China has shattered the assumption of US dominance in the Middle East
Nic Robertson
Analysis by Nic Robertson, CNN
Published 12:21 AM EDT, Wed March
15, 2023
With a grandiose diplomatic flourish China brokered a rapprochement between Saudi Arabia and Iran, in the process upending US calculus in the Gulf and beyond.
While the United States has angered its Gulf allies by
apparently dithering over morality, curbing arms supplies and chilling
relations, Saudi Arabia’s King-in-waiting Crown Prince
Mohammed bin Salman, known as MBS, has found a kindred spirit in China’s leader Xi Jinping.
Both are bold, assertive, willing to take risks and
seemingly share unsated ambition.
Friday’s announcement that Riyadh and Tehran had renewed diplomatic ties was
unexpected, but it shouldn’t have been. It is the logical accumulation of America’s diplomatic limitations and China’s growing quest to shape the
world in its orbit.
Beijing’s claim that “China pursues no selfish interest
whatsoever in the Middle East,” rings hollow. It buys more oil from Saudi Arabia than any other country in the
world.
Xi needs energy to grow China’s economy, ensure stability at
home and fuel its rise as a global power.
His other main supplier, Russia, is at war, its supplies
therefore in question. By de-escalating tensions between Saudi and Iran, Xi is not only shoring up his
energy alternatives but, in a climate of growing tension with the US, also heading off potential curbs
on his access to Gulf oil.
Xi’s motivation appears fueled by wider interests,
but even so the US State Department welcomed the surprise move, spokesman Ned
Price saying, “we support anything that would serve to deescalate tensions in
the region, and potentially help to prevent conflict.”
Iran has buy-in because China has economic leverage. In 2021
the pair signed a trade deal reportedly worth up to $400 billion of Chinese
investment over 25 years, in exchange for a steady supply of Iranian oil.
Tehran is isolated by international
sanctions and Beijing is providing a glimmer of
financial relief.
And, in the words of Iran’s Supreme leader Ayatollah Ali
Khamenei last year, there’s also the hope of more to come as he sees
geopolitical power shifting east.
“Asia will become the center of knowledge, the center of
economics, as well as the center of political power, and the center of military
power,” Khamenei said.
Saudi has buy-in because war with Iran would wreck its economy and ruin
MBS’s play for regional dominance. His bold visions for the country’s post
fossil-fuel future and domestic stability depend on inwardly investing robust
oil and gas revenues.
US State Department spokesman Ned Price pictured in
July 2022.
US State Department spokesman Ned Price pictured in
July 2022.
Stefani Reynolds/Pool/AFP/Getty Images
US influence on the wane
It may sound simple, but the fact the US couldn’t pull it off speaks to
the complexities and nuance of everything that’s been brewing over the past two
decades.
America’s wars in Iraq and Afghanistan have burned through a good part
of its diplomatic capital in the Middle East.
Many in the Gulf see the development of the war in Ukraine as an unnecessary and dangerous
American adventure, and some of Russian President Vladimir Putin’s territorial
claims over Ukraine not without merit.
What the global West sees as a fight for democratic
values lacks resonance among the Gulf autocracies, and the conflict doesn’t
consume them in the same way as it does leaders in European capitals.
Saudi Arabia, and MBS in particular, have
become particularly frustrated with America’s flip-flop diplomacy: dialling
back relations over the Crown Prince’s role in the murder of Washington Post
columnist Jamal Khashoggi (which MBS denies); then calling on him to cut oil
production swiftly followed by requests to increase it.
These inconsistencies have led the Saudis to hew
policy to their national interests and less to America’s needs.
During his visit to Saudi last July, US President
Joe Biden said: “We will not walk away and leave a vacuum to be filled by China, Russia, or Iran.” It seems now that the others
are walking away from him.
China steps up
On Beijing’s part, China’s Gulf intervention signals its
own needs, and the opportunity to act arrived in a single serving.
Xi helped himself because he can. The Chinese
leader is a risk taker.
His abrupt ending of austere Covid-19 pandemic
restrictions at home is just one example, but this is a more complex roll of
the dice.
Mediation in the Middle East can be a poisoned chalice, but as
big as the potential gains are for China, the wider implications for the
regional, and even global order, are quantifiably bigger and will resonate for
years.
Yet harbingers of this shake-up and the scale of
its impact have been in plain sight for months. Xi’s high-profile, red-carpet
reception in Riyadh last December for his first
overseas visit after abandoning his domestic “zero-Covid” policy stirred the
waters.
During that trip Saudi and Chinese officials signed
scores of deals worth tens of billions of dollars.
China’s Foreign Ministry trumpeted Xi’s
visit, paying particular attention to one particular infrastructure project: “China will deepen industrial and
infrastructure cooperation with Saudi Arabia (and) advance the development of
the China-Saudi Arabia (Jizan) Industrial Park.”
The Jizan project, part of China’s belt and road initiative,
heralds huge investment around the ancient Red Sea port, currently Saudi’s third
largest.
Opinion: What to make of China's role in the handshake heard
round the world
Jizan lies close to the border with Yemen, the scene of a bloody civil war
and proxy battle between Riyadh and Tehran since 2014, sparking what the
United Nations has described as the world’s worst humanitarian crisis.
Significantly since Xi’s visit, episodic attacks by
the Iran-backed Houthi rebels on Jizan have abated.
There are other effects too: the plans to upscale
Jizan’s container handling puts Saudi in greater competition with the UAE’s
container ports and potentially strains another regional rivalry, as MBS drives
to become the dominant regional power, usurping UAE’s role as regional hub for
global businesses.
Xi will have an interest seeing both Saudi Arabia and the UAE prosper, but Saudi is
by far the bigger partner with higher potential global economic heft and,
importantly, massive religious clout in the Islamic world.
Rivals share common ground on Iran policy
Where the UAE and Saudi align strongly is eschewing
direct conflict with Tehran.
A deadly drone attack in Abu Dhabi late last year was claimed by the
Houthis, before the rebels quickly rescinded it. But no one publicly blamed the
Houthis’ sponsors in Tehran.
biden saudi crown prince split
'There is only so much patience one can have': Biden
appears to back off vow to punish Saudi Arabia
A once shaky ceasefire in Yemen now also seems to be moving
toward peace talks, perhaps yet another indication of the potential of China’s influence in the region.
Beijing is acutely aware of what a
continued war over the Persian Gulf could cost its commercial interests – another
reason why a Saudi/Iran rapprochement makes sense to Xi.
Iran blames Saudi for stoking the
massive street protests through its towns and cities since September.
Saudi denies that accusation, but when Iran moved drones and long-range
missiles close to its Gulf coast and Saudi, Riyadh called on its friends to ask Tehran to de-escalate. Russia and China did, the threat dissipated.
Questions remain over nuclear weapons
Tehran, despite US diplomatic efforts,
is also closing in on nuclear weapons capability and Saudi’s MBS is on record
saying he’ll ensure parity, “if Iran developed a nuclear bomb, we will
follow suit as soon as possible.”
Late last week US officials said Saudi was seeking
US security guarantees and help developing a civilian nuclear program as part
of a deal to normalize relations with Israel, an avowed enemy of Iran’s
Ayatollahs.
Indeed, when US Secretary of State Antony Blinken
visited Israel late January, concerned over a
rising Palestinian death toll in a violent year in the region, potential
settlement expansions and controversial changes to Israel’s judiciary Prime Minister
Benjamin Netanyahu spoke to Blinken about “expanding the circle of peace,” and
improving relations with Arab neighbours, including Saudi Arabia.
US Secretary of State Antony Blinken (left) with
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in May 2021.
US Secretary of State Antony Blinken (left) with
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in May 2021.
Haim Zach/Government Press Office/Getty Images
But as Saudi seems to shift closer to Tehran, Netanyahu’s mission just got
harder. While both Saudi and Israel strongly oppose a nuclear-armed Iran, only Netanyahu seems ready to
confront Tehran.
“My policy is to do everything within Israel’s power to prevent Iran from acquiring nuclear weapons,” the
Israeli leader told Blinken.
Riyadh favors diplomacy. As recently as
last week the Saudi foreign minister said: “It’s absolutely critical … that we
find and an alternative pathway to ensuring an (Iranian) civilian nuclear
program.”
By improving ties with Tehran, he said, “we can make it quite
clear to the Iranians that this is not just a concerns of distant countries but
it’s also a concern of its neighbors.”
For years this is what America did, such as brokering the Iran nuclear deal, or JCPOA, in 2015.
Xi backed that deal, the Saudis didn’t want it, Iran never trusted it, Biden’s
predecessor Donald Trump’s withdrawal confirmed Iran’s fears and sealed its fate, despite
the ongoing proximity talks to get American diplomats seated at the table again.
Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed Bin Salman welcomes
Chinese President Xi Jinping in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia on December 8,
2022.
5 key takeaways from Xi's trip to Saudi Arabia
Iran has raced ahead in the meantime,
massively over-running the bounds of the JCPOA limits on uranium enrichment and
producing almost weapons-grade material.
What’s worse for Washington is that Trump’s JCPOA withdrawal
legacy tainted international perceptions of US commitment, continuity and
diplomacy. All these circumstances perhaps signaled to Xi that his time to
seize the lead on global diplomacy was coming.
Yet the Chinese leader seems to accept what
Netanyahu won’t and what US diplomacy is unable to prevent: that
sooner, rather than later, Iran will have a nuclear weapon. As
such, Xi may be fostering Saudi-Iran rapprochement as a hedge against that day.
So Netanyahu looks increasingly isolated and the
Israeli leader, already under huge domestic pressure from spiking tensions with
Palestinians and huge Israeli protests over his proposed judicial reforms, now
faces a massive re-think on regional security.
Pieces of regional puzzle shifting
The working assumption of American diplomatic
regional primacy is broken, and Netanyahu’s biggest ally is now not as
hegemonic as he needs. But by how much is still far from clear.
It’s not a knockout, but a gut blow, to Washington. How Xi calculates the situation
isn’t clear either. The US is not finished, far from it, but
it is diminished, and both powers are coexisting in a different way now.
Earlier this month, the Chinese leader made
unusually direct comments accusing the US of leading a campaign against China and causing serious domestic woes.
Wang Yi, a member of the Political Bureau of the
Communist Party of China (CPC) Central Committee and director of the Office of
the Central Foreign Affairs Commission attends a meeting with Secretary of
Iran's Supreme National Security Council Ali Shamkhani and Minister of State
and national security adviser of Saudi Arabia Musaad bin Mohammed Al Aiban in
Beijing, China March 10, 2023. China Daily via REUTERS ATTENTION
EDITORS - THIS IMAGE WAS PROVIDED BY A THIRD PARTY. CHINA OUT.
Iran and Saudi Arabia signal the start of a new era,
with China front and center
“Western countries led by the United States have
contained and suppressed us in an all-round way, which has brought
unprecedented severe challenges to our development,” Xi told a group of
government advisers representing private businesses on the sidelines of an
annual legislative meeting in Beijing.
Meanwhile, Biden has defined the future US-China
relationship as “competition not confrontation,” and he has built his foreign
policy around the tenets of standing up for democracy.
It is striking that neither Xi, nor Khamenei, nor
MBS are troubled by the moral dilemmas that circumscribe Biden. This is the big
challenge the US president warned about, and now
it’s here. An alternative world order, irrespective of what happens in Ukraine.
