China Brokers a Peace Deal in the Middle East
America should welcome it
Overview: What’s in the Deal
On March 10th, China announced a deal to restore diplomatic ties between Saudi Arabia and Iran for the first time in seven years. It also announced a summit between Iran and the Gulf Cooperation Council (consisting of Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, and the United Arab Emirates) to occur later this year. At this time, it’s an informal agreement, with details to be hammered out later. But the fact that this is being considered at all is huge.
The two countries have many disagreements, but they have an interest in stabilizing the Middle East. Iran wants relief from its crippling economic isolation and potential Saudi investment. Meanwhile, the Saudis hope for concessions in regional conflicts and signal to the Washington that they will consider stronger Chinese ties. China, for its part, has emerged as the big winner by finally complementing its growing economic and military weight by flexing its diplomatic muscles.
Impact on Middle East Peace
A deal to improve relations between Iran and Saudi Arabia is significant for regional stability. They are both major oil suppliers and the geopolitical heavy weights in their region. They are also on opposite sides of the world’s greatest humanitarian disaster: the Yemini civil war. Currently, the Iranians back the Houthi rebels, and the Saudis, with American support, back the government.
The Yemini proxy war is yet another theater of the ongoing Shia-Sunni religious war that has ravaged the Middle East since the 1979 Iranian Revolution. This includes the Iran-Iraq war of the 1980s, the Syrian Civil War, and sectarian violence in Lebanon. Ending this conflict is key to creating a diplomatic environment where other, more intractable issues, such as the Israel-Palestine conflict, can be resolved.
An Iran-Saudi deal can be a sort of bridge between Israel and Iran as they deal with long-running tension over Iran’s nuclear program and Iran’s support for Hamas in Gaza and Hezbollah in Lebanon. Given that America largely threw away its leverage, and credibility, on the Iran nuclear issue by unilaterally withdrawing from the Iran deal and reimposing sanctions, the intervention of another great power should be welcomed. The Chinese have a credible chance to resolve the Iranian nuclear issue peacefully.
That would be good for the region, for the world, and for US and Israeli national security.
Impact on Regional Geopolitics
In the Middle East, Washington has a major presence with no clear purpose. The Biden administration wants to move away from fossil fuels, which would remove the core interest America has in the region. China, however, needs cheap oil to fuel its economic development. The Saudis and Iranians need to compete with Russia for the Chinese market, and regional stability will be important to do this effectively. Currently, the core interests of the Middle East and China are aligned. Those of the Middle East and America are not.
One outcome would be China acting as a deal-broker in problem areas of this region where economic interests and historical tensions make it difficult for the United States to do so. China acting as a responsible, stabilizing member of the community of nations is the outcome we should want. In the past, Beijing confined its leadership in diplomatic interventions to Asia, avoiding direct involvement in anything not directly relevant to China’s national security. And now we see China brokering a Middle East deal that Americans and Europeans could not have made.
China’s more ambitious diplomatic role in the region holds both risks and opportunities for Washington. China is not about to replace the United States in the Middle East. Given the hardware the US already has patrolling the sea lanes in the region and continued work creating peace between the Sunni kingdoms and Israel, heavy American involvement in the Middle East is here to stay for the next few decades. China may be able to deal with problem spots America can’t, but it by no means supplants America’s role in the short-term.
China’s Middle East plan shows the limitations of an American foreign policy built on support for democracies against autocracies. In many instances, this framing needs more flexibility, particularly in regions like the Middle East where, outside of Israel, there are very few democracies to defend. Ultimately, it’s in the interest of democracies to build a cooperative environment of independent nation-states, and we should show flexibility in achieving this.
You can’t broker a deal unless you’re talking to both sides and unless both sides see you as an honest broker. Our focus on the democracy vs. autocracy framing, while helpful for rallying other nations to contain Russian and Chinese military aggression, will make negotiation in other parts of the world more difficult. Middle East autocracies will feel marginalized.
It’s been a while since the US and Saudi governments have seen eye-to-eye on the issues of the day, while the US and Iran have an openly hostile relationship going back decades. If China can bring leaders form these countries together to pursue common interests, why should they say no? This does not mean we should give the Chinese a blank check; a dose of suspicion and healthy skepticism are needed. But we should welcome this contribution from Beijing for what it is and not summarily dismiss it.
Impact on Global Geopolitics
However, China’s new diplomatic ambitions aren’t limited to the Middle East. China’s recent unveiling of a widely-panned Ukrainian peace plan and a trip to Moscow, where Putin acquiesced to being a wholly-owned subsidiary of the Chinese economy, shows a desire to be involved in European politics.
In this case, the honest broker principle works against Beijing. China’s Ukraine plan is unacceptable for Kyiv, which wants the complete withdrawal of Russian soldiers from Ukrainian territory and security guarantees. China’s open strategic alignment with Russia makes the motives behind this potential agreement and any resulting security guarantees very suspect. The Chinese won’t even condemn Russia’s illegal invasion, illegal annexations, or war crimes.
But even here, China may eventually offer something the US can’t. Even in complete victory, the war in Ukraine must eventually end with negotiated settlement between Moscow and Kyiv, as all wars do. China is potentially in a better position to broker that final agreement than the Americans and Europeans, who have made themselves party to the conflict by providing military support for Ukraine and imposing crippling sanctions on Russia.
This is not at all to say that support for Ukraine is not a noble cause. In fact, it is essential to preserve and extend the rules-based international order. But the diplomatic reality in this instance is that another power more in touch with the developing world will be the appropriate broker for a peace deal. Much of the world is focused on their immediate interests and want a resolution to a destructive war that is causing major disruptions to global food supplies and other commodities.
Though the Biden administration has maintained much of the substance of the Trump administration’s hostile policy towards China, it has somewhat lowered the temperature on America’s rhetoric. This is perhaps partly a way to signal to China it can have an expanded diplomatic role if it seeks to moderate in other areas. There is no direct evidence to this point that China is interested in this trade-off, but only indirect evidence of its diplomatic engagement.
Nor is the US retreating from China’s backyard. The American withdrawal from the Trans-Pacific Partnership limited Washington’s economic influence in Asia, but America remains critical for the security of its many Asia-Pacific allies. Washington is now extending that commitment with its Quadrilateral Security Dialogue with Japan, India, and Australia. and the AUKUS trilateral security pact with Australia and Great Britain.
China and America are caught in a potential escalatory spiral in multiple regions. A good path to put relations on a less hostile footing would be to work as diplomatic partners in different areas of the world where it might be more difficult for America to be perceived as an honest broker, and vice versa. This subtle diplomatic tag-team would allow for a more cooperative relationship while allowing the leadership in the two countries to fend off domestic audiences that may not tolerate explicit detente right now.
It’s in the US national interest to welcome others to broker peace where Americans can’t, even if it might not produce the exact deal that Washington wants. America’s diplomatic end-goal with respect to China should be facilitating its peaceful rise with a commensurate level of power within the global system, while restraining its expansionist impulses, without triggering a global conflict.
Easy, right?