Is the Spice Route a rival of the China Silk Route?

Julia Alam :

This time, the G20 summit has given the world an unusual message.

Its declarations and many undeclared things signaled something critical and only those people have understood that who had wanted seriously to understand.

In public news hypes, headlines said the G20 leaders were discussing a number of key global issues, including digital transformation, climate finance, capacity building of multilateral development banks, the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), food security, the economic and social impact of the Russia-Ukraine war.

They also agreed to work together for solving the problems is these sectors but it is understood by intelligent people only that these are conventional formal declarations.

Official declarations from the G-20 alliance have made headlines for mass people.

But the divided G-20, which cannot be visible through open eye, is the sub-alliance of the United States, India and the European Union.

The alliance controlled G-20 Delhi Summit and made that their playground this time.

So, the G-20 Delhi Summit has given the world a different message.

A major mission or counter mission has been announced in Delhi though that has not been a major part of the official manifesto of the summit.

The AFP news piece said that some important member countries in the G-20 group have unveiled an ambitious plan.

The plan aimed at strengthening trade relations between India, the Middle East and Europe.

They want to link the regions in a region which accounts for one-third of the world’s trade.

They named it the modern-day Spice Route.

On the sidelines of the summit, the United States, Saudi Arabia, the European Union, the United Arab Emirates and others signed in an agreement on the this proposed route.

Diplomats see it as alternative to China’s Belt and Road Initiative or BRI branded as Silk Route.

Officials from the India-EU-USA sub-alliance, in fact the de facto controller of the G20 alliance, also said that the proposed highway includes rail, power connectivity and hydrogen pipelines.

The proposed highway has also been planned for connecting various railways and ports in the Middle East also.

The countries that can come under this communication network there are the United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia, Jordan and Israel.

It has been already said that when this Spice Route will be opened, the speed of trades between India and Europe will be increased by 40 percent compared to the present.

Before this plan was officially announced, leaders of the European Union said that ‘India-Middle East-Europe Spice Route is a historic economic corridor.

At one stage of the Delhi conference, the excited comments of Miss Ursula, the top executive of the European Commission, is noticeable.

In the meantime, it has also been said that this route is an important step not only for trade, but also for normalizing the relations of Arab countries with Israel.

For decoding codes of the superpower politics, another point must be noted or understood here what Jonathan Finer said about the proposed Spice Route.

The American journalist turned diplomat and now the US Deputy National Security Advisor said that the India-Middle East-Europe route has ‘tremendous potential’.

Consciously or subconsciously, Finer disclosed that this initiative was announced in public after ‘months of careful diplomacy, quiet and cautious diplomacy, bilateral and multilateral talks.’

The Europe to India highway project is still in its infancy.

Partners are still examining how to connect India’s 1.4 billion people and fast-growing economy with the western markets.

The unpublished document showed that the India-Middle East-Europe Economic Corridor will build the infrastructure so that ‘environmentally friendly hydrogen can also be transported through this route’.

Apart from this, the initiative also aims to strengthen telecommunication and data transmission by laying new undersea cables.

Michael Kugelman, the South Asia director at the research institute, Wilson Center, said that the Spice Route proposed at the G-20 conference can be seen as an important countermeasure to China’s much-discussed Belt and Road Initiative.

The proposed route is the smartest move of the powerful G-20 alliance.

An analytical report by Financial Times, the world’s most influential business daily, which was born in the UK and now owned by the Japanese, also showed that Spice Route would emerge as an ideal alternative to China’s BRI.

Italy, the only European partner of the BRI, has also announced that they will no longer remain partner of BRI route that had been developed by Chinese thought, design and resources.

This time the Japanese had been quite silent in Delhi Conference but it goes without saying that they will be openly or secretly against Chinese BRI.

Many people are now realizing why Japanese had been so active in outlining the inter-states highway project, connecting the North-East Indian states, which is proposed to connect ports of Bangladesh.

India ignored the BRI from its beginning while a highway connecting Europe Africa via Middle East and West Asia with South East Asia, excluding India, is almost a non-functional one.

Yet, over the past few years, China has quietly made significant progress in linking the BRI with the Middle East through Pakistan’s Khyber Pass.

India-EU-USA’s mission Spice Route sounds more like betting of powers than a mega logistic project.

This is more like power or strategy battle between India-Europe-America axis and China.

Whatsoever, this is just the beginning of another battle and let the world sees where that ends.

(The writer is a Dhaka-based journalist, TV host and analyst on international economic relations).