[Part I]
QAMISHLI, Syria (North Press) – It was a classic T-bone collision. Northeast Syria, where speed limits and lane direction are open to interpretation, sees dozens of traffic accidents a day. But the one on August 26, 2020, near the city of Derik (al-Malikiya) in the far northeast Syria, was different. A Russian military patrol purposely rammed a US army convoy, leaving four American servicemen with concussions. It was, in fact, the first physical altercation between the armed forces of both countries since the beginning of the Cold War. The attack did not escalate beyond road rage, but it highlights the claustrophobic and volatile space which regional and global superpowers share in the Middle East, and especially in Syria.
On March 10, a new global player seemed eager to establish itself in this crowded space. Chinese media reported that the country’s top diplomat, Wang Yi, had brokered a rapprochement between the Middle East’s two main heavyweights – Saudi Arabia and Iran. It was an unprecedented foray into the world of Middle East politics for Beijing, which had never so openly intervened in the region. What does this development herald for the people of the Middle East?
Foes with benefits
The March deal first and foremost re-established contact between the governments of Iran and Saudi Arabia, which have had no diplomatic relations since 2016. This week, during a call, the two countries’ foreign ministers promised to meet face-to-face. Observers say Iran and Saudi Arabia are also posed to restore a 2001 security agreement to combat drug trafficking, money laundering, and terrorism.
More importantly, the two countries will likely settle on a new course in the Yemen war, where they have been supporting opposing proxy forces. Saudi Arabia is thought to want to exit the war soon in return for Iranian security assurances. This will reduce, though not halt, the bloodshed in Yemen. The deal will also ease tensions in the region at large. Tehran and Riyadh have backed opposite sides in other countries, such as Lebanon, Syria, and Iraq.
Both Saudi Arabia and Iran have their reasons for making peace now. The Saudi ruling family has attempted to soothe relationships with its neighbors after a decade of aggression. Riyadh lifted its blockade of Qatar in 2021 and is in the process of normalizing ties with the governments in Turkey, Syria and Israel. Its exit from Yemen and peace with Iran fits into this pattern. Saudi Arabia’s future, as espoused by its crown prince, Muhammad bin Salman, lies in economic diversification and attracting investment through stability.
Iran’s leaders find themselves embattled at home and abroad. Popular protests have rocked the country since late last year; the country’s economy is in tatters. Its regional influence, too, is waning. After years of US-imposed sanctions, it is essentially a pariah state. The deal may also bring some international goodwill for the Islamic Republic.
China was not crucial to the deal – diplomats say both countries were well on the course of reconciliation before Beijing stepped in. Yet the fact that both powers welcomed Chinese involvement is also telling. For both, closer integration with China is a crucial part of their future.
China is Saudi Arabia’s biggest export market. In 2020, Saudi Arabia sent four times as much oil to China than it did the US. Saudi Aramco, the state oil company, finalized a deal in March last year to build a refinery in northeast China. In December 2022, the two countries had 40 trade deals between them.
While Riyadh has been tied politically to Washington for close to a lifetime, the Saudi monarchy has been let down by recent US policy towards the Gulf country. The Obama administration sought to make peace with Tehran through a nuclear deal at a time when Iranian-Saudi tensions were at an all-time high; Donald Trump was bullish on Iran on the campaign trail, but when an Iranian drone attacked Saudi oil installations, America was nowhere to be seen. Recently, President Joe Biden has made no secret of his distaste for Saudi rule. Saudi Arabia will remain firmly within the US sphere of influence. However, economically, China is an attractive target for Saudi investment – if only to show Washington what they are missing.
China is also Iran’s main export market. Chinese markets promise a way for the Islamic Republic – cut off financially from Western economies by sanctions – to keep afloat. But Iran’s hopes go beyond that. China and Iran, together with Russia, are able to present a counter-pole to the West. In 2021, Iran signed a 25-year ‘strategic partnership’ with China. Just last week, Iran, China and Russia conducted a joint naval exercise.
Middle Kingdom to Middle East
And what of China? Despite the March deal being China’s first very public appearance in the Mid-East arena, Beijing has been a behind-the-curtains influence in the region for some years. Central to these effort is Wang Yi, the architect to the Saudi-Iran deal. Wang has directed Beijing’s foreign affairs since 2013.
During his tenure, he attempted to tie the Middle East to China’s now near-defunct ‘Belt and Road’ project, a global trade and investment initiative, an Al-Monitor profile on Wang explains. Western allies such as Turkey and Saudi Arabia were part of it. Trade with other friends of Washington increased, such as Egypt and the Gulf countries. In 2021, a Chinese firm even opened a port in Haifa, Israel, ignoring protests from Washington.
Wang’s invisible hand became noticeable when China’s ill treatment of its Muslim Uyghur minority came to light. While Western governments condemned it, most Muslim nations said very little.
In 2021, Wang unveiled a ‘Five-Point Initiative’ for the Middle East, which The Economist described as “full of banal slogans.” It even offered to host Israel and Palestinian officials for peace talks in 2021, though that has gone nowhere. China also improved its relations with Qatar over joint diplomacy on Afghanistan.
Wang has made it clear to the US – which has military bases or mutual defense treaties with all Middle Eastern countries save Yemen, Lebanon and Iran – that it needs to get used to a growing Chinese presence in the region. “We hope that the United States will work with China to explore a new path of peaceful coexistence and mutually beneficial cooperation,” Wang said in a 2021 speech. “The key is whether the United States can accept the peaceful rise of a major country with a different social system, history, and culture and in a different development stage.”
Observers tend to explain China’s growing power in economic terms. This is not wrong. Much of the Middle East’s oil is not going to the West, but to China. Iraq exported eight times as much oil to Middle Kingdom as it did the US in 2020. Kuwait’s largest oil market is China, too. In fact, the only member state of OPEC, a cartel of oil-producing nations, whose main oil export destination is not China, is the UAE, where it is in second place. Earlier this year, China and Qatar finalized a 27-year-long gas deal – the longest-running liquefied gas agreement by some accounts.
China’s military footprint on the Middle East, on the other hand, is all but non-existent. The closest Chinese military base – in fact, Beijing’s only open overseas base – is in Djibouti, on the Red Sea. Observers say China may be building military facilities inside Chinese-owned ports, including in a port in the UAE. Construction on the latter, however, was halted. The reason for this not for a lack of imperialist ambitions – as over half a dozen of China’s neighbours can attest to – but rather the calculation that it can get what it wants out of the region without exerting force.
The lack of military might should also not be confused with political aloofness. China has been deeply involved in shaping the Middle East through its role in the UN Security Council. Together with Russia, China has used its veto powers to stop Western intervention in the region. It has repeatedly vetoed opening new border crossings into opposition-held Syria, most recently on July 10, 2022.
China is also exporting a political vision to compete with the Western values-based global system. It sells the idea of ‘growth without values’, that is, that countries can enrich themselves without the need of democratizing or building a robust civil society. In a region plagued by autocrats and tired of two decades of US ‘nation-building’, it has caught on – at least with its ruling classes. Beijing has an interest in peace in the Middle East because it allows all actors to concentrate on trade, and China excels in that department.