The East Moves West: India, China, and Asia's Growing Presence in the Middle East By Geoffrey Kemp, Brookings Institution Press, 326 pages, $29.95
In this accessible yet authoritative study, Geoffrey Kemp, the director of Regional Strategic Programmes at the Nixon Centre in Washington, discusses the growing East Asian roles in the Arabian Gulf.
While leading Asian powers led by India and China have had significant presences in the region, their growing appetites for oil means that Delhi and Beijing, among others, will protect perceived interests.
How will Western countries, which enjoyed a near access monopoly for well over a century in this part of the world, react to these manifestations?
The astute Kemp, who served in the White House under Ronald Reagan as special assistant to the president for National Security Affairs and senior director for Near East and South Asian Affairs on the National Security Council staff, understands, perhaps better than most, that Western economies face serious crises.
With declining industrial capabilities and growing competition from such countries as India and China, Nato powers can no longer assert that the Gulf region is only vital to their welfare and security. Today, the world's two most populous states have a non-negligible economic presence in the region and are politically neutral, which gives them clear advantages.
This Asian footprint in the "new" Middle East infers fresh strategic concerns as local actors forge or, more accurately, strengthen existing relationships, free from the tragic burden of the moribund Arab-Israeli conflict.
This is the underlying factor in the Asian-Middle Eastern equation since few, if any, Eastern powers harbour bitter legacies associated with Western preferences of Israel over Arab countries.
Beyond contemporary antagonisms that Arab states in general, and Gulf countries in particular, display towards Western hegemony, no Asian player approaches the Middle East with any feelings of guilt about the Holocaust committed in Europe against Jews during the Second World War.
No Asian nation has any emotional stake in the Arab-Israeli conflict, which means that their relationships are straightforward, focusing on economic ties that benefit both sides.
Focus on economics
Naturally, Kemp is masterfully aware of these nuances and focuses on raw economics, which are eminently justified through the author's painstaking listings of major contracts signed during the past few decades.
Still, one is taken aback by the affirmation that Asian capitals have a cynical attitude, concluding that what this really means is that most refrain from interfering directly in Middle East politics precisely to enhance commercial ties.
The author wonders how long such attitudes can be sustained, asking whether India and China, in particular, will not replace the United States as the latter retrenches further and abandons the burdens of hegemony.
Kemp devotes four chapters identifying the many permutations between Gulf states and each of India, China, Pakistan, Japan and Korea (grouped together). There is also a short chapter on Asia and Israel, which is useful, as one deciphers Asian policies that pertain to defence issues.
Kemp concludes that "the centrality of the Arab-Israeli conflict to Middle East stability does not seem to have had much impact on the practical decision by key Asian countries to do business with Israel" (page 145), which is telling too.
His discussion of the Indian presence in the Gulf, estimated at nearly five million individuals that toil to build and sustain the infrastructures and businesses on the Arabian peninsula, is superb.
The mere notion that each one of these workers "could support twenty people at home" is an astounding statistic. Even more telling is the fact that "20 per cent of [Saudi Arabia's estimated] 7 million expatriate" workers are Indians. These men and women serve in every imaginable capacity and, as elsewhere, act as the engines that run Arab Gulf economies.
The book also covers the strategic linkages between the Arab world and Asia. It describes and analyses infrastructure projects in the Gulf and Central Asia (chapter 6), assesses the critical maritime environment (chapter 7), and identifies uncertainties (chapter 8), that need addition.
Kemp believes that "the strongest economic ties between countries are seldom sufficient to mollify the forces of nationalism, ideology, ethnicity and religion, which are the primary causes of most wars and unresolved conflicts". This, in short, means that Asians will simply replace Western hegemony in the Gulf, cavorting when their turn comes. Perhaps.
Still, it may be possible to contemplate genuine cooperation, on a bilateral or multilateral basis, which would foster respectful and mutually beneficial ties free from familiar exploitation.
While the US may remain the dominant military power in the region, as Kemp suggests, the need to share security responsibilities with India, for example, can no longer be neglected, especially since Delhi's familiarity with the Arab world (especially in the Gulf), gives it intrinsic advantages.
Dr Joseph A. Kéchichian is the author of the forthcoming Legal and Political Reforms in Saudi Arabia (2011).
