The announcement of the normalisation of relations between Iran and Saudi Arabia just after Xi Jinping was extended an unprecedented third term in office is a clear signal of the direction that China’s leadership wishes to take.
It fulfils three of the most important criteria of Chinese foreign policy:
(i) publicly outperforming the US-led alliance,
(ii) extending Chinese reach further along the historic “Silk Road” areas, and
(iii) creating a quasi-alliance of actors which cannot be easily impacted by US led sanctions.
The animating push behind all of these is the understanding that China is far from self-sufficient and it needs an open international order to power its growth.
Outperforming the US
While the US has been relatively constrained in its response to the normalisation of Iran-Saudi relations mediated by China, the Israelis were more vocal. While an unnamed official leaked on behalf of the government that it was the previous government of Natfalli Bennet and Yair Lapid that was responsible, Lapid tore into Netanyahu, saying his sight was blinded by “Italian wine”, in a reference to Netanyahu’s trip to meet the Italian prime minister while the Biden administration keeps him hanging for the invitation that he so dearly wants.
Netanyahu has spent two decades painting Iran as an existential threat, including holding a cartoon drawing of a bomb in the UN to “demonstrate” how close Iran was to a nuclear weapon.
Netanyahu with the cartoon bomb drawing in the UN. Photo: Twitter/@AssalRad
It is, therefore, understandable that the Knesset, the Israeli legislature, would see contention, especially when the normalisation of Israeli relations with Saudi Arabia was being sold by Netanyahu as part of an alliance against Iran.
Nonetheless it is the silence from Washington D.C. that speaks louder. In the last 20 years the numbers of international deals which the US has helped usher through for stability is precisely zero. Meanwhile the tottering government of Iraq, the devastation in Syria, Yemen, Libya, and Afghanistan testify eloquently to the instability that American interventionism has brought to the wider region. Not to mention the ongoing war in Ukraine.
While it would be both incorrect and juvenile to suggest that the US was the only country at fault in these crises, the fact that it has been involved in all of them, and none have resulted in greater stability, cannot be denied. China stepping into chivvy Iran and Saudi Arabia to resume a modicum of diplomatic ties may not amount to a breakthrough, and certainly any deal between Mohammed bin Salman and the mullahocracy can hardly be described as a peace deal, but it does lower tensions. What China offers here is less itself as an alternative to the US (the Saudi state will still buy all its arms from the US), but a vision of an order where great powers nudge others to stability.
While it is easy to be cynical about a country credibly accused of genocidal acts against Muslims in Xinjiang managing stability between two Muslims that have fuelled the war in Yemen, the poorest country in the world, and wrought chaos in Syria, stability is hugely attractive, and not just to the rulers.
There is an old Arab saying about a day of chaos being worse than a year of tyranny, and the poor and marginalised always suffer the most. It is not justice, and not even peace, but stability is valuable in its own right, if only to sustain hope for the former. And it is precisely this stability that was offered as the centrepiece of China’s vague peace deal between Russia and Ukraine, not justice, not peace, but a possibility of lowering the outbreak of war. Given how disruptive the consequences of war have been, it is not just people in the Global South who may be willing to sacrifice their principles – or at least that of the Ukrainians – who will be willing to listen.
Expanding the Chinese sphere of influence
It does not harm China that Iran and Saudi Arabia lie near the edge of its expanding influence. Towards the end of last year there was extensive reportage about the China Pakistan Economic Corridor being extended to include Afghanistan. The Taliban government seemed to be enthusiastic, but between China and Pakistan, it was not clear who was taking the lead on this, although it seemed to be Pakistan. Nonetheless, Iran lies just beyond Afghanistan for China, and if Bashar al Assad’s continuing rehabilitation continues – the Saudis sent a planeload of emergency aid after the recent earthquake, the first Saudi plane to land in the country in years – then China can see a zone of influence that extends all the way to the border of NATO. And given China’s deep interaction with the Turkish government, well into NATO territory.
An image showing the White Helmets celebrating the rescue of a child after the earthquakes in northwest Syria. Photo: Twitter/@SyriaCivilDef
Virtually all the regional security organisations in West Asia are weak or divided to the point of ineffectuality. And it is worth noting that while the communiques on the Iran-Saudi deal mentioned Iraq and Oman for their efforts, the United Arab Emirates was prominently missing.
Mohammed bin Zayed of the UAE has long been considered something of a mentor to the rash and mercurial Saudi crown prince, Mohammed bin Salman, but this relationship has been under strain for some time. Basically, as both countries try to figure out a post-oil economy they are fighting for the same pool of investors, and Saudi Arabia is too big to play second fiddle to the UAE, with too large a population desperately in need of dignified employment, even if MBS was so inclined. But Saudi Arabia and the UAE were the centrepiece of the Gulf Cooperation Council, virtually the only organisation – unlike the Arab League or the Organisation of Islamic Countries – that could be said to have some coherence.
It is impossible to imagine NATO having the appetite or capability to extend itself to seriously become a part of, or be seen as a credible non-partisan convenor of conversations. It is, right now, struggling even to get Turkey to accept the membership of Sweden and Finland. But there is another organisation that could be seen as far enough away, and far less involved – and thus suitably non-partisan – and that is the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation.
And if this dovetails with the expansion of China’s Belt and Road Initiative, then why would the Chinese not push this, especially since stability and lack of open conflict in West Asia creates more customers for their goods, including renewable energy technology in which they are one of the leaders, and which West Asia desperately needs?
Breaking the stranglehold of US sanctions
But customers are only viable if they can buy, and pay, for goods. Given the centrality of the US to the global financial system, and the fact that much of western Europe will march in lockstep, sanctions are a big disincentive for those trading with people the US does not like. As a policy tool, economic sanctions have rarely delivered policy change that the US has wanted, as is evident with the long-term sanctions against Cuba, Iran, and North Korea, or the recent ones against Russia, nonetheless the threat of them have a large shaping effect on other countries – for example, India meekly ending trade with Iran under the Trump administration’s bullying.
The normalisation of any country under intense US sanctions – as Iran is – creates all sorts of opportunities. Not only does it demonstrate the ineffectiveness of US financial sanctions, but it also creates incentives for both countries and companies to bypass them. As China increasingly faces a squeeze on its high-tech sector, from importing semiconductors to exporting 5G technology, by the US, the ability to bypass sanctions and create a larger community of states and non-state actors willing to trade outside the US rules, is hard to overstate. It is critical for China, which still identifies itself in a growing stage, to have international trading partners for its most valuable, next generation, goods.
A number of commentators have downplayed the significance of the Chinese facilitating the Iran-Saudi Arabia deal given the very low level of deliverables – the reopening of embassies and contacts. By itself, this deal will not fundamentally transform the bitter rivalry between the two countries.
The more important issue, though, is that it shows how much China has achieved for itself by a fairly small deliverable, and how much demand there seems to be for objectives that dovetail with Chinese strategic interests in other countries. China made itself “the world’s factory” by correctly identifying and supplying goods for which there was a demand, in the process creating jobs and enriching hundreds of millions of its people. If it chooses to play a similar role in security and stability architecture it is not just the US that should watch out.
Omair Ahmad is an author and journalist.
