China’s successful mediation is a key step in a rapprochement between Middle Eastern rivals Saudi Arabia and Iran in a much larger plan, both to contain what Beijing sees as a US-led war and to reshape the world order to better serve its interests.
The diplomatic coup is a concrete example of Chinese leader Xi Jinping’s ambitious agenda to free China from isolation it believes the West is trying to impose and build a power base in the global south from which to challenge US hegemony, Chinese experts say. .
Why did we write this?
China is seeking to consolidate its global economic influence with the kind of international political influence traditionally wielded by the United States. Will that challenge succeed?
China’s rise as the world’s largest trading power has led to an increase in Chinese investment in the developing world. Beijing is now seeking to use its economic influence to create a base from which to expand its political and diplomatic influence.
But many developing countries will want to balance their relations with the US and China. And while Beijing may see itself as an ally of the developing world as it did in the 1950s and 1960s, China’s new superpower status has made many countries wary of its influence.
“The Chinese will say … China is just an innocent third party on the sidelines,” said Yun Sun, a China watcher at the Stimson Center think tank. “But I’m sure many countries will feel the message differently.”
China’s successful mediation is a key step in a rapprochement between Middle Eastern rivals Saudi Arabia and Iran in a much larger plan, both to contain what Beijing sees as a US-led war and to reshape the world order to better serve its interests.
In a bold departure from its trade-dominant policy in the oil-rich region, China entered the fray for Middle East peace by brokering an accord announced in Beijing on Friday in which Iran and Saudi Arabia pledged to restore diplomatic ties and reopen embassies. closed in 2016
China has a strong interest in developing stability and influence in the region that supplies most of its crude oil; Its economic clout and strong ties with Iran and Saudi Arabia put Beijing ahead of the deal, which the two countries have been negotiating for two years.
Why did we write this?
China is seeking to consolidate its global economic influence with the kind of international political influence traditionally wielded by the United States. Will that challenge succeed?
But the diplomatic coup is also a concrete example of Chinese leader Xi Jinping’s pursuit of a broader and more ambitious agenda. US hegemony, Chinese experts believe.
Mr Xi launched a rare public attack on the United States in a speech last week, blaming Washington for economic failures. “Western countries, led by the United States, have implemented comprehensive containment, encirclement and suppression against us, bringing unprecedented severe challenges to our country’s development,” Mr. Xi was quoted as saying by state media.
Faced with US pressure in Europe and Asia, “this is China pushing back…saying: “We have alternative theaters [where] we can promote our leadership and our credibility,” said Yun Sun, senior fellow and co-director of the East Asia Program and director of the China Program at the Stimson Center in Washington.
China’s leaders “point to an alternative global security vision” led by Beijing that “has already borne fruit in the Middle East” and suggest that “if it can be successful there, it can be successful elsewhere.” says Mrs. Sun.
Turning economic influence into political influence
China’s rise as the world’s largest trading power has led to an increase in Chinese investment in the developing world. In the past decade, China has invested nearly $1 trillion in the Belt and Road Initiative, a massive plan to build railways, highways and energy pipelines across nearly 150 countries in Asia, Africa, the Middle East and Latin America.
Beijing is now seeking to use its economic influence in the Global South to create a base from which to expand its political and diplomatic influence and gain greater influence in international institutions and world affairs, experts say.
“The great power has not only economic relations with its neighbors. It’s becoming more involved and more prominent in global affairs,” said Nadezh Rolland, senior fellow for political and security affairs at the National Bureau of Asian Studies. China’s new outlook is a “paradigm shift,” he says.
“China’s involvement is not just about trade and the search for natural resources and markets,” he adds. “There is a growing sense among China’s political elites that they, too, must deliver global public goods.”
In a recent speech in Beijing, Yan Ping, editor-in-chief of the influential Beijing Cultural Review, argued that China must “build a new type of international relations and a new type of international system that has strategic depth and in which China; and the countries of the Global South are jointly integrated.”
That entails adapting the Belt and Road Initiative to make strategic investments in developing countries that may not be profitable, Mr. Yang said, according to a translation of his words on the Sinification blog.
Governments in many such countries see Beijing’s spread, which represents China’s economic success under a state-run authoritarian system, as an alternative model to the West.
China also benefits from a long history of solidarity with the Third World, as one of dozens of anti-colonial developing countries that participated in the 1955 Bandung Conference, a precursor to the Non-Aligned Movement. During the Cold War, China sought to create a united front with the developing world to counter pressure from the United States and the Soviet Union.
“The parallels are very similar to what we see today,” says Dr. Roland, as Beijing seeks to work with the Global South to counter what it perceives as a Western campaign of isolation and encirclement.
A key aspect of China’s strategy is to focus on areas where it believes the US is not paying enough attention, experts say.
“Uncertainties about US power and influence … could allow Beijing to play an increasingly important role in regional politics, particularly in the global South,” said Michael Swain, director of the East Asia Program at the Quincy Institute for Responsible Government in Washington. online forum Tuesday.
Not everyone is so interested…
China’s efforts to raise its status as a great power through diplomatic initiatives in the Middle East and elsewhere will not end with the Iran-Saudi Arabia deal. Beijing is expected to host a high-level summit between Iran and the Gulf Arab states within the six-nation Gulf Cooperation Council later this year.
If that summit succeeds in demonstrating China’s ability to bridge historic rivalries, “it will be real. [game] has changed in terms of international relations in the region,” Christian Coates Ulrichsen, a Middle East expert at the Baker Institute, told an online forum on Tuesday.
However, experts say it is too early to tell how well China-brokered deals will be implemented and caution against overstating China’s role. “China was in the right place at the right time with the right relationship” to help broker the Iran-Saudi deal, Ms. Sun said. “It’s not because China has this amazing influence to be a peacemaker.”
Indeed, experts stress that China’s ability to build unity and defuse conflict in the developing world will often be limited by the calculations of the individual countries involved, many of which will seek to balance their ties with the US and China.
While Beijing may see itself as making common cause with the developing world, as it did in the 1950s and 1960s, China’s superpower status has made many countries wary of its influence, Ms. Sun said.
China is in a Cold War rivalry with the United States. It’s splitting the world in two in this competition and trying to make the Third World fall behind China,” he says. “The Chinese will say … China is just an innocent third party on the sidelines, but I’m sure many countries will feel the message differently.”