beijingwalker
ELITE MEMBER
- Nov 4, 2011
- 66,213
- -55
- Country
- Location
48 viewsFeb 14, 2019, 09:05am
Will China Replace The U.S. As The Middle East Hegemon?
Ariel Cohen
The U.S. is assembling its allies in Warsaw this week to coordinate Middle East policy– but with limited success. EU policy chief Federica Mogherini, joined by China, Russia, France, Germany, Turkey, and Qatar are boycotting the gathering, opting to adopt a more diplomatic, business-focused, and ‘less confrontational’ track with the Islamic Republic.
At the same time, Washington is sending mixed signals, announcing its withdrawal from Syria (and Afghanistan), with President Trump callingBashar al-Assad’s country a place of “sand and death”.
The U.S. is awash in oil and gas, projected to become a net energy exporter next year. 2020 should also see domestic production reach a record 13 million barrels of oil per day. This does not increase America’s interest in the Middle East.
China, on the other hand, is only growing thirstier for energy. Most of its oil comes from OPEC members in the Persian Gulf. A whopping 45% of Middle East trade is with Asia, whereas only 14% is with the U.S., and 7% with Europe.
China has replaced the UAE as the main investor in the Middle East, focusing on energy. However, $3.5 trillion dollars of future opportunities in the Middle East are awaiting Asian investors – from infrastructure projects, to tourism, to industry, says Nasser Saidi, the former Chief Economist of the Dubai International Financial Center and the former Lebanese central banker.
Saidi and other top experts spoke at a conference organized by the Middle East Institute of the National University of Singapore (NUS) this week. The event, titled The Middle East Pivot: China’s Belt and Road Initiative – between Geostrategy and Commercial Opportunity, attracted business people and academics from China, the U.S., Singapore, and the Gulf. This author presented a report “Future Calling: Infrastructure Investment in Central Asia”.
Throughout the conference, participants and attendees kept coming back to the same critical question: If the U.S. is slowly disengaging from the Middle East, will China necessarily fill the void?
The answer is a qualified yes. First, because the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) is the most ambitious geopolitical and geo-economic program since the Marshall Plan, and surpasses it in scope and costs. The Marshall Plan dealt with the rebuilding of Europe only, while the U.S. also helped raising Japan from the ashes of World War II. It was limited in time to four years.
Belt and Road, proclaimed by Chairman Xi Jinping in 2013, involves over 80 countries in Eurasia, Europe, South and Southeast Asia, the Middle East and Africa. Middle East energy will be the lifeblood of BRI, with China its engine and brain. Western Europe and the developing world will be its market.
The United States so far failed to offer a comprehensive, strategic response to Belt and Road, which would need to include an economic, cultural and human dimension. Instead, under both the Obama and the Trump Administration, Washington is sticking to mostly military answers, while ipso facto creating an anti-American block that includes Russia and China – something Henry Kissinger warned against over 40 years ago.
Second, Beijing is aggressively bolstering its Near East presence. China is already building strategic partnerships with countries from Algeria to Saudi Arabia to Iran, Iraq, and the UAE. It is targeting major OPEC and Gulf Cooperation Council members, while also focusing on U.S. allies, like Israel, Jordan, Qatar, and Egypt.
Following World War II, the British Lion went home to lick his wounds. The British Empire could not sustain its presence in the Middle East after losing its Jewel in the Crown – India – in 1947.
In the aftermath of the protracted and costly wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, the American Eagle wants a respite. Vital national interests of the U.S., chief among them energy, are no longer bound to the Middle East region due to the shale gale.
Attention is now shifting to the Pacific, as China, the peer competitor, is not flinching over its South China Sea expansion. The People’s Liberation Army (PLA) Navy is planning to build four carrier battle groups, and is targeting American aircraft carriers with new ship-busting nuclear-tipped ballistic missiles. China’s high-tech naval railguns and hypersonic cruise missiles are just around the corner.
The security of the Middle East and its energy supplies will be defined in the next two decades by the balance of military and economic power between the U.S., China, and Russia. Within the region, the confrontation between Saudi Arabia and the UAE vs. Iran and Qatar will take center stage.
Some Chinese participants at the Singapore conference, such as Prof. Wang Suolao of Institute of Area Studies in Beijing University, tried to deny that China is playing geopolitics in the Middle East. However, one cannot help but analyze the region through the prisms of political interests, spheres of influence, proxy management, and exclusive economic zones.
China already maintains a sizeable military base in Djibouti, at Bab-el-Mandeb, the entrance to the strategically important Red Sea, which leads to Suez Canal, one of the three principal choke points of global naval routes (the others being the Strait of Malacca, and the Panama Canal). Djibouti is also home to an American Naval Expeditionary Base, Camp Lemonnier, just 11 kilometers away. The two opposing bases present a fitting metaphor of competing national interests on the African continent. Chinese and American forces have even engaged in laser skirmishes there, where China deployed high energy lasers to blind U.S. pilots. This is just a telltale symptom of things to come.
China is deploying its economic and diplomatic power in the Middle East first, while the military involvement may come later: the launch of the petro-yuan, which will exclude the dollar; massive Chinese advantage in mobile payment tech which would allow 85 million “unbanked” people in the Middle East to integrate in business and financial activities; the growth of Chinese tourism to the Gulf; the involvement of Chinese Muslim communities with the Middle East – all discussed at the Singapore conference in great detail. These will be the tools used by Beijing to expand its influence from Morocco to Muscat – and beyond.
The forum, led by the NUS Middle East Institute Chairman Bilahari Kausikan, highlighted the tremendous opportunities and risks facing Asian (including Singaporean) investments in the Middle East.
Experts view pragmatic approaches to industrialization and investment, including in new areas beyond oil and gas, as key. This also applies to political instruments in resolving simmering hostilities, and furthering broad cooperation in fighting religious extremism of both the Sunni and Shia variety.
Hydrocarbons, the bread and butter of the Middle East for the past 100 years, may become a stranded resource in just a few decades. Soon, it could be infrastructure, renewables, IT, AI, robotics, high tech, and services that drive the region’s economic development.
The U.S. has not yet lost-out to China in the Middle East, but American and European businesses – and strategic planners – will need to work twice as hard to stay competitive.
https://www.forbes.com/sites/arielc...-u-s-as-the-middle-east-hegemon/#34b05bd325cd
Will China Replace The U.S. As The Middle East Hegemon?
Ariel Cohen
The U.S. is assembling its allies in Warsaw this week to coordinate Middle East policy– but with limited success. EU policy chief Federica Mogherini, joined by China, Russia, France, Germany, Turkey, and Qatar are boycotting the gathering, opting to adopt a more diplomatic, business-focused, and ‘less confrontational’ track with the Islamic Republic.
At the same time, Washington is sending mixed signals, announcing its withdrawal from Syria (and Afghanistan), with President Trump callingBashar al-Assad’s country a place of “sand and death”.
The U.S. is awash in oil and gas, projected to become a net energy exporter next year. 2020 should also see domestic production reach a record 13 million barrels of oil per day. This does not increase America’s interest in the Middle East.
China, on the other hand, is only growing thirstier for energy. Most of its oil comes from OPEC members in the Persian Gulf. A whopping 45% of Middle East trade is with Asia, whereas only 14% is with the U.S., and 7% with Europe.
China has replaced the UAE as the main investor in the Middle East, focusing on energy. However, $3.5 trillion dollars of future opportunities in the Middle East are awaiting Asian investors – from infrastructure projects, to tourism, to industry, says Nasser Saidi, the former Chief Economist of the Dubai International Financial Center and the former Lebanese central banker.
Saidi and other top experts spoke at a conference organized by the Middle East Institute of the National University of Singapore (NUS) this week. The event, titled The Middle East Pivot: China’s Belt and Road Initiative – between Geostrategy and Commercial Opportunity, attracted business people and academics from China, the U.S., Singapore, and the Gulf. This author presented a report “Future Calling: Infrastructure Investment in Central Asia”.
Throughout the conference, participants and attendees kept coming back to the same critical question: If the U.S. is slowly disengaging from the Middle East, will China necessarily fill the void?
The answer is a qualified yes. First, because the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) is the most ambitious geopolitical and geo-economic program since the Marshall Plan, and surpasses it in scope and costs. The Marshall Plan dealt with the rebuilding of Europe only, while the U.S. also helped raising Japan from the ashes of World War II. It was limited in time to four years.
Belt and Road, proclaimed by Chairman Xi Jinping in 2013, involves over 80 countries in Eurasia, Europe, South and Southeast Asia, the Middle East and Africa. Middle East energy will be the lifeblood of BRI, with China its engine and brain. Western Europe and the developing world will be its market.
The United States so far failed to offer a comprehensive, strategic response to Belt and Road, which would need to include an economic, cultural and human dimension. Instead, under both the Obama and the Trump Administration, Washington is sticking to mostly military answers, while ipso facto creating an anti-American block that includes Russia and China – something Henry Kissinger warned against over 40 years ago.
Second, Beijing is aggressively bolstering its Near East presence. China is already building strategic partnerships with countries from Algeria to Saudi Arabia to Iran, Iraq, and the UAE. It is targeting major OPEC and Gulf Cooperation Council members, while also focusing on U.S. allies, like Israel, Jordan, Qatar, and Egypt.
Following World War II, the British Lion went home to lick his wounds. The British Empire could not sustain its presence in the Middle East after losing its Jewel in the Crown – India – in 1947.
In the aftermath of the protracted and costly wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, the American Eagle wants a respite. Vital national interests of the U.S., chief among them energy, are no longer bound to the Middle East region due to the shale gale.
Attention is now shifting to the Pacific, as China, the peer competitor, is not flinching over its South China Sea expansion. The People’s Liberation Army (PLA) Navy is planning to build four carrier battle groups, and is targeting American aircraft carriers with new ship-busting nuclear-tipped ballistic missiles. China’s high-tech naval railguns and hypersonic cruise missiles are just around the corner.
The security of the Middle East and its energy supplies will be defined in the next two decades by the balance of military and economic power between the U.S., China, and Russia. Within the region, the confrontation between Saudi Arabia and the UAE vs. Iran and Qatar will take center stage.
Some Chinese participants at the Singapore conference, such as Prof. Wang Suolao of Institute of Area Studies in Beijing University, tried to deny that China is playing geopolitics in the Middle East. However, one cannot help but analyze the region through the prisms of political interests, spheres of influence, proxy management, and exclusive economic zones.
China already maintains a sizeable military base in Djibouti, at Bab-el-Mandeb, the entrance to the strategically important Red Sea, which leads to Suez Canal, one of the three principal choke points of global naval routes (the others being the Strait of Malacca, and the Panama Canal). Djibouti is also home to an American Naval Expeditionary Base, Camp Lemonnier, just 11 kilometers away. The two opposing bases present a fitting metaphor of competing national interests on the African continent. Chinese and American forces have even engaged in laser skirmishes there, where China deployed high energy lasers to blind U.S. pilots. This is just a telltale symptom of things to come.
China is deploying its economic and diplomatic power in the Middle East first, while the military involvement may come later: the launch of the petro-yuan, which will exclude the dollar; massive Chinese advantage in mobile payment tech which would allow 85 million “unbanked” people in the Middle East to integrate in business and financial activities; the growth of Chinese tourism to the Gulf; the involvement of Chinese Muslim communities with the Middle East – all discussed at the Singapore conference in great detail. These will be the tools used by Beijing to expand its influence from Morocco to Muscat – and beyond.
The forum, led by the NUS Middle East Institute Chairman Bilahari Kausikan, highlighted the tremendous opportunities and risks facing Asian (including Singaporean) investments in the Middle East.
Experts view pragmatic approaches to industrialization and investment, including in new areas beyond oil and gas, as key. This also applies to political instruments in resolving simmering hostilities, and furthering broad cooperation in fighting religious extremism of both the Sunni and Shia variety.
Hydrocarbons, the bread and butter of the Middle East for the past 100 years, may become a stranded resource in just a few decades. Soon, it could be infrastructure, renewables, IT, AI, robotics, high tech, and services that drive the region’s economic development.
The U.S. has not yet lost-out to China in the Middle East, but American and European businesses – and strategic planners – will need to work twice as hard to stay competitive.
https://www.forbes.com/sites/arielc...-u-s-as-the-middle-east-hegemon/#34b05bd325cd
