Tuvia Gering: The Chinese “blitz” on the Middle East seeks to secure Arab-Muslim support for Chinese core interests and to fortify the “Chinese camp” in the face of the “anti-Chinese” faction led by the Biden administration.
South China Morning Post, 24.07.2021
By Jevans Nyabiage
Over the last week it has been Syria, Egypt and Algeria. In between there was also a phone call with Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad.
Four months earlier there was a series of stops in Saudi Arabia, Turkey, Iran, the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain and Oman.
Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi’s trips to the Middle East and northern Africa are just some of the dozens of various diplomatic contacts Chinese officials have made with leaders in the region in recent months as the area becomes one of Beijing’s geopolitical pivot points. Chinese officials have also held talks with Afghan, Iraqi and Kuwaiti officials.
Observers say the activity reflects China’s aim to play a bigger economic and political role in the region as the United States’ priorities shift elsewhere.
As the US withdraws its troops from most Middle Eastern countries – including Afghanistan, Iraq and Kuwait – China has positioned itself amid reconstruction in those countries and as a mediator, especially in the Israel-Palestine conflict.
As part of that shift, Beijing on Wednesday named Yue Xiaoyong, a veteran diplomat with experience in the US and Middle East, as its new special envoy to Afghanistan.
Joost Hiltermann, the Middle East and North Africa director at the International Crisis Group think tank, said Wang’s two Middle East trips in four months showed China desired greater influence in the region at a moment when US priorities were shifting to the Indo-Pacific.
He said economic interests were probably of most importance to China but political interests loomed large as well.
“China wants to signal that it is a major power and a responsible stakeholder. Hence the lofty proposals, five-point plans, successive offers to host Israel-Palestinian talks,” Hiltermann said. “There’s also the added benefit of currying favour with the Muslim world vis-à-vis Western criticism of China’s policies in Xinjiang.”
But Hiltermann said it was not clear that Beijing was able or willing to parlay its economic reach into effective political influence.
In the latest trip, Wang’s first stop was in the war-torn nation of Syria where he met his Syrian counterpart Faisal al-Mekdad and President Bashar al-Assad, who won a fourth term in office in May’s election. The visit to Damascus coincided with Assad’s swearing-in ceremony, with Wang the first foreign dignitary to visit since Assad’s re-election.
Wang promised Beijing would help rebuild the country, especially through China’s Belt and Road Initiative after a decade of destruction in a civil war that has also seen extremist jihadist organisations such as Islamic State (Isis) and al-Qaeda join the war. Wang said China opposed any attempt to seek regime change in Syria.
China has also taken a keen interest in Israel-Palestine mediation and during his visit to Egypt Wang proposed the countries use the two-state solution – having a State of Israel and a State of Palestine alongside each other – as the basis to restart peace talks. Wang invited Palestinian and Israeli negotiators to China for direct talks.
Wang also visited Algeria, a key Chinese ally in the region, where the two sides agreed to consult over signing a new five-year plan for cooperation and “the implementation plan for jointly building the belt and road as soon as possible”, according to a Chinese foreign ministry statement.
They were also finalising negotiations for the construction of El Hamdania Central Port, a commercial seaport near the town of Cherchell in the province of Tipaza.
Jon Alterman, director of the Middle East programme at the Centre for Strategic and International Studies, said both Egypt and Algeria had “comprehensive strategic partnerships” with China.
“It doesn’t seem to me that his visits there are unusual. Years ago, Chinese officials told me about how interested they were in joining the ‘Quartet’ of international parties seeking to broker Arab-Israeli peace,” Alterman said.
“The departure is his visit to Syria. China is increasingly interested in playing a role in Syria’s future, provided that both the incentives and the protections are adequate.”
The visit was intended to promote and protect China’s security and economic interests in the Middle East-North Africa region, said John Calabrese, director of the Middle East-Asia Project.
Calabrese said it was also to maintain a foothold in, and good relations with, incumbent governments and respond to growing expectations within the region that Beijing play an assertive, constructive diplomatic role commensurate with its economic power.
As the US cuts its resource allocation to the region, especially in Afghanistan, Calabrese said China might use visits and diplomatic talks to capitalise on the perception that Washington had assigned lower priority to the region.
Concerning the Israel-Palestine conflict, Calabrese said Beijing’s stated position – favouring a two-state solution – reflected Beijing’s self-confidence in contrast to Washington’s more muted diplomatic posture.
Tuvia Gering, an analyst at the Jerusalem Institute for Strategy and Security, said the Chinese “blitz” on the Middle East aimed to secure Arab-Muslim support for Chinese core interests and to fortify the “Chinese camp” in the face of the “anti-Chinese” faction led by the administration of US President Joe Biden and supported by the West.
Gering said Middle Eastern countries would welcome more Chinese involvement in the region because it would bring peace and stability as well as investment through the Belt and Road Initiative. It also provided an alternative to the US, giving them more leverage over Washington, Gering said.
However, he said that behind closed doors, “I get the impression that Middle Eastern countries are realists and cynics at best, and utter four-letter profanities at Beijing at worst”.
Of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, Gering said everyone could benefit from peace and stability backed by joint Sino-US cooperation under the frameworks of the Abraham Accords, Build Back Better World and belt and road.
“But instead of capitalising on the momentum created by the normalisation of Arab-Israeli relations and some internal trends in the Muslim world, which have created more room for regional restructuring, they [China and the US] attempt to promote anachronistic and obsolete mechanisms of the Arab League and the UN or to develop new ones altogether,” Gering said.
On the economic front, China has made inroads into the Middle East, especially relating to oil supplies and extending the belt and road, President Xi Jinping’s trillion-dollar pet project that has resulted in the construction of railways, highways, ports and power plants.
As the US departs from Afghanistan and Iraq after years of fighting insecurity, countries are looking to China for reconstruction and trade.
For instance, Iran – besides being a supplier of oil and natural gas – has become a key geostrategic region for China’s ambitions and is a link in Beijing’s belt and road route to Europe. Iran connects to China via a railway through Turkmenistan and Kazakhstan.
In March, Beijing and Tehran signed a 25-year deal on energy, economic and security cooperation that reportedly would see China invest US$400 billion during that period in exchange for oil.
In the recent past, the US has become increasingly self-sufficient for its oil and gas supplies but Beijing depends heavily on the Middle East, which accounts for about half of China’s oil needs.
Beijing imports most of its oil from Saudi Arabia and Russia – and gets some from Iran despite it being under sanctions by the US. China also relies on Oman, Kuwait, Iraq and the United Arab Emirates for oil and gas.
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