Middle East states ‘likely to be wary of US railway plan’
Proposal to link Gulf and Arab nations with India may not counter Beijing’s influence, analysts say
An American plan to counter China’s influence in the Middle East by bringing a massive infrastructure project to the table is likely to be met with wary eyes in the region, analysts say.
The ambitious proposal – to connect Gulf and Arab countries with India through a network of ports and railways – has been likened to China’s flagship Belt and Road Initiative.
US national security adviser Jake Sullivan was in Saudi Arabia this month to discuss the plan with Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman and national security advisers from the United Arab Emirates and India.
Galia Lavi, a US-China relations expert at the Institute for National Security Studies in Israel, said Washington’s railway investment in the Middle East was a demonstration of its continued involvement in the region.
“Contrary to rumours about the US leaving the Middle East, Washington is still here and active,” she said.
Online news outlet Axios reported that the infrastructure proposal came out of discussions by the I2U2 Group, a coalition of the US, the UAE, India and Israel established in 2021.
The grouping – aimed at joint investments and initiatives in water, energy, transport, space, health and food security – is largely seen as a US-led alliance in response to China’s growing influence in the region.
Israel did not send a representative to the Saudi Arabia talks but could be added to the infrastructure initiative if relations normalise in the region, according to the Axios sources. Riyadh and Tel Aviv do not have diplomatic ties.
Chas Freeman, a former US ambassador to Saudi Arabia, described the plan as “a fantasy foreign policy” rather than a serious infrastructure initiative and said its main goal was to “cement Israeli ties with the Gulf Arabs”.
Freeman questioned the project’s practicability and financing, given the US was not known for building railways, while India had a credible rail industry but no capability in building a modern, high-speed railway.
“There is nothing in this harebrained proposal to entice the Gulf Arabs away from further cooperation in China’s Belt and Road Initiative,” Freeman said.
“Its obvious inadequacies are more likely to confirm [the Arab states’] view that they should accommodate Chinese financial institutions and railway construction companies than that they should rebuff them.”
Washington’s re-engagement with the Middle East follows a decade-long pivot away from the region to focus on its competition with China in the Asia-Pacific. The US has repeatedly said it will not leave a vacuum in the Middle East for China to fill.
But Beijing has expanded its presence, holding its first summits with the Gulf and Arab countries in December and pledging deepening cooperation in areas from energy to trade and technology.
China went a step further in March by brokering a peace deal between long-standing rivals Saudi Arabia and Iran – a major diplomatic win for Beijing that was seen by many as a huge setback for the US in the Middle East.
Reaction to the US infrastructure plan from the media in India – an opponent of China’s belt and road vision – was positive, but analysts said Middle Eastern countries were likely to be wary while the financing was unclear.
According to Fudan University’s Green Finance and Development Centre, Saudi Arabia was the second highest beneficiary of belt and road investments in 2022, while investment in the Middle East saw strong growth of around 10 per cent.
Li Shaoxian, a Middle East expert at Ningxia University, said countries in the region would hesitate to invest big money in the project, which was not a development priority for them.
“Saudi Arabia’s priority now is its Vision 2030, to transform its economy. It will still need a large amount of funding and investment in the future. It will certainly not be the major investor of the US project,” he said.
Vision 2030 is Riyadh’s strategy to diversify its economy from oil and focus on sectors such as infrastructure, health and tourism.
During President Xi Jinping’s visit to Saudi Arabia in December, the two sides agreed to implement planned synergies between Vision 2030 and the belt and road plan.
Li cast doubt on Washington’s motives. “The US project will undoubtedly benefit the local countries. There is no problem with that. But its motive might not be about bringing benefits to these countries,” he said.
“It has a political and strategic consideration here, from the perspective of great-power competition. [Such a motive] would be the biggest setback for this project.”
Saudi Arabia’s priority now is its Vision 2030 … It will certainly not be the major investor
LI SHAOXIAN, NINGXIA UNIVERSITY