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Sign of the (coming) Middle East
Signs of the coming new Middle East:
The top story in today's online version of the leading pan-Arab Saudi-owned daily al-Hayat? The visit to Saudi Arabia by China's President Hu Jintao, who promises to improve Saudi-Chinese cooperation, and to look out for regional stability (as any great power with interests there might).
Israel's elections? A victory for the "extremist right" and relegated to the second tier... next to French President Sarkozy's visit to Baghdad, where Iraqi PM Nuri al-Maliki declares the "end of the era of American pressure."
Discuss.
UPDATE: It's telling that very few American media outlets appear to have even noticed the Chinese President's meeting with King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia. I couldn't find even a mention in the New York Times or the Washington Post or CNN.com. It doesn't even make our own Foreign Policy Passport morning roundup. Maybe Ambassador to Iraq-designate Christopher Hill's Asian experience will prove useful and relevant after all...
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Jeez
I would say all of those stories are pretty inauspicious for U.S. interests.
Per the Hu Jintao article and Haass's new Mid East, I wouldn't read too much into the headline. I mean, it would really be a headline if Hu, Wen, or some other Chinese official went somewhere and DIDN'T pledge to "strengthen ties" and "work toward regional stability." I mean if he went to Taipei he would probably issue the same statement.
The elections in Israel are somewhat troubling to me. A "primacy of the right" coalition with Netanyahu at the helm is definitely not going to enforce limits on new settlements, meaning the gale that is already blowing away any minute sliver of hope for progress in the region just got upgraded to a category four. Maybe Mitchell will demand his old job back on the grounds of unfinished business now that A-Rod has been outed.
I still can't believe how blatantly haterish the Iraqi government is toward the U.S. When occupying a country didn't you used to get a nice puppet regime deal out of it? Doh! Democracy.
Oh what a day.
Coalition
By the way, the Haaretz dispatches seem to give a better chance to a Livni Lieberman coalition than I thought. I assumed Likud, Shas, and Yisrael would join - though I know there has been bad blood between Yisrael and Shas in the past. That right wing coalition still only gives them 53 seats though.
Any insight into how the coalition might shape up?
And I believe he's going to
And I believe he's going to Africa next (or was he just there?)... It's a busy week for China's chess game...
Leader's Talk www.leaderstalk.org
whatyoumustread.blogspot.com
Yeah, after this he's going
Yeah, after this he's going to Mali, Senegal, Tanzania and Mauritius. He's been all over Africa for a while. In fact, that has been China's jam lately.
What will really interest me - and Marc if you read this comments, I'd like to get your take on it too - is what China will do when, by pursuing its own economic interests, it runs into acts of terrorism in Africa and the Mid East as the U.S. has. For example, this story in October of last year, when five Chinese oil workers in the Sudan were killed. A similar incident happened in 2007 when a band of Somali rebels linked to Islamic extremists in the region attacked a Chinese oil station, killing nine Chinese workers.
The U.S. has been the front man as a target for Islamic extremists, many of whom cite our meddling in the Mid East because of oil (and Israel of course) as reasons for their hatred of America. What will China do when, as a burgeoning peddler of influence in oil-rich, Muslim are, she becomes the target of the same types of terrorism? And oh by the way, when the terrorists realize that Muslims practice their religion freely in the U.S., but are systematically oppressed in Northwest China, facing imprisonment and punishment that make Guantanamo look like a spa?
It's a good question So far,
It's a good question
So far, China hasn’t responded to threats against its own residents in the Middle East. It was the same in Lebanon during the 2006 war when Chinese construction companies were at risk from Israeli bombing. However, popular opinion is less forgiving and there is a growing Israeli faction in China itself as a result of fears of terrorism.
There was an interesting interview on Al Jazeera’s Bila Hudood a few years back when Ahmed Mansour interviewed an Arabic-speaking official from China’s Foreign Ministry. Mansour challenged the official as to why China didn't use its position on the UN Security Council to intervene more directly in the Middle East.
The official avoided the question, but it underscored the risks to the relationship.
Most likely, China will focus on economics at the expense of politics in the Middle East. (Xinhua’s reporters have certainly been instructed to do so). The importance of oil to China’s economic security far outweighs the risks to the limited number of Chinese citizens living in the region (far less than are living in Africa).
If you’re interested in more details check out www.silkroadeconomy.com. I also have a book on Arab-Chinese relations being published in April by Palgrave Macmillan.
If you’re interested in more
Good website. I've been trying to find good books and information on the Arab-Chinese connections for a long time. Keep us updated when the book comes out- I'll buy it.
This probably sounds bad, but I'm all for letting the Chinese get sucked into the security issues of the Middle East, particularly if we could couple it with decreased oil dependence in the US on that region. Let them deal with it for a while.
Thanks. Will do. At the very
Thanks. Will do.
At the very least there has to be room for more cooperation between China and the US in the region. Beijing's priority is low oil prices, so regional instability isn't helpful.