by Alessandro Pompei –
China played a key role in brokering the recent diplomatic deal between Saudi Arabia and Iran on March 10, which places special emphasis on trade and technology infrastructure. Western commentators were surprised by the announcement of the deal, as China’s presence in the Middle East has traditionally been minimal. However, China’s growing soft power in the region, particularly in trade and technology, has enabled it to score an unprecedented diplomatic victory.
The deal is a significant success for Saudi Arabia, which has long been engaged in a proxy war with Iran. The cessation of hostilities will likely result in the withdrawal of Iran and its allies, reducing tensions in the region.
The United States has welcomed the deal, with the National Security Council spokesman noting that any effort to reduce tensions is in its best interests.
China’s success in the Persian Gulf also suggests that American attempts to contain Chinese leadership in telecommunications and artificial intelligence (AI) technology are failing. China’s ability to technologically transform regional economies has been a crucial factor in its diplomatic efforts, but China’s interest in regional stability is primarily driven by its dependence on Middle Eastern oil.
Despite the surprise of Western analysts at the announcement, Chinese diplomats had been preparing the joint Saudi-Iranian communiqué for several months, and the statement praised the “noble initiative” of President Xi Jinping, as well as Turkey, which has improved relations with both the Gulf states and Israel, it plays a central role in China’s plan.
The trade data also reveals China’s growing influence in the region, with its exports to key countries doubling in the past three years.
According to Seth Frantzman’s March 11 Jerusalem Post article, some Israeli observers are cautiously optimistic about the Iran-Saudi deal: Frantzman notes that Turkey has reconciled with countries it was previously hostile towards, including Israel and Gulf nations, suggesting that diplomacy, rather than conflict, is becoming the norm in the Middle East. The article cites various agreements, including the Abraham Accords, the Negev Forum and the I2U2 summit, as evidence of this trend.
China issued a joint statement with Saudi Arabia and other Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) members last December that condemned Iran as a backer of regional terrorist organizations; the statement called for action on Iran’s nuclear ambitions and its destabilizing regional activities, and this was the first time China had taken sides in the long-running conflict between Saudi Arabia and Iran, involving Houthi rebels. On September 14, 2019, pro-Iranian Houthi rebels launched a successful kamikaze drone attack on Saudi oil facilities at the second largest Hijra Khurais field, shutting down half of Saudi production for a few weeks; in March 2022 they targeted an Aramco refinery in Riyadh. The joint statement then stressed the need to prevent such attacks, to ensure the security of international shipping and oil installations, and to adhere to United Nations resolutions and international legitimacy.
This statement suggests that a kind of “Pax Sinica” is taking shape in the Middle East.
The details of the incentives offered by China to Iran for signing the agreement with Saudi Arabia remain unclear, but it seems that it was an offer that Tehran could not refuse.
Iran relies heavily on China for manufactured goods, including weapons and missile technology, giving Beijing enormous leverage over Tehran. Despite China’s public opposition to Western sanctions on Iran, the sanctions regime has granted China a near monopoly on Iranian imports.
Turkey’s recent economic turnaround has also played a role in Iran’s decision-making: Chinese exports to Turkey have tripled since 2019, and Chinese trade financing has helped the Turkish government weather a currency crisis that threatened to cause hyperinflation just one year ago. does.
Turkey, with the largest military in the region, represents a counterweight to Iran’s regional aspirations, and its re-established relations with Israel and the Gulf states suggest it could become a stabilizing force.
China currently has only one military base in the area, located in Djibouti, with fewer than 2,000 personnel and only 200 combat troops.
The United States, by contrast, has 7,000 employees at its 5th Fleet Bahrain headquarters, 10,000 at al-Udeid Air Base in Qatar, 3,800 at al-Dhafra Air Base in the United Arab Emirates, 2,500 at the of Incirlik in Turkey, as well as another 4,000 soldiers in Djibouti.
What China has, and the US doesn’t, is a plan to transform the region’s economies with digital infrastructure, ports, railroads, AI-driven solar power, and the means to rescue slumping economies.
In December 2022, when Xi Jinping visited Saudi Arabia, the Reuters it reported that a memorandum of understanding has been signed with China’s Huawei Technologies for cloud computing and the construction of advanced complexes in Saudi cities.
Despite concerns raised by the United States about the security risks associated with using Huawei technology, the deal has been reached and Huawei has already been involved in building 5G networks in most Gulf nations.
In 2022, ahead of the visit to Saudi Arabia, the UAE halted negotiations to purchase the US F-35 stealth fighter jet, as Washington insisted that the UAE shut out 5G mobile broadband systems that the UAE planned to buy from Huawei; the Americans claimed that Huawei’s civilian 5G network could be used to gather information on American aircraft, so the United Arab Emirates had decided to keep the agreement with Huawei by opting to purchase 80 French Rafale multi-role fighters, which did not suffer from such a specious annoyance.
Huawei’s Red Sea Project, signed in 2019, is in the process of building an AI-enabled solar power grid to supply electricity to a city of one million people.
And recently, at the World Mobile Congress in Barcelona, Huawei was the undisputed protagonist, and here too senior American officials warned that Huawei could help Chinese spies gather information through its 5G networks. During a March 1 press conference, State Department cyber chief Robert Strayer urged other governments and the private sector to consider the threat posed by Huawei and other Chinese information technology companies, arguing that the company was “duplicate and deceptive”.
Probably what Strayer asserted will also be a realistic possibility, however it is curious to note how no one ever questions American public officials about the actual nature of international collaborations such as the Five-Eyes or programs such as Prism which, according to certain exiles Americans, born precisely to spy on “everyone”, from ordinary citizens to competing companies of allied and non-allied nations.
Meanwhile at Exhibition Hall One, representatives of Turkcell, Turkey’s largest mobile phone operator, manned a booth inside the Huawei pavilion to publicize their partnership with the Chinese company, which supplies most of the broadband infrastructure of Turkey.
Huawei officials said US restrictions on more advanced computer chips with transistor widths of 7 nanometers or less won’t affect its global infrastructure business, as it relies on mature technologies China can produce domestically.