The Belt and Road International Forum 2017. Photo: The Russian Presidential Press and Information Office

Great expectations are attached to China as a global power. China also has great expectations of itself. The world’s most populous state, however, is expending its energy primarily on securing internal stability, welfare and development, and this focus also determines its foreign policy priorities. The declining will of the United States to take global responsibility has triggered very mixed feelings in Beijing, but the prevailing view is that there is really has no other choice than to step up its global involvement. The Middle East is no exception.

But the Middle East is a challenging region. The list of the world’s most serious wars is dominated by conflicts in Syria, Yemen and Iraq (as well as Afghanistan, which can be seen as part of the so-called “wider Middle East”). Old alliances have come undone. Authoritarian leaders are consolidating their grip. The major social and political tensions that prompted widespread protests in 2011 are by no means resolved.

China’s Belt and Road Initiative – often referred to as the new Silk Road – is President Xi’s grand prestige project. The Belt & Road concept is elastic; it has become something of a catchphrase used to describe large parts of China’s activities overseas. The project’s main ambition is to link China and Europe through massive development of land-based and maritime infrastructure. Roads, railways and pipelines will cross the Middle East. The project is also supposed to contribute to local economic development, but is in danger of becoming a target for rebel groups or of falling victim to rivalries between political actors.

China’s role in the Middle East is already significant, although to not all that visible. Well over half of China’s oil imports come from the region. China has been clever in balancing its interests. For example, the country is a major importer of oil from both Iran and Saudi Arabia, and exports military technology to both countries. In Iraq, China does business both with the regime in Baghdad and with the government of the autonomous region of Iraqi Kurdistan.

According to conventional wisdom, the Chinese are welcomed abroad because they don’t get involved in politics, and because they don’t impose demands about human rights, freedom of expression, or democracy. In recent years, however, we have seen an increasing willingness by China to become involved in political processes, for example in Afghanistan, Libya, Sudan and South Sudan. In the negotiations that led to the Iran nuclear deal in 2015, China made an important contribution though its direct contact with the Iranian leaders. In all these processes, China has kept its ambitions at a moderate level and has maintained a relatively low profile. Even so, this engagement represents an important shift.

The Belt and Road Initiative is already encountering difficulties. As armed conflicts and political instability persist, the question arises whether a more proactive China will succeed in balancing contradictory interests. The conflict between Iran and Saudi Arabia, for example, is escalating continually, and may put China’s strategy of balancing different interests to the test. Another challenge is that more and more countries are seeing the Chinese approach – with investments funded by large loans – as a recipe for dependency, as we have seen recently in Malaysia and Myanmar.

Traditionally, China’s global engagement has been primarily economic – all about access to raw materials and trade. The new Silk Road can be seen as an extension of this approach. But extensive construction activity, as well as major investments in physical infrastructure, also brings vulnerability. In Beijing, difficult discussions about how Chinese interests can be protected in the world’s most unstable areas, are being forced onto the agenda. The issue is not only to what extent, or how, to react politically. Ultimately, the discussion is also about the use of military means.

Military force may have several areas of application. Firstly, there is the matter of protecting Chinese citizens. The construction projects are heavily dependent on Chinese labour, and can become targets for rebel groups, as we have seen in Pakistan, among other places. Infrastructure projects may also be vulnerable to sabotage, and will require secure access for operation and maintenance. Ultimately, there is also the question to what extent China is becoming more willing to use military force to achieve overarching political objectives outside its national borders, something China has been very restrained about till now.

It can be enlightening to look at trends in the Chinese use of military force. One interesting feature is China’s increasing participation in peacekeeping operations, a very important element in the United Nations’ toolbox, and one for which resources have otherwise become more and more difficult to find. China has also shown interest in boosting other countries’ military capacity by providing training and equipment, not unlike the role Western countries have played in Afghanistan, Iraq and other places. In addition, we see the emergence of private-sector security actors that are being contracted by Chinese companies operating overseas. With this expanded palette, China has a greater range of options.

In Beijing, many people are worried both about the great expectations of what China can achieve, as well as about the risks of increasing China’s presence in the Middle East. There is a debate, but it is by no means clear what direction China will take. The history of US involvement in the region is not encouraging. Perhaps China has greater patience. Perhaps China will have a greater tolerance for uncertainty. But the Chinese do not entertain any illusions that they possess a bundle of instruments that will allow them to perform miracles in a region where many others have tried and failed.

Regardless, the position that China will gradually take up in the Middle East will be very important for development in the region. It will also have significance far beyond the region. The future relationship between the world’s great powers is, in large part, shaped by their actions in the world’s most conflict-ridden region.

Perhaps we will be able to draw further conclusions by keeping track of the situation in Syria in the months to come. In reality, Assad is the military victor, and it is very unlikely that any kind of inclusive peace agreement will be reached in Syria. As a result, Western countries will be very reluctant to get involved, and this will create room for other actors. Syria is strategically important geographically, and the country has significant reserves of oil and gas. At the same time, it is a challenging situation, with many parties and poor prospects for stability in the short term. How will China position itself here?

This text was first published in Norwegian in Bistandsaktuelt 30 October 2018: “Hva vil Kina gjøre med Midtøsten?”

Translation from English: Fidotext

Source: https://blogs.prio.org/2018/11/what-will-china-do-about-the-middle-east/

The post What Will China Do About the Middle East? first appeared on Garner Ted Armstrong Evangelistic Association.

More than a dozen Pacific nations will convene in the capital of Papua New Guinea next week, where Vice President Pence will lay out the next phase of the Trump administration’s ever evolving Asia strategy. His task is to convince the countries of Southeast Asia that the United States and its allies can offer them better options than capitulation to Chinese economic regional dominance.

With the midterm elections behind it, the Trump administration is turning to foreign policy in a major way. President Trump will visit Paris later this week and Argentina for the Group of 20 summit at the end of the month. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo is trying to arrange a second summit between Trump and North Korean leader Kim Jong Un, while Pence, who rolled out the new U.S. approach to China last month, is headed to Asia for a week-long tour that will culminate in a major speech on the administration’s Indo-Pacific strategy at a meeting of Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) leaders on a ship off the coast of Port Moresby.

Pence’s whirlwind Asia tour — his third since taking office — will also take him to Japan, Singapore and Australia, representing the United States at the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) summit and the East Asia Summit. These three conferences comprise the most important diplomatic gatherings of Asian leaders each year. Pence will also meet with the leaders of Japan, South Korea, Vietnam, Australia, Malaysia and New Zealand along the way.

His trip comes at a crucial juncture in the U.S. relationship with countries in Southeast Asia and the Trump administration’s strategy on China.

“He’s going to the region with an affirmative message to talk about what we and our partners are doing across the region to reinforce the idea of a free and open Indo-Pacific,” a senior administration official told me.

The idea is to put meat on the bone of the Asia strategy Trump unveiled at last year’s APEC meeting in Vietnam. Pence is not going to the region to criticize the Chinese government directly, as he did in his recent speech. The plan is to argue that the U.S. vision for the region is better for those countries economically and politically — and that the U.S. commitment there is real.

Whether the countries of Southeast Asia believe the Trump administration has the capability or focus to put forth a real alternative to China’s comprehensive regional expansion is another question. Beijing has been flooding Southeast Asia with billions of dollars in infrastructure projects and other investments as part of its Belt and Road Initiative. So far, the United States’ counterproposals have been light on actual resources.

Officials said the vice president is preparing announcements that will add more substance to the U.S. argument that private investment by American companies — along with U.S. government support for governance and technological infrastructure development — is healthier than China’s often predatory lending schemes.

“One Belt, One Road is a one-way street,” the senior administration official said. “It is a political and geostrategic ploy by the Chinese government to insinuate themselves into the politics of countries and advance military basing options under the guise and rubric of development assistance.”

There’s good reason to think Southeast Asian nations are open to the U.S. pitch. The new governments in Malaysia and the Maldives are struggling to undo the huge and hugely corrupt infrastructure deals their predecessors struck with Beijing. Chinese projects in Pakistan and Sri Lanka have shown that taking massive loans on unfair terms can have grim consequences for a country’s financial and territorial sovereignty.

Southeast Asian nations don’t want to be forced to choose between China and the United States, and many are still sore about Trump exiting the Trans-Pacific Partnership. When it comes to Asia, Trump has been more focused on tariffs than making deals. But on infrastructure and investment, the United States has more to offer since Congress passed the Build Act, which could provide up to $60 billion for private development financing.

Offering real competition to Beijing’s massive investment scheme is not just about economics, especially not for the Chinese government. The Chinese Communist Party uses these programs to cultivate and corrupt regional elites, which then enables them to neuter democratic institutions and roll back liberal norms.

“China’s willingness to invest heavily in developing countries irrespective of good governance bolsters the fortunes of illiberal leaders who take credit for Chinese investment and dilutes Western leverage to press for human rights and rule of law reforms,” said David Shullman, senior adviser at the International Republican Institute.

In other words, economics is emerging as the key battleground in the greater competition between China and the world’s democracies over who will decide the regional and world order for the next decades. The Trump administration has correctly articulated the strategic challenge, but now the United States must put its money where its mouth is.

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