China On A Strategic Course

Halting decades of hostilities, West Asia’s two heavily oil-rich countries, Iran and Saudi Arabia, have restored diplomatic ties and warmed up to the prospects of mutual cooperation. As a result, the entire region is breathing a measure of relief.  China, on the quiet, had played the peace broker, leading to the agreement between Sunni Riyadh and Shiite Iran in March. Given the long-running differences and proxy wars the two had engaged in, the breakthrough will go down as an epoch-making event of the new millennium. A durable impact of the positive type depends on how the agreement sticks and the effects it generates, as is the case with any accord.

Beijing seems to have convinced the two capitals of the benefits of ending their hostility in a climate of definitively changing world order, politically, structurally and economically. Under the 25-year trilateral agreement, Iran is promised Chinese investment of $400 billion covering the designated quarter century in return for Iranian oil at substantially discounted price. Washington’s reaction to the agreement signalled the pact’s significance. White House welcomed the restoration of diplomatic ties between Saudi Arabia and Iran. 

The agreement caught the region and the rest of the world in a huge surprise. First, the Iranians and the Saudis had crossed swords on many fronts, including financing rebel groups in Yemen and elsewhere. Second, the No. 1 superpower, the US, did not seem to have a clue regarding the development in the making. Third, it means that the US is not the sole superpower player in the strategically important region. Fourth, the course of supply chains and investments is set to shift sharply, which the West might read as its disadvantage.

Conspicuous bypass 

Washington did not have any role in what promises to be a game-changing event. Of all the peace-makers, Communist China playing such an effective role in addressing a highly sticky issue must have given a big jolt to its ideological and economic rivals in the core capitalist club. Had that been in other circumstances, especially initiated by someone the mainstream West approved of, the Nobel Committee might have accorded the leaders engaged in the deal a vigorous nod in appreciation. 

Of note is that Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi, India’s apostle of non-violence, never made it to the selection committee’s final choice. South Africa’s anti-apartheid hero Nelson Mandela served as an enormous source of embarrassment for not having been decorated with a Nobel Peace Prize for more than 25 years in jail. After his release from three decades of imprisonment under horrible conditions, Mandela was named co-winner of the Peace award with the racist South African regime’s last President Frederik de Klerk. 

For years, Tel Aviv and Riyadh were engaged in developing a working relationship while ties with Tehran remained frosty. Washington’s most reliable ally in West Asia, a stunned Israel will now have to summon patience for its next line of diplomatic thrust and revision of approach to security concerns. China, flushed with its clearly heightened profile in West Asia that could pave way for new foothold elsewhere too, keeps itself busy with other activity to assure its role in the international arena. Two months after the trilateral agreement, Beijing hosted a two-day China Arab State Cooperation Forum against the background of a big leap in trade between China and the Arab countries. Arab-China trade has grown from $36 billion in 2004 to $400 billion 20 years later.

Beijing hosted Russian President Vladimir Putin in the same month, unmindful of the sanctions the US and its close allies have clamped on Russia, with the ICC issuing a warrant against him. Putin’s 20th visit to China was a reiteration of the two superpower neighbours’ deepening “no limits” bilateral ties. Four months later, in September, China’s President Xi Jinping welcomed the participants at the Summit of the 53-member Forum on China-Africa Cooperation. Four of the participating members – Algeria, Egypt, Nigeria and Sudan – are major oil suppliers. 

Biden had vowed to reduce Saudi Arabia to a “pariah” state after the American intelligence agency, CIA, charged Crown Prince Mohammed bin-Salman’s role in the assassination of Jamal Khashoggi, a Saudi journalist writing for The Washington Post and living in the US. But he broke the pledge when he visited Riyadh in 2023 in the hope of persuading the Saudi help to lower oil prices that had steeply risen after the Ukraine war. 

Crown Prince Salman did not commit anything to the superpower leader during their meeting but did just the opposite of what Washington wanted him to do. Saudi Arabia’s de facto ruler reduced oil production to maintain the price hike. Beijing and Moscow might have not been sorry for Washington on the issue. In a bid to expand trade and other ties with more countrie, Beijing recently waived import duties for Least Developed Countries and all African nations. 

Indications 

Already a member of the BRICS campaign aimed at de-dollarisation, the Saudis have shown interest in joining the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation. They are accepting Chinese currency for the substantial volume of oil that Beijing imports. Washington’s speculation that Beijing might be able to convince Tehran to abandon its nuclear weapons ambitions might not be assured. Beijing will face a far greater challenge in persuading Tehran to abandon the weapons programme than it has had any success in persuading North Korea to announce an end to its similar scheme. And Iran’s reliance on China is negligible when compared with North Korea’s. 

After the end of the Cold War and the Soviet Union’s collapse, the US was essentially the only important outside actor in the area. But Russia returned in force in 2015 when it sent military units to assist President Bashar al-Assad in Syria’s civil war. Moscow had Beijing’s tacit support in this move. And China and Russia share a common border stretching 4,200 kilometres, the world’s sixth longest.  With a population of 1.4 billion, China is making superfast advances in technology while the world’s largest territory of Russia is sparsely populated at 144.5 million but sitting on vast resources that its superpower neighbour would be keen to tap. The US considers the two as the West’s source of biggest worry and vice-versa. Times are changing fast; so are big power equation; and, with it, the world order established in the post-World War I century is in the process of undergoing sea changes in shape and structure.

(Professor P. Kharel specialises in political communication.)