OPINION:
China’s primary geopolitical goal is to displace the United States as a global power, and it is taking advantage of the Israel-Hamas war to expand its influence in the Middle East. The Chinese Communist Party sees its rivalry with the U.S. as a zero-sum game, and so it welcomes any weakening of Israel, a close U.S. ally.
It also views the disruption of the Abraham Accords — which established diplomatic relations between Israel and Gulf Arab states — or a potential Israel-Saudi normalization as a win for Iran and the larger Beijing-Moscow-Tehran axis.
The reality, however, is that China is not ready to play with the “big boys” in the Middle East. China cannot project its military power, intimidate economically, or manipulate diplomatically enough to challenge U.S. influence directly. But the U.S. cannot keep it that way unless we course-correct back to the America First policies of just two years ago.
The attacks on Israel are the latest manifestation of aggression invited by the provocative weakness of the Biden administration. The botched August 2021 pullout from Afghanistan, which resulted in thousands of Afghan deaths, a massive refugee crisis, and the deaths of 13 American service members at the Kabul airport, marked a dangerous decline in U.S. deterrence.
This perception of vulnerability inspired Vladimir Putin, who had been deterred during the Trump administration, to invade Ukraine in February 2022.
In addition, the reckless investment of diplomatic capital, foreign aid, and irreplaceable materiel and munitions in the war has emboldened China’s threats against Taiwan. China has taken advantage of the situation by staging unprecedented live-fire exercises and unrelenting sea and air incursions into Taiwan’s territorial waters over the past two years.
Meanwhile, the Biden administration’s appeasement of Hamas and its patrons in Iran enabled funding and training for the massacre on Oct. 7. In April 2021, President Biden restored $235 million of fungible aid to Palestinian institutions largely under the thumb of Hamas. Following massive bipartisan pressure, the $6 billion ransom promised to Iran for the release of U.S. hostages in September has been frozen, but the relaxation of oil sanctions has given the Iranian regime a windfall of up to $29.5 billion since the end of the Trump administration, according to the Foundation for Defense of Democracies.
In the current conflict, China has presented itself as neutral but has effectively taken Hamas’ side. In the immediate aftermath of Hamas’ deliberat slaughter of more than 1,400 Israeli civilians, China made no unequivocal condemnation of Hamas’ atrocities and called for an immediate cease-fire.
It also called for a two-state solution, with Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi stating that the failure to create a Palestinian state is the root cause of the conflict. This formulation, denying Israel’s right to respond and calling for all Palestinian demands to be met immediately, is comparable to what radical Hamas supporters on European streets and U.S. college campuses are calling for.
Chinese Premier Xi Jinping has been promoting his Global Security Initiative, explicitly pushing an alternative vision to the U.S.-led international order, including a more ambitious strategy of diplomatic and economic engagement across the Middle East. In March, China bypassed the U.S. to negotiate an agreement to restore diplomatic relations between archenemies Saudi Arabia and Iran. In June, Mr. Xi entered a strategic partnership with the Palestinian Authority and announced a road map to Israeli-Palestinian peace.
The Middle East is also a cornerstone in the Belt and Road Initiative, part of the $1 trillion invested in transportation infrastructure and resource extraction across the Global South.
On the economic front, China has boosted the BRICS nations (Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa) as a rival economic bloc to the U.S.-led G7, and the BRICS New Development Bank as a direct competitor to the World Bank. The Middle Eastern nations of Saudi Arabia, Iran, Egypt and the United Arab Emirates will join BRICS in 2024.
These alarming events say more about U.S. weakness and China’s opportunism than they do about the supposed inevitability of China’s rise. The Biden administration deliberately abandoned effective policies that kept Israel and the Arab states on the path to peace, Iran isolated and financially squeezed, Russia contained, and therefore China with no sustainable avenues of influence.
Luckily, despite two-plus years of mistakes, China is not yet a credible threat to U.S. authority. It still lacks a “blue water navy” capable of projecting power to the Middle East. Its considerable economic problems at home prevent it from investing the resources the U.S. can into keeping sea lanes open and fossil fuels flowing freely to Asia.
BRICS institutions lack the coordination and unifying mission of their U.S.-led equivalents, and the dollar is still the dominant global reserve currency and top choice for international trade.
Despite its impressive growth, China is still not seen as a “big boy” in the Middle East. But if we continue to purposely weaken our deterrence, that may change.
• Adam Savit is director of the China Policy Initiative at America First Policy Institute.
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