Tag: China Brokers Peace in West Asia

China Plays Peace Dragon In West Asia, What Next?

By Mahendra Ved

With the double whammy scored in a matter of a month by brokering a rapprochement between Iran and Saudi Arabia and by boosting an isolated Vladimir Putin by meeting in Moscow, China has attained the global centre stage. The twin diplomatic feats pose a direct challenge to the United States-led West that has long determined war and peace in West Asia and is out to defeat Vladimir Putin’s Russia in Ukraine.

There is a message for India. It has, for now at least, missed the bus in both regions. It has centuries-long cultural and commercial ties with the West Asian region. Millions of Indians work there. But relations with individual nations in the region have not added up to an image and presence in West Asia. The newbie China has done it.

Walking the diplomatic tightrope of the Ukraine conflict and refusing to condemn Putin’s actions, India has hoped to play the mediator at some stage. Prime Minister Modi’s acolytes would have you believe this. President Xi Jinping’s set of peace proposals to end the conflict in Ukraine, coming from a partisan, are unlikely to be accepted by the West. But they pre-empt any Indian initiative for now.

Indeed, for the Western nations boosting Ukraine’s resistance, such a Chinese move would amount to a strategic sacrilege. China is the reason why Russia, besides its own enormous strength, is able to rough it out in Ukraine where it did not anticipate being bogged down. But it shows no sign of suing for peace either.

Xi’s Moscow visit signals that Beijing is firmly behind Moscow, and that, having invested heavily in diplomatic and economic terms, with likely future gains for itself, it will not allow Russia to lose. If that prolongs the conflict, and destruction of Ukraine, so be it. It’s all taking place as US ties with China, which began to fray with former President Donald Trump’s trade war, keep worsening under Joe Biden. As Bloomberg reported, after talking to many Biden administration officials, the US ‘fears’ that a war-weary world may embrace China’s Ukraine peace bid.

Saying all this, however, is different from an overwhelming number of Western analysts, and most Indian analysts who take their cue from them. They all warned Modi against the ‘folly’ of tacitly supporting Russia. Concessional Russian oil has helped ‘grease’ the Indian line of reasoning, though. Russia is now India’s largest oil supplier and in 2022, the bilateral trade between the two countries touched a record high of $31 billion.

Western interests are unwavering against China, and Russia — Ukraine or no Ukraine — is secondary. For India, too, closer to the Western camp than ever before, while China is the principal threat, Russia, a traditional friend, can be chided and warned from time to time since India must remain and appear ‘balanced’ in the eyes of the Western allies.

Xi’s Moscow sojourn confirms China as Russia’s major partner. To that extent, this reduces India’s diplomatic space in Moscow, and that could push India further into the US-led camp. Already, India and China’s relations are strained over the military deployments at the Line of Actual Control (LAC), which has also turned violent at times. China has openly expressed displeasure about India’s proximity to the United States and also criticizes any developments related to the Indo-Pacific.

ALSO READ: Saudi-Iran Agreement – A Victory For China

Watch the power play in the Indo-Pacific. Xi’s trip to Russia was preceded by Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida’s to Ukraine. And Kishida, before going there, conferred with Modi. And Modi had by then met Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese.

But while Ukraine, the current distraction shows all signs of lengthening, the real tussle is in the Indo-Pacific. The US and Europe would like to have their domination, while China is striving for a favourable balance. Thus, major power polarization has become the order of the day. This is a warning sign for all nations, including India, of the shape of things to come.

Taking together Xi’s visit to Moscow and his new foreign minister Qin Gang’s hosting of Saudi Arabia and Iran, the message is more for the US and Europe than anyone else. It signals the loss of credibility if not of strength.

Europe’s economies, already slowing, have been hurt by the Ukraine conflict. They were not ready for the Russian energy embargo in retaliation to their economic sanctions. Following President Joe Biden’s entry into Ukraine, they want to ‘defeat’ Putin, but cannot spell how. They are unlikely to roll back the NATO expansion, the reason why Putin invaded Ukraine. And now the latter has become the sacrificial goat in this proxy war.

The US and Europe have shown consistency in pushing NATO’s frontiers that Russia finds too close to comfort. By contrast, right under their nose, China has shown quiet consistency in forging ties with West Asia, at least over the last ten years. Xi visited Saudi Arabia and had meetings with the Iranian leadership – enough to hold their hands and end their mutual distrust.

China has been a major presence in the West Asian region for several years. It is a major buyer of their energy, a major trade partner, an investment partner and a logistical partner. The new thing is that it has extended its role with regard to political issues.

As retired Indian diplomat and a veteran West Asia scholar Talmiz Ahmad points out: “Every major university in the world has Chinese scholars. Every major Chinese university has a centre for West Asian studies. They have more than 1,000 West Asian scholars in China. China now has very high stakes in the region’s stability.”

China has stepped into space vacated by the West. Iran and the US have been cross with each other for over four decades now. And the Saudi Crown Prince has for a year now been trying to reduce his dependence on the Americans. As The Financial Times says, “This is a challenge to the United States, whose traditionally strong relations with Riyadh have cooled.” In a sense, West Asia has come of age.

To put the two complex developments in simple terms, it is China’s ‘soft’ power at work – achieving success without the use of force – against the use of force by the US-led alliance.

The writer can be contacted at mahendraved07@gmail.com

Saudi Arabia Iran Agreement

Saudi-Iran Agreement: A Victory for China

By Asad Mirza

A major diplomatic coup was staged by China earlier this month, when Beijing announced the results of its successfully mediated efforts, of bringing two arch foes on the negotiating table and signing a friendship deal. The Chinese-brokered Saudi-Iran rapprochement comes as a major diplomatic breakthrough between two regional neighbours after years of mutual animosity, suspected attacks and tales of rivalry between the two countries.

The move also represents Beijing’s first foray into Middle Eastern politics, an area that has always been regarded as a prerogative of the US, since when most of these nations become a free and independent entity, after the end of the colonial era.

On 10 March, both Riyadh and Tehran announced that after seven years of severed ties they would reopen embassies and missions within two months and implement security and economic cooperation agreements signed more than 20 years ago.

Much of the world was stunned when the two arch-rivals announced they were restoring diplomatic relations, this was not only because of the breakthrough after years of mutual animosity, but because of the mediator, who played a key role in bringing the foes to the negotiating table, i.e. the Chinese government.

By this move China has ostensibly taken up a role that the U.S. could not have fulfilled, or it never tried to perform that role. In addition this also comes as  Beijing’s first major diplomatic foray into the Middle East mediation, an area where often rivalries are built around nuances and subtleties, which are hard to fathom for an outsider, though in the recent times they have up the shape of hardnosed economic and strategic interests.

Apparently, the Saudis had been engaged in talks with Iran from around the same time as Al Ula Summit held in Saudi in 2021, which ended the blockade of Qatar and mended the internal rifts of the Gulf Cooperation Council. In the two years since, the United Arab Emirates has restored its diplomatic relations with Iran and even replaced China as Iran’s top import partner; Kuwait, too, has returned its ambassador to Tehran.

The negotiations between Iran and Saudi Arabia since 2021 largely took place in Iraq and Oman. Other regional countries, including Kuwait and Pakistan, had attempted to arrange for talks between Tehran and Riyadh on numerous occasions in the past seven years, which were largely unsuccessful.

As tensions simmer between the world’s two largest economies: the U.S. and China, the U.S. policymakers had sounded an the alarm over competition and security concerns with China, but what does Beijing’s ascendance in the region mean for the Middle East – and for the larger U.S. interests?

In recent times, China has been pushing for reconfiguring the regional security architecture in the Persian Gulf since 2020. In a U.N. Security Council meeting arranged by Russia in October of that year, China presented its proposal for security and stability in the Gulf region, arguing that with a multilateral effort, the region can become “an Oasis of Security.”

Apparently the edifice of this Chinese plan to transform into a global peacemaker seems to be the Global Security Initiative – GSI, which was unveiled by Chinese President Xi Jinping in February 2023.  It is portrayed as a banner for China to reform the current international security order, especially at a time when the U.S. is prioritising alignment with countries that share the same political system and ideology, through its Democracy Summit.

Mainly, with growing power and influence China’s to have a fair say in international peace and security architecture building. The GSI Concept Paper released by China’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs in February 2023 identified “bringing about security changes through political dialogue and peaceful negotiation” as core concepts and principles.

China’s successful brokering of the peace deal between Saudi Arabia and Iran has given it the confidence that this track could work. The aspiration is that China can fill the gap in regions the U.S. has failed to lead or ignore.

According to the Chinese understanding of the region, Iran and Saudi Arabia are “pivot countries” whose political, economic, and military power make them indispensable partners for Beijing, making balance between the two the most consequential strategy.

For both countries, China is the largest trading partner. Beijing has granted Tehran and Riyadh the status of comprehensive strategic partners – the highest in China’s partnership diplomacy in the Middle East.

But China’s balancing act is more articulated than just signing similar partnership agreements with both partners. While economic relations are unequivocally unbalanced in Saudi Arabia’s favour, China guarantees Iran political support and a financial lifeline in the face of U.S. pressure. Yet, offering different goods to equal partners often shakes the balancing act. In December, the joint China-GCC communiqué that followed Chinese President Xi Jingpin’s trip to Saudi Arabia generated anger in Iran, exposing the limits of China’s diplomacy from the sidelines.

The GSI Concept Paper also emphasises the need to support political settlements of hotspot issues such as the war in Ukraine. Therefore, President Xi’s efforts to promote a political settlement to the Russia-Ukraine conflict would be essential to watch. If another success is achieved after his Russia visit, it may lend more credence to the GSI.

(Asad Mirza is a political commentator based in New Delhi. He can be contacted at www.asadmirza.in)

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