{"id":73307,"date":"2022-06-20T15:15:04","date_gmt":"2022-06-20T05:15:04","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.aspistrategist.ru\/?p=73307"},"modified":"2022-06-20T15:18:41","modified_gmt":"2022-06-20T05:18:41","slug":"how-the-us-can-counter-chinas-middle-east-influence","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.aspistrategist.ru\/how-the-us-can-counter-chinas-middle-east-influence\/","title":{"rendered":"How the US can counter China\u2019s Middle East influence"},"content":{"rendered":"
<\/figure>\n

When US President Joe Biden visits the Middle East next month, his hosts\u2014in particular, Saudi Arabia\u2014will probably try to persuade him to re-engage with the region. Far from enabling the United States to focus on strengthening its position in the great-power competition with China and Russia, they might argue, strategic disengagement from the Middle East gives China an opening to bolster its own regional influence. But the reality isn\u2019t that simple.<\/p>\n

As a major fossil-fuel producer, the Middle East is clearly important to the US. In fact, it is sky-high energy prices that have forced Biden to try to patch up his relationship with Saudi Arabia. Until recently, Biden was shunning Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, the country\u2019s de facto ruler, over his alleged role in the murder of Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi in Turkey in 2018.<\/p>\n

Biden\u2019s about-face highlights the extent of Saudi Arabia\u2019s leverage. And the Saudis are likely to use that leverage to urge the US to sustain its military engagement in the Middle East. Warnings (which Israel is likely to echo) that China will quickly move to fill any security vacuum left by the US will seem to bolster their case further.<\/p>\n

But China is unlikely to establish a military footprint in the Middle East, not least because its key partners in the region\u2014Egypt, Iran, Iraq, Israel, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates\u2014are adversaries of one another. While Iran and Saudi Arabia, for example, are willing to do business with the same actors, neither would maintain good relations with a country that was cultivating a substantial security relationship with its main rival.<\/p>\n

China\u2019s hesitation to advance its security interests in the Middle East suggests that it is well aware of this. Even in the case of Iran, which could serve as a proxy in China\u2019s strategic rivalry with the US, China has avoided steps that could jeopardise its relations with Saudi Arabia and the other Gulf states. For example, unlike Russia, it has refrained from providing<\/a> advanced weapons to Iran.<\/p>\n

Even if China had more room to manoeuvre strategically in the Middle East, it might not significantly expand its strategic footprint there, because it doesn\u2019t view the region as critical to its security. While the Middle East accounts for nearly half of China\u2019s oil imports, the most important theatre in the unfolding US\u2013China cold war is East and Southeast Asia. China doesn\u2019t want to expend limited resources in the Middle East any more than the US does.<\/p>\n

Against this background, China is likely to continue relying on diplomatic and economic tools to expand its influence in the Middle East. The only way to counter these efforts, it seems clear, is for the US to raise its diplomatic and economic game.<\/p>\n

That means, first and foremost, abandoning the effort to frame America\u2019s strategic competition with China and Russia as an ideological contest between democracy and autocracy. After all, the vast majority of Middle Eastern countries are autocracies. The last thing the US needs is to alienate them with an overtly ideological foreign policy that enables China to portray itself as a more reliable, supportive and like-minded partner.<\/p>\n

Economic engagement remains China\u2019s most effective tool for expanding its geopolitical influence. In 2020, merchandise trade<\/a> between China and the Middle East totalled US$272 billion. Though comparable figures aren\u2019t available for America\u2019s trade with the Middle East as a whole, the trajectory of the two powers\u2019 trade with Saudi Arabia is revealing. While America\u2019s trade turnover with Saudi Arabia rose only moderately between 2000 and 2021\u2014from US$20.5 billion to US$24.8 billion<\/a>\u2014China\u2019s soared<\/a>, from US$3 billion to US$67 billion<\/a>.<\/p>\n

On technology, the US may be giving China yet another opening. The West has long used sanctions as a tool for punishing \u2018rogue\u2019 countries, with Iran as a case in point. But the comprehensive technological and financial sanctions imposed on Russia over the war in Ukraine have compounded fears in Middle Eastern countries that they, too, might be targeted.<\/p>\n

As China builds up its technological and innovative capacity, it can present itself as a more reliable source of technology and a safer investment destination. It is telling that no Middle Eastern country has banned the Chinese telecom giant Huawei\u2019s 5G networks, despite strong American lobbying.<\/p>\n

While the case for a new Middle East strategy focused on diplomatic and economic engagement is strong, any attempt by Biden to implement one will meet significant resistance. Befriending dictators will lead to charges of hypocrisy\u2014the last thing Biden needs months before midterm elections in which his Democratic Party is unlikely<\/a> to perform well\u2014and protectionist sentiment remains strong in the US. But if Biden frames the shift as part of a larger strategy for winning the new cold war with China, he might have a chance.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

When US President Joe Biden visits the Middle East next month, his hosts\u2014in particular, Saudi Arabia\u2014will probably try to persuade him to re-engage with the region. 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