dr. Jaishankar:
... who are having problems of their own.
Look, today there are countries in different parts of the world in crises of different kinds, and we have a few proximate to us. We saw Sri Lanka, which really went through almost an economic meltdown last year, and we had to step forward. They were engaged in a negotiation with the fund. Their needs were so immediate and so serious that we actually did the largest bilateral lending that we've ever done, which was we give them almost a package of $4 billion as a way of stabilizing their economy.
The unnamed country to our west which we are talking about. Their problems are much more long term. They're much more deeper historically in terms of what happens when distortions have been introduced into the natural progress of an economy, that if you have, let us say, excessive expenditure on military or if your borrowing has not been prudent or if you have infrastructure which doesn't pay its way, I think there are a lot of factors there and multiple chickens are coming home to roost at the same time.
Walter Russell Mead:
All right, well thank you very much. I know we're all grateful to Minister Jaishankar for his time. I'll ask you to respect that time, as we know he has a very busy schedule today. So he and I will head out here. There is coffee and other assorted delicacies in the back, I'm afraid more American than Indian. In 15 minutes, we'll reassemble here, where there's going to be a panel discussion led by a Hudson's Japan Chair and a very distinguished fellow and longtime friend of India, Ken Weinstein. So I hope to see you back for that soon. Thank you.
Dr. Jaishankar:
Thank you.