https://www.ft.com/content/dbb1c37f-d261-4338-b585-04dfd93d9e55
Turmoil will show whether Beijing can turn its economic clout and relationship with Iran into regional influence.
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https://www.ft.com/content/dbb1c37f-d261-4338-b585-04dfd93d9e55
The crisis in the Middle East triggered by Hamas’s attack on Israel is becoming a big test of China’s ambitions to build influence in a region traditionally dominated by the US, according to diplomats and analysts. Washington remains overwhelmingly the strongest military power in the Middle East and demonstrated its might by dispatching two carrier strike groups after the attack. It is also the main diplomatic player in the region, despite Arab concerns that it has been disengaging, and as Israel’s main ally it has leverage over the Jewish state. But China’s economic role has grown rapidly and it now trades more than the US with most regional countries. Beijing is also on good terms with almost all of them, including Iran — the backer of Hamas and Lebanon’s Hizbollah — prompting hopes it can use this influence to prevent a regional conflagration. During a call with China’s foreign minister Wang Yi on Saturday, US secretary of state Antony Blinken discussed “stability in the region and discouraging other parties from entering the conflict”. In recent years, Beijing has begun trying to extend its political sway in the Middle East as part of President Xi Jinping’s vision for Chinese leadership of the “Global South” of emerging and non-aligned countries. Beijing was instrumental in bringing four Middle Eastern countries — Egypt, Iran, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates — into the Brics grouping of emerging nations this year. It also brokered a detente between Saudi Arabia and Iran in March, a diplomatic first for China. Xi followed this up in June with an offer to help Palestinian president Mahmoud Abbas promote peace talks with Israel.
