When Beijing played the role of mediator this week in the surprise rapprochement between Saudi Arabia and Iran, it marked a new level of ambition for Xi Jinping, China’s top leader, who has sought to restore his image. as a global statesman in a growing rivalry with the United States.
China’s top diplomat was quick to attribute the success of four days of secret talks aimed at restoring diplomatic ties between the two arch-rivals to the leadership of Mr Xi, who he said demonstrated “the bearing of a great power”.
In taking credit for securing a Middle East peace deal, Xi is leaning on weakening US influence in the region and presenting Chinese leadership as an alternative to order. led by Washington which he describes as leading the world into a new cold war.
Saudi Arabia’s Minister of State and National Security Advisor Musaid bin Mohammed al-Aiban shaking hands with Iran’s Supreme National Security Council Secretary Ali Shamkhani as a senior Chinese diplomat looks on , in Beijing on Friday
“This is a battle of stories for the future of the international order,” said Yun Sun, director of the China program at the Stimson Center, a Washington-based research institute. “China says the world is in chaos because US leadership has failed. »
The vision outlined by Mr. Xi is one of a withdrawal of power from Washington in favor of multilateralism and “non-interference”, a term China uses to assert that nations should not interfere in affairs. others – by criticizing human rights violations, for example.
The agreement between Saudi Arabia and Iran reflects this vision.
For years, China’s engagement in the region has been based on mutual economic benefits and a rejection of Western ideals of liberalism that have complicated Washington’s ability to expand its presence in the Gulf.
Contrasting receptions
In December, Xi reminded the world of China’s growing influence over Saudi Arabia, a longtime US ally. During a visit that month to Riyadh for talks with Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, the kingdom’s de facto ruler, he attended a Royal Saudi Air Force aircraft show. The hero’s welcome stood in stark contrast to an earlier meeting between President Joe Biden and Crown Prince Mohammed, remembered as the US leader’s trickiest foreign visit, when he sought to avoid a handful hand with a fist-to-fist that was no less clumsy.
Two months later, Xi rolled out the red carpet for Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi in Beijing, welcoming him with a 21-gun salute in Tiananmen Square in a show of respect that Raisi – the authoritarian leader of a nation accused of secretly manufacturing nuclear weapons – would never have received in North American or European capitals.
“The United States supports one side and suppresses the other, while China tries to bring the two sides together. It’s a different diplomatic paradigm,” says Wu Xinbo, dean of international studies at Fudan University in Shanghai.
If China becomes a more forceful power broker in the Middle East, it will be a significant departure from an approach that has largely focused on valuing trade and investment in this resource-rich region rather than to interfere in seemingly insoluble conflicts. China embarked on Middle East diplomacy in 2013, proposing a four-point plan that picked up old ideas to resolve the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. This plan failed to achieve a breakthrough.
On the other hand, the appeasement of the conflict between Iran and Saudi Arabia posed less of a problem. China was well placed to use its influence to bring them to the negotiating table, given its close economic and trade ties with each of them.
Business without conditions
China is Saudi Arabia’s largest trading partner; Saudi Arabia is one of China’s main oil suppliers. Unlike Washington, China says it is ready to do business unconditionally. Beijing accepted Saudi Arabia’s explanation for the murder of Washington Post columnist Jamal Khashoggi in 2018, and in return the Saudis pushed back on efforts to condemn China’s mass detention of Uyghur Muslims.
China has had diplomatic ties with Iran since 1971, about two decades longer than with Saudi Arabia. In 2021, China promised Iran to invest $400 billion in the country in return for oil and fuel shipments, but Western sanctions against Iran have prevented Beijing from delivering on the deal.
In the headline of this newspaper in Tehran, capital of Iran, the agreement that the country has just signed with Saudi Arabia, in Beijing on Friday
Analysts say Xi sees Iran as a strategically important country, mainly as a critic of the West, rich in natural resources, with strategic borders, a seasoned military and the stature of a civilization as old as that of China.
China also has a stake in the stability of the region. Beijing receives more than 40% of its crude oil imports from the region. In addition, the Gulf has become a key node along the trade routes of its New Silk Road initiative, as well as an important market for Chinese consumer goods and technologies. Chinese telecommunications giant Huawei provides 5G networks in Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Kuwait and the United Arab Emirates.
However, Ms. Sun, the analyst, believes it is important not to overstate the significance of Friday’s deal.
Convergence of interests
The differences between Saudi Arabia and Iran are deep and sectarian, and it will take more than a resumption of diplomatic relations to restore ties. China’s role in getting the deal done may not be as critical as it seems, given that Iran and Saudi Arabia were already motivated to get a deal done.
Saudi Arabia and Iran have been talking about restoring relations for some time. So it’s not something that Beijing facilitated overnight.
What probably happened, she said, was a convergence of interests that allowed a mired and isolated Iran to find relief, Saudi Arabia to send a message to Washington on the cost of reducing his engagement in the region and for Xi to enhance his prestige as a world leader in the face of growing pressure from the United States.
“It’s not about China bringing two countries together and resolving their differences,” Sun said. Rather, it is about China exploiting the opportunity of two countries that want to improve their relationship from the start. »
Beijing has also sought to push forward a plan called the “Comprehensive Security Initiative,” first outlined by Xi a year ago, which he describes as an effort to apply “Chinese solutions and wisdom” to the most vulnerable. major global security challenges.
The initiative, which uses Mao-era language on promoting “peaceful coexistence”, calls for a new paradigm in which global power is distributed more equitably and the world rejects “unilateralism, confrontation of blocs and hegemonism” – a reference to the United States and military alliances such as the North Atlantic Treaty Organization.
Some analysts believe that the initiative is essentially aimed at furthering Chinese interests by supplanting Washington as the world’s policeman. The plan calls for respect for countries’ “indivisible security”, a Soviet term used to oppose US-led alliances on China’s periphery.
