MIDDLE EASTERN rulers are livid with President Donald Trump, who together with Israel unleashed a war on Iran without a serious plan for ending it. They are disappointed by China’s leader, Xi Jinping, who has failed to twist arms and bang heads in the cause of peace, though his country enjoys unique economic leverage over every party to the conflict.
Its Communist Party leaders relish the spectacle of America floundering in a Middle Eastern quagmire, according to that world-weary take. “This war has inflicted severe losses on the peoples of the region and does not serve the common interests of the international community,” tut-tutted Mr Xi. He drew his fellow leaders’ attention to a series of “global initiatives” that China has rolled out in recent years, conveying its hopes for a new world order (in summary: economic development is good, meddling in countries’ internal affairs is bad, advocating Western democracy is very bad).
There is a cynical explanation for China’s reluctance to take risks for peace. Why would they want to save their most dangerous rival? Those reserves reduced the sting, too, of the Trump administration’s efforts to stop Iran selling oil to China, by far the largest buyer of its crude. That undercut claims by Trump apologists that his disastrous war with Iran was in fact the opening move of a grandmaster-level chess game to contain China. More painfully still for China hawks in Washington, Mr Trump shows no sign of wishing to challenge China’s ties to Iran’s war machine. The president is eager for a successful meeting with Mr Xi in Washington on September 24th. He recently played down reports that Chinese satellite images may have helped Iran attack American air bases in Jordan, testily telling journalists that America does similarly disobliging things to China. So far, so self-interested: China does have reasons to celebrate Mr Trump’s misadventure in the Gulf. Mr Xi took a victory lap at a summit of leaders from the BRICS countries, a group of emerging economies, held in Delhi on September 12th. He declared that “China is ready to work with fellow BRICS members to play its due role in achieving peace and tranquillity in the Middle East and the Gulf. Bluntly, the war has come too soon for China. For now, China’s rise relies on a global trading order underwritten by American power. China’s navy is not about to keep trade routes open in the Middle East. Chinese diplomacy remains risk-averse and opportunistic, not world-shaping. When China uses its economic heft to coerce other countries, it is to defend narrow national interests, not to change governments’ broader foreign policies.
