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The Day After: America, China and a Changed Middle East | China Considered | Hoover Institution · China Considered

0:08
Welcome to China Considered, a podcast that brings fresh insight
0:11
and informed discussion to one
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of the most consequential issues of our time,
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how China's changing and changing the world.
0:17
I'm Liz Economy, Hargrove senior fellow
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and co-director of the program on the Usch China,
0:21
the world at the Hoover Institution at Stanford University.
0:24
Today, we're very fortunate to have
0:26
with us Dr. Jonathan Fulton.
0:28
Dr. Fulton is an expert on China and the Middle East.
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He's a political scientist at Zied University in Abu Dhabi,
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a non-resident senior fellow at the Atlanta Council host
0:38
of the China Mena podcast, and the author
0:40
and editor of several books on
0:41
China's role in the Middle East.
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He joins me right now from Abu Dhabi, where he's lived
0:45
for nearly two decades.
0:47
Jonathan, it's great to have you with us.
0:49
Thanks, Liz. Great to be here.
0:51
So we'll come to China in the Middle East in a minute,
0:54
but I can't help
0:55
but start with front page news here, which is
0:58
that there's an agreement between the United States
1:01
and Iran to cease hostilities
1:03
and to open the straighter reform news.
1:05
What do you make of this agreement?
1:06
Do you think it's durable
1:07
and how's it being viewed, you know,
1:09
more broadly in the region?
1:13
Well, I think there's a huge sigh of relief.
1:15
You know, there's been quite a bit of anxiety.
1:18
It's been, it's been wreaking havoc on local economies.
1:23
I think there's cautious optimism,
1:25
but emphasis on the cautious bit.
1:27
You know, you could see a lot of the headlines were,
1:29
were kind of a little skeptical.
1:31
It seems that this hinges also on Israel Lebanon
1:34
holding steady, which of course is a crapshoot.
1:37
So at the moment,
1:38
I think everybody's just breathing a sigh of relief.
1:42
You know, I think one thing that struck me
1:45
as somebody who's been in the region
1:46
for about 20 years is just that when you see
1:50
what the ceasefire looks like right now,
1:52
that straight is open again, and the blockade is over.
1:55
And my first thought was, well, that's exactly
1:57
what we had on February 27th.
1:59
So it seems like a terrible detour that we've gone through
2:02
to get to where we were.
2:04
But you know, that's the cynical political scientist in me.
2:08
I think just as somebody who lives here,
2:09
I think everybody is pretty happy that
2:11
we might see some kind of new normal to, to work with.
2:16
Yeah. I think, you know, from the perspective
2:17
of the Trump administration, of course, you know,
2:19
they'll argue that the United States has inflicted serious
2:23
damage on Iranian military capabilities.
2:26
That's been sort of, that's
2:27
what I believe they're gonna fall back on.
2:29
To counter the argument that you just made, which is exactly
2:32
what I thought, what I saw.
2:33
Like, are we just back to where we were
2:35
and we've just spent the past several months, you know,
2:39
just in sort of in this period of destruction
2:42
for no really good reason, but
2:45
but you think that there's hope, then a little bit
2:47
of cautious optimism.
2:49
Is that, is that fair?
2:51
Well, the cautious optimism is that that hostilities will,
2:54
will, will tamp down
2:55
and things will, will be a little more stable here.
2:57
But I think most people actually are in the region would
3:01
respond to the degrade degradation
3:03
of the Iranian capabilities
3:04
and think that's not all that's been degraded.
3:08
You know, along with the, the American bases
3:11
and the idea of deterrence
3:13
and the, the, you know,
3:16
just the small medium enterprises have taken such a beating
3:19
to real estate markets.
3:20
A lot of wealth has been destroyed by this.
3:22
So it does feel like a, a a wasted several months of,
3:26
you know, what, what was this all about?
3:29
Okay, we'll come back to Iran
3:31
and talk a little bit more about this,
3:33
but I wanna zoom out for the moment,
3:35
and for people watching this
3:38
who don't necessarily follow the region that closely,
3:41
how would you characterize China's
3:43
ambitions in the Middle East?
3:44
You know, are they strategic? Are they economic?
3:47
Are they diplomatic? All of the above.
3:49
And have you witnessed, you know,
3:52
as I mentioned in the introduction, you've, you know,
3:53
been in the region for nearly two decades.
3:55
Have you seen a, a sort
3:57
of dramatic evolution in China's role in the region?
4:01
Absolutely. So I got here in 2006,
4:04
and prior to that, I was in Asia for about a decade.
4:09
And I thought I was coming to the Gulf
4:10
and I was just learning about the Middle East.
4:12
I didn't anticipate, you know, a China watching
4:15
phase in my career.
4:18
But you could see already, you know, this was
4:20
during the Iraq war, and China's China was
4:22
playing a more activist role.
4:23
There'd been a couple of high profile
4:25
visits with the Saudis.
4:27
Just the idea that, you know, when oil hits $140 a barrel
4:30
and China's a major oil import, they need
4:32
to have a bigger presence in the region.
4:34
So they start to get more activist around the first decade.
4:38
And then of course, when Xi Jinping came
4:39
and they, they released a Belt and road initiative,
4:41
and you could see just a tremendous surge in
4:43
what China was doing in this part of the world.
4:47
In terms of what, how would I characterize it?
4:49
I mean, I would start by by saying it,
4:50
it's different depending on where you are.
4:52
Like here in the Gulf, China's footprint is, is pretty broad
4:55
and, and relatively deep.
4:58
If you go to the Levant, it's very modest.
4:59
China doesn't do a lot there.
5:01
I think the, the security prices
5:06
there make it very,
5:07
and make it a not very interesting option
5:10
for Chinese SOEs to operate in.
5:12
And then in North Africa, you've just seen a lot happening.
5:14
And that I think is something worth tracking.
5:17
But across all three sub regions, it's,
5:19
it's primarily an economic presence.
5:22
China comes here to make money,
5:23
China comes here to get energy.
5:25
Everything else is, is really kind of second level.
5:29
And the economic stuff has been really interesting to watch.
5:33
I would say also, like in 2013, sorry, 2014,
5:38
there's a forum, the China Arab States Cooperation Forum.
5:41
It's kind of like ocac for Africa.
5:43
And every two years they'd have these ministerial meetings.
5:46
In 2014, it was hosted in Beijing
5:47
and Xi Jinping gave the openings welcoming remarks.
5:51
And he introduced this,
5:52
this thing called the one plus two plus three
5:54
cooperation framework.
5:55
And what it was, was how does China wanna engage
5:58
with Arab countries for the next, you know, whatever,
6:01
10, 20, 30 years?
6:03
And if you look at it, each number of courses,
6:04
Chinese initiatives usually are each,
6:06
each number represents a bucket of, you know,
6:08
sectors or priorities.
6:10
One was hydrocarbons,
6:12
two was trade investment infrastructure construction.
6:15
Three was nuclear energy, renewable energy space,
6:18
satellites, nothing about politics, nothing about security,
6:21
nothing about military cooperation.
6:23
It's all about economics and development.
6:25
And they've stuck to that pretty carefully
6:28
over the past decade, 12 years, certain areas like energy,
6:33
infrastructure, trade have really shot through the roof.
6:37
Renewable energy has really expanded space.
6:39
Satellite nuclear has kind of gone nowhere,
6:41
but they've really,
6:42
really increased their economic footprint in the region.
6:45
So, I mean, that's very interesting.
6:47
You know, one of the things we've seen China sort
6:49
of expand into is policing, right?
6:53
And training of police. Yeah.
6:54
And sort of going alongside
6:56
with their whole smart city initiatives.
6:58
So I mean, are you seeing that in the Middle East as well?
7:01
And are you seeing sort of a,
7:02
a big push in the digital space in addition to the trade
7:06
and the energy and, you know, clean tech?
7:10
What about the digital infrastructure
7:11
and the sort of policing which kind of bleeds then into,
7:15
I think the security space?
7:18
So it's interesting and,
7:19
and I'm glad you brought that up from the start.
7:20
'cause I think most people, when they talk security
7:22
cooperation, it's usually mill to mill and arm sales
7:25
and joint, you know, operations.
7:27
And that's modest too.
7:28
Like nothing much happens in that space.
7:31
But on the stuff
7:32
that was highlighted in the global security initiative,
7:34
which is the surveillance and the policing and, and,
7:38
and the technological side, very much so.
7:42
And it's interesting
7:43
because this region, it's not like there's a lot
7:46
of democracies that they have to navigate.
7:48
You've got a lot of authoritarian governments
7:51
that are very comfortable, you know,
7:53
with the normative elements of this stuff.
7:56
You know, that, that you can use tech to sur your citizens
7:59
and find out if anybody's joining any kind
8:01
of extremist organization
8:03
or any kind of politicized religious groups or,
8:07
or what they're saying on, on, on their chat groups.
8:10
You know, we'd have serious reservations about that.
8:13
In, in western countries here, governments tend to see
8:16
that as a, as a plus.
8:17
So China's made pretty good inroads
8:19
into a lot of that stuff.
8:20
But they also have framed it really interestingly.
8:24
You know, if you look at, you know,
8:25
these coastal cities in China where the smart city,
8:28
it's presented as, you know,
8:29
how can we help people live better lives?
8:31
You know, how can we, you know,
8:33
provide better emergency services?
8:35
And, and, you know, it's,
8:36
it's always presented as a positive.
8:39
If you look in contested, like in Xinjiang
8:41
or Tibet, it's, it's seen in a very different way.
8:43
How can we track people and watch them and,
8:45
and, you know, oppress 'em better?
8:48
And you see both sides of that here.
8:50
So if they come to Dubai, they're like,
8:51
how can we help you achieve your development agendas
8:54
with smart cities and technology that's going to help you
8:57
diversify your economy
8:58
and modernize to a non hydrocarbon based TE economy?
9:02
Or they can go to Saudi and say, how can we help you
9:05
move these huge groups of hodge pilgrims
9:09
that come every year, which, you know,
9:10
is a real security issue, not security in terms
9:14
of traditional, you know, riding or whatever,
9:16
but we've got a lot of elderly people that we have
9:18
to provide emergency services for.
9:20
And when you've got, you know, hundreds of thousands
9:22
of people on the streets, how can you use smart city tech
9:25
to, to help move these people more efficiently
9:28
so they can come to this part of the world
9:30
and they can, they can pitch it either way.
9:33
And in both cases, you find a very receptive audience.
9:36
Yeah. So I know it's also an area where the US has,
9:39
you know, tried at various points in time, beginning
9:41
with the first Trump administration, then
9:43
through the Biden administration to sort
9:45
of offer an alternative, right?
9:47
Perhaps not hugely successfully,
9:49
but are you seeing that kind
9:50
of competition play out again in this digital space?
9:55
So what you see here in the UAE where I live,
9:59
there was always this question, you know,
10:01
like Huawei had made pretty significant inroads into,
10:05
you know, their, their 5G networks and their AI networks.
10:09
And there was a sense
10:10
that maybe the Emiratis were playing both
10:12
sides off each other.
10:14
Yes. Then you saw, that's what you heard here. For sure.
10:16
I'm sure, I'm sure. 'cause I talked to state a lot
10:20
and back in those days,
10:22
and I think it was a very serious problem or concern rather,
10:26
but the Emiratis made a pretty, pretty public
10:28
and pretty clear bet when they, when they signed this deal
10:32
with Microsoft and G 42, which is their,
10:34
their national champion AI company.
10:37
And what you see is any kind of AI cooperation
10:42
that links into anything that could be strategic
10:45
or that links into security networks
10:47
or whatever, they're holier than the Pope.
10:51
And there is no space for Chinese companies in these
10:56
types of AI cooperation.
10:58
If you go down the road to Dubai,
10:59
you'll see a different story where there's a lot
11:02
of commercial ai, you know, that's being integrated into,
11:06
you know, their digital commerce and their EVs
11:09
and their robo taxis and smart city stuff.
11:13
But I guess the idea here is that it can be siloed off into,
11:16
you know, the, the critical and the commercial.
11:18
And that's something you're seeing more and more of.
11:21
They, they can see, you know, China's kind
11:23
of best in class in a lot of digital payments
11:25
and a lot of digital economy.
11:27
And, and so they're pretty happy to, to work
11:29
with China on these things.
11:30
But at the same time, they seem
11:33
to really prize their relationship with, you know,
11:36
their traditional long-term partners as well.
11:39
So it's, they're, they're trying to strike a balance
11:42
between what's necessary
11:43
and what, what, what's a must have and what's a nice to have.
11:47
And do you think the, is the sort
11:49
of traditional relationship with the United States,
11:51
is it a 90% relationship and an energy relationship
11:56
or sort of how deeply fixed is that relationship?
12:00
And, you know, just to go back to, you know, the start
12:02
of our conversation, do you think that the, the war
12:05
with Iran has in any way shifted sort
12:09
of the thinking in the region about the relative weight
12:13
of China, the United States,
12:15
and how close, you know, countries would like to be
12:18
to one or the other?
12:21
So the narrative,
12:22
the dominant narrative has always been the US does security
12:25
and China does the economy.
12:26
And I get why people say that,
12:28
because, you know, if you just look at the raw numbers,
12:31
China's the number 1, 2, 5 top trading partner
12:34
for every country in the Arab world.
12:37
And this, you know, I would, I kind
12:39
of push back about this a lot.
12:40
I mean, that's mostly trade in goods that's very imbalanced.
12:44
It almost always favors China heavily in non-oil exporters.
12:48
You see a very unbalanced relationship where China kind of
12:52
hurts local markets, local producers,
12:55
but at the same time a trading partner that big,
12:57
you can't really alienate.
12:59
So, you know, it is an important economic partner
13:02
and they do a lot of construction and contracting
13:04
and developments and, and all of this stuff.
13:06
But the US is a major investor in a lot of countries.
13:10
And there, there are, it's a much broader, much deeper,
13:15
the US relationship tends to be comprehensive.
13:18
You know, like when Xi Jinping, he went
13:20
to Riyadh in December 22, and there's a state visit
13:22
and you could see the bullet points of the outcomes,
13:25
and everybody kind of lost their minds
13:27
and went, oh my God, China's like such a big actor
13:29
with the Saudis on these things.
13:30
And I remember saying like, that's like a list
13:33
of half a dozen things.
13:34
If you were to, to kinda list what the Saudis do with the us
13:38
you know, and the economic and the education
13:40
and the training and the security
13:42
and the diplomatic, like it's a phone book, right?
13:44
So, you know, China gets kind of the, the, the headlines,
13:49
it's flashy, it's sexy, it, it seems disruptive,
13:51
but it's, it's really much shallower.
13:55
The US I think if you look at their,
13:59
their relationships in the GCC countries,
14:02
they all have defense or defense cooperation agreements
14:05
or facility access agreements, which are the pillars
14:08
of their defense informed policies.
14:10
You see the same thing with Egypt, you see with Israel,
14:13
of course, and Jordan, China just doesn't do that, right?
14:16
China says we can do a lot with you in the economic space,
14:19
and we can build on that to maybe cooperate on other issues
14:23
where we both have shared interests,
14:25
but there's a pretty low ceiling on what China's willing
14:28
to do in this part of the world.
14:29
It's nothing comparable to what the US does.
14:31
And I think the war has at a, you know,
14:34
the so-called Arab Street, like amongst publics,
14:37
there's a lot of frustration and concern.
14:39
Like I said, local economies have really suffered.
14:43
If you listen to the elites,
14:44
and I know that's always an issue.
14:46
You know, what governments say, what people say are,
14:48
are tend to be, you know, very different things.
14:50
But most governments have really said,
14:52
we're doubling down on the US relationship,
14:55
not necessarily out of comfort
14:57
with the way this has played out,
14:59
but with the realization
15:00
that no other great power has been willing
15:02
or able to come into this war, into this region
15:07
and provide security in the same way.
15:08
Who has munition stockpiles, who has the training?
15:11
Who has the, the personnel?
15:14
The Europeans have been somewhat helpful,
15:16
but on a smaller scale, the Koreans have been kind
15:20
of helpful for the UAE,
15:21
but on a small scale, Ukraine,
15:22
which has been really interesting, has sent a lot of drones
15:26
and drone technicians to help,
15:27
but no other power can, can do what the US does.
15:30
And China has made it very clear they don't see themselves
15:33
as that kind of relationship.
15:35
So, you know, maybe,
15:37
maybe on one level people are a little hesitant
15:40
about, you know, the depth of it.
15:41
But I think at the end of the day, the government seem
15:43
to be pretty comfortable with,
15:45
with being more deeply integrated into an
15:47
American architecture.
15:49
So do you think that's, you know, one
15:51
of China's strengths, at least perhaps
15:53
before the war appeared to be that it manages
15:56
to be friends at some level with everyone, right?
15:59
It never seems to choose sides, you know,
16:02
among the countries.
16:03
And so, you know, it's supportive of Iran,
16:06
but it's also supportive of the Gulf countries.
16:09
And, and, but perhaps
16:10
by not choosing a side then China is facing some, some sort
16:14
of consequence because of that.
16:16
Do you think that's part of the mentality or,
16:20
I think they absolutely choose a side.
16:22
They just don't, they just don't go, go
16:25
around blabbing about it. Okay.
16:26
You know, Like, so look at the Gulf.
16:28
I mean, of course the China Iran relationship is the one
16:31
that everybody looks at because it seems very consequential
16:34
and it looks disruptive and revisionist.
16:36
And we all think about the CRS
16:38
and what this means for regional and global order.
16:40
But maybe, maybe define CRS for people who,
16:43
don't dunno what that means. Yeah.
16:44
Everybody listening to your podcast knows
16:46
what this is Liz, but Oh, no, no. I'm a very
16:48
Broad podcast view.
16:51
So the, the China, Russia, Iran,
16:53
North Korea, you know, grouping.
16:56
Yes. That's really kind
16:58
of become much more interesting since the
17:01
Russian evasion of Ukraine.
17:05
But at the same time, like if you look at what China does
17:07
with the gcc, and it totally flies under the radar relative
17:11
to what China does with Iran.
17:13
It's much deeper, broader.
17:16
You know, I, I was looking at the numbers recently,
17:19
there's no accurate list of
17:22
of populations in, in this part of the world.
17:24
'cause you know, people come and go pretty regularly.
17:26
There's about between five
17:29
and 600,000 Chinese citizens living in the GCC
17:32
when China had to evacuate all of its citizens from Iran
17:37
during the 12 day war.
17:38
They said it was between two and 3000. Yeah.
17:44
They have done hundreds of billions of dollars
17:47
of contracting in the GCC since, you know, the,
17:50
the past 20 years they've done about 20 billion with Iran.
17:53
Like they've absolutely made it clear who,
17:56
which side they prefer,
17:58
but they're never going to flat out say, you know, we,
18:00
we prefer this country over that country
18:02
because they're at that kind of second tier power privilege.
18:07
You know, nobody expects them
18:08
to pick a side in these regional rivalries.
18:11
Everybody would like it if China would tip the,
18:13
the scales on one side or the other,
18:15
but nobody expects it the way they expect the US to do it,
18:18
or the Brits to do it, or whoever.
18:21
China's a relative newcomer to this part of the world
18:23
and there's not really a deep history of of
18:26
playing a major diplomatic role in, in regional issues.
18:31
And they, that's, that's great for China.
18:34
They, they're happy to keep doing it as long as they can.
18:36
But I think if you look at the raw numbers,
18:39
absolutely they have preferences.
18:41
They say we're friends with the
18:42
Israelis and the Palestinians.
18:44
Well, yeah, sure they are.
18:46
They, they're rhetorical friends with the Palestinians
18:48
and they do tremendous volumes of trade with the Israelis.
18:52
And they're not comparable
18:55
Nonetheless.
18:56
I mean, they did not have not stood with the Israelis,
18:59
for example, in un security Council votes.
19:01
Right? Yes. And I think, you know, it's interesting, you
19:05
and I were at a, a meeting together in Europe
19:08
not that long ago.
19:09
And, you know, one of the things
19:10
that we talked a little bit about was in China's initial,
19:14
it seemed initial interest in establishing a base in the
19:17
UAEI think you think that's, it's going nowhere.
19:22
It's, it's sort of a, it's dead in the water.
19:24
But maybe could you talk a little bit about, you know,
19:26
the reality of that was, was there a push by the Chinese,
19:29
because that would sort of mean
19:31
that China was moving into another space.
19:34
And then perhaps you could say a little bit about China's
19:37
efforts in the sort of Saudi Iran deal, which got a lot
19:40
of attention a few years ago.
19:43
Yeah, those are two really cool things
19:45
to, to, to talk about.
19:47
The, again, with these, the,
19:49
the China Arab States Cooperation Forum in 2018,
19:53
WGI rolled out one of these ridiculously named initiatives,
19:57
the industrial park port connectivity, two wing,
20:00
two wheel approach.
20:02
And, you know, it doesn't really fit in a headline.
20:05
So nobody really knew what to make of it.
20:08
But what they were saying,
20:09
you could see in the years leading up to this,
20:11
that there were certain coastal locations from the Perian
20:16
Gulf to the Arabian Sea, to the Red Sea, to,
20:19
to the Eastern med
20:20
where China had been building a pretty big
20:22
commercial presence.
20:24
And in this, this ings two wheels approach, they, they,
20:28
they kind of linked them together.
20:29
So you could see that there's a, a port here in,
20:32
in Abu Dhabi called Khalifa Port, where they'd set up a,
20:36
a Costco had set up a, a, a port operations
20:41
and also an industrial park.
20:43
It's called the jsu Overseas Investment Park.
20:46
I think they had done something in Oban along the Arabian
20:51
Sea coastline in, in this fishing village called Dum,
20:55
where similar a Chinese industrial park and a
20:58
and a port the basin in Djibouti
21:00
and Industrial Park in Saudi, just north of Yemeni border,
21:05
a lot in Suez, in Egypt, and then in Haifa in Israel.
21:10
And it was interesting, 'cause you know,
21:12
looking at these projects, they all seem disconnected,
21:15
but if you look at, you know, zoom out on the map,
21:17
you can see these kind of supply chains
21:19
and business clusters that,
21:20
that get you from the Gulf to the med.
21:23
And it's pretty interesting.
21:24
And in 21
21:26
or 22, there's a story I think in the Wall Street Journal
21:28
that, that this facility in, in, in Abu Dhabi,
21:32
the Khalifa port, that the Chinese had been billing some
21:35
kind of a mil military facility here.
21:38
And the Emiratis resolutely denied
21:41
that there was any military application to it.
21:43
You know, there's speculation.
21:45
It might be a listening post or something.
21:49
I'm on this inclined to believe the Emiratis
21:51
because it would've been such a clear break
21:53
with their US relationship.
21:55
It would've, it would've represented a very disruptive
21:59
moment in that bilateral,
22:00
and like I said a few minutes ago, it's the central pillar
22:02
of the defense and security policy,
22:05
whatever China was building there.
22:07
And, you know, there's still a lot of speculation of
22:10
what that might have been.
22:12
It's been pretty clear that, that, you know, that stopped.
22:16
And I think one reason why I was skeptical of,
22:20
of this facility in the first place was
22:24
China doesn't have any connective tissue.
22:27
I mean, so there's the Basin Djibouti, which,
22:29
and I think we all know, is kind of overstated
22:31
and it's military utility,
22:33
but you know, from the Gulf to Nan Island, there's,
22:37
there's nothing except commercial ports.
22:39
They don't have bases, right?
22:40
So if they were to put a, a, a, a facility in the Gulf
22:44
and kind of the heart of Pax Americana,
22:47
they would be pretty exposed, right?
22:50
They would, they'd be surrounded by American facilities,
22:52
35,000 American troops, and to what end?
22:56
'cause they already get everything they need under,
22:59
or they did prior to this war under the American security
23:01
umbrella, which has always
23:03
provided kind of a, a low cost entry into a,
23:08
a security risky environment, not just for China,
23:11
but for us allies and partners like India
23:12
and Japan and Korea.
23:14
You know, everybody can come into the Gulf under this US
23:16
architecture and do business
23:18
and not worry about your expat citizens being at risk.
23:22
And China's enjoyed that opportunity as well.
23:24
So I think the idea that they would, that they would disrupt
23:27
that by putting a base in Abu Dhabi
23:30
and that Abu Dhabi would allow, it seemed kind
23:32
of a bridge too far for me.
23:36
The point about the Saudi Iran Rahal,
23:40
that was really interesting.
23:42
'cause that happened during this, this six month period,
23:47
I'd mentioned a few minutes ago
23:48
that Xi Jinping's visited Riyadh in 22,
23:52
the contrast between his visit to Saudi
23:55
and in December of that year, and,
23:57
and Joe Biden's visit to Saudi in July of
23:59
that year was pretty substantial.
24:01
And a lot of folks looked at it
24:02
and thought, okay, Joe Biden gets a fist bump
24:05
and Xi Jinping gets a purple carpet on the tarmac
24:08
and tens of billions of dollars in MOUs and deals
24:11
and, you know, three summits
24:12
and you know, something like a dozen heads of state.
24:17
And then shortly after Iran's since deceased President Raisi
24:21
visited Beijing, there was the announcement
24:25
that Iran was joining SEO,
24:27
the Shanghai Cooperation Organization as a full member,
24:30
that Brix was coming to the Middle East,
24:34
that president Mahmood bas from Palestine visited Beijing.
24:38
And, and the, the foreign minister announced
24:41
that they're inviting net
24:42
and Yahoo so they could solve Israel Palestine.
24:45
And then right in the middle of all this,
24:47
you had this announcement, this dramatic announcement that,
24:49
you know, this had been made between the Saudis
24:51
and the Iranians and that China had brokered it in Beijing.
24:55
And it, I I always refer to this period
24:57
as I did at the meeting we attended as kind
24:59
of peak China Mena hype.
25:02
You, you couldn't open a
25:03
newspaper without seeing a headline.
25:04
Like as the us you know, leaves a vacuum, China fills it
25:08
or some kind of, you know, interesting headline like this,
25:13
that deal between the Saudis
25:15
and the Iranians had been baked almost
25:17
to completion by local actors.
25:19
The Omanis and the Iraqis were the primary chefs who'd
25:23
been putting it together.
25:25
And, and the Saudis have been working closely with them
25:28
to try to get it completed.
25:30
And there was a point that December
25:32
where they realized they needed kind
25:34
of a great hour guarantor or a stamp of approval.
25:37
And obviously America couldn't provide that
25:39
because they have no diplomatic relations with Iran
25:42
and Russia was so, you know, this was late 22,
25:45
the war in Ukraine had Putin a little preoccupied.
25:50
India, I suppose has good relations with both,
25:52
but is it really seen as a, a, you know,
25:54
a very significant diplomatic actor
25:56
or in this part of the world.
25:58
So that leaves China
25:59
and it was like a gift just fell from the sky
26:02
and landed in Xi Jinping's lap.
26:05
But what did they do to get it past the finish line,
26:07
I think was just the convening power to say like,
26:10
you need a country like China to do this,
26:12
we're happy to do it.
26:14
Of course, this is right after the global security
26:16
initiative is, was announced.
26:17
So this, this look like former a foreign minister
26:22
and current men of mystery qang, you know,
26:24
in his speech said, this is the, the GSI in practice,
26:28
like you can see to the world,
26:30
we've done something nobody else could do
26:32
and we can do this for you too.
26:33
Right? But that hype passed pretty quickly, right?
26:38
You know, I think all sides were invested.
26:41
I mean, for the Saudis,
26:42
their primary motivation was they're trying
26:44
to get foreign investment to come into Saudi,
26:46
and you can't do that while you've got the Houthis launching
26:49
missiles that they get from the Iranians.
26:51
You can't get foreign companies
26:52
to set up shop in Saudi if you're,
26:54
if it's a security nightmare.
26:56
So they were deeply invested in getting this done.
26:59
The Iranians needed some stability
27:00
because they'd had all these terrible riots after that,
27:03
or a young woman was killed by the, the, the Iranian police,
27:09
you know, the local actors were much more
27:11
interested in getting this done.
27:13
And China just gave them a, a, a road path
27:15
to it that high period.
27:19
I think, you know, you can bookmark it
27:21
with Xi arriving in Riyad in December of 22,
27:24
and then the Hamas attack on Israel 11 months later in,
27:27
in October 23
27:29
because China, at that point, you could see a lot of their,
27:32
their initiatives
27:34
and peace through development narratives just didn't really
27:36
hold under that kind of duress.
27:38
And local actors didn't really see China as,
27:41
as being willing
27:42
or able to, to play a, a,
27:44
a meaningful role in the most pressing regional issues.
27:48
Yeah, I mean, I I think you're, you know,
27:50
that is the story that was ultimately told here as well
27:53
that China kind of came in
27:54
and, you know, stamped the document, right?
27:57
But didn't do that much really to, to get
28:00
that document put together.
28:01
Nonetheless, it capitalized on that in a way
28:05
that was pretty extraordinary.
28:07
And as you point out the whole point
28:09
of the global security initiative, you know, a large part
28:12
of which says, you know, we don't need to, you know, go
28:14
to war to solve problems.
28:16
We don't need alliances to solve problems.
28:17
We can do this all through negotiation and discussion.
28:21
And peaceful means.
28:22
It did seem to represent just the perfect example
28:26
of the China model for global security,
28:30
but I think in the past four years, right?
28:33
One could argue, well, what have you done lately?
28:36
And certainly I think in the end,
28:39
China has not played a major role,
28:42
but correct me if I'm wrong in the sort of the resolution
28:46
of the, you know, war in Iran.
28:49
And so I think that, you know, there had been some, I think,
28:54
ambition on the part of President Trump
28:56
to draw the Chinese in, in some more significant way,
28:59
but it's not my sense that that actually happened.
29:02
I don't know what, again, your perspective is sitting there,
29:05
whether China is viewed as having played, you know, a role,
29:08
an important role in bringing this agreement to fruition.
29:14
So you'll see local actors, again,
29:16
offering China some flowers on this, you know, the, the,
29:20
the Crown Prince of Abu Dhabi, who's the presumptive
29:23
future president of the UAE made his first state visit
29:28
to China, April.
29:29
And, you know, this was meant to be a chance for a, a,
29:33
a guy whose office is primarily interested in development
29:36
and trade to go to China and talk about economic stuff.
29:39
And this had been on the books for six months
29:41
before the visit.
29:43
It ended up being, you know, a,
29:44
a pretty significant diplomatic component to it.
29:47
And that's when she announced his latest four point plan
29:50
for Middle East piece, or five points,
29:52
I can't keep them straight anymore,
29:54
but he did announce a, a, a, a numbered point plan of
29:57
how do we address this crisis.
29:59
And, you know, the Emiratis have since said that during
30:02
that meeting, they were able to send messages
30:07
to the Iranians via the Chinese about, you know, how
30:10
to stabilize the region during this, this crisis.
30:14
To what extent that's true
30:16
or what role China played other than delivering a message.
30:19
It's hard to say. I, my my sense is it, it wasn't really
30:23
that significant, you know,
30:26
there was also the Pakistani foreign minister visited Wang
30:30
in March, and they, they also released a five point plan.
30:35
There was talk that the Chinese in Pakistanis were liaising
30:38
quite a bit during the, the meeting in Islamabad.
30:42
But I, I don't get the sense that China was,
30:45
or has been really since October 7th, a very
30:50
meaningful diplomatic player in the region.
30:53
You know, in, in the Israel side of things, Israel, Hamas,
30:58
Israel, Hezbollah, Israel, Iran, Israel has a pretty mature
31:03
China watching community.
31:05
They're, they're, they're quite savvy.
31:06
I I really ranked them as the best in the region.
31:09
And among that small band of China watchers, there was a lot
31:13
of disappointment, you know,
31:14
because China's rhetorical posturing was mostly in support
31:17
of Israel, or sorry, in, in support of Palestine, rather,
31:21
they, they were, you know,
31:22
really bludgeoning at Israel publicly every chance they had.
31:27
And it really looked like they were just kind
31:29
of taking advantage of a moment
31:30
to differentiate themselves from the US to say,
31:32
America destabilizes the region.
31:34
And we, we don't,
31:36
but at the same time, people were saying, well,
31:37
what do you offer other than you're not America?
31:40
Like, what are you doing to, to resolve this?
31:42
And it turned out there was very little they could.
31:44
And what you, what I got from talking with a lot of actors
31:48
around the region was a sense
31:51
that China's great if you need a port
31:54
or if you need a railway or if you need more trade trade,
31:57
but they're not that great on, on these kind of
32:01
thornier diplomatic issues first
32:04
because they haven't been deeply engaged in the
32:06
region for very long.
32:07
So they don't have the same kind of networks
32:10
that the Americans or the French or the Norwegians
32:12
or the British would have.
32:14
And also just a sense that, you know,
32:16
this isn't a core interest for Beijing when,
32:18
when they've announced their core interest since whatever,
32:21
2007, it's very clear that it's, it's
32:25
mostly domestic, the South China Sea,
32:28
their, their periphery.
32:30
This is a place to, like I said earlier,
32:31
it's a place to make money.
32:33
You know, they don't see it strategically the same
32:35
way America does.
32:37
You know, in the US you've got huge Arab
32:39
and Jewish immigration populations, or, or, or,
32:42
or, you know, American Jewish organizations and,
32:46
and Muslim associations.
32:47
And these, these play a role in, in elections.
32:49
And they create, they have lobbying and pressure groups.
32:52
It's important for political actors
32:54
to have a position on this stuff.
32:57
That's not the case in China, right?
32:58
So it's really a purely geographical expression
33:02
for Chinese politicians,
33:04
and they don't have to engage the same way
33:07
And these important points.
33:08
It does strike me though that given Xi Jinping's sort
33:11
of ambition
33:12
and the fact that he is released, you know, four,
33:14
five now sort of big giant global initiatives
33:18
around security, you know, going back to the,
33:20
to the base discussion, I do think
33:23
that there is an ambition there.
33:25
I mean, they did, did beginning in 2011, begin
33:28
to start talking a lot more about the need for China
33:31
to have basis.
33:33
And I think, you know, the Pentagon certainly had identified
33:36
10 or 11 places where they believed that Beijing had,
33:40
you know, sort of designs to establish spaces.
33:43
And the UAE was one of them, right?
33:45
And I think similarly in this diplomatic space, right, China
33:48
as the negotiator that brings the parties together
33:52
and resolves conflicts, I think there is an ambition there
33:56
on the part of Chinese diplomats that, and
33:58
or maybe Xi Jinping, I shouldn't even say on the,
34:00
on the part of Chinese diplomats,
34:02
but on the part of Xi Jinping that China play that role.
34:06
But maybe they're not quite able to do it, you know?
34:10
So I, I personally think the ambition exists,
34:13
but, you know, maybe they don't have yet, as you're saying,
34:16
the depth of experience, the, the knowledge of the region,
34:21
the United States still exerts such a strong influence
34:25
that it can push back
34:26
and make clear that, you know, you can't,
34:28
you can't have both, right?
34:30
And, and so, you know, choose.
34:32
And so I just, I, I, I, I just, I, from my perspective, I,
34:36
I think it's not as though China doesn't want
34:39
to play some of these roles.
34:40
I think it select it wants to do so selectively
34:44
and at a time and a place that it, you know, wants to,
34:47
it doesn't wanna replace the us you know,
34:50
the the previous us and,
34:51
and be responsible for everything everywhere all the time.
34:55
But I do think that there is that ambition.
34:57
I don't know whether you agree with that assessment.
35:00
No, I do. I mean, a lot of my commentary
35:02
so far has been kind of a snapshot of this moment in time
35:04
where there is a lot of hype about what China's doing here,
35:07
which doesn't match the reality.
35:10
But really since, since the BRI was rolled out, you've seen,
35:15
I always think of what, you know, the situation in,
35:18
in the US kind of at Early Cold War, where suddenly all
35:22
of this energy flows into, well, we're a global actor now.
35:26
We have to, we have to understand the world better.
35:28
And I think the same thing happened in China where,
35:32
you know, when I would talk to China, middle East experts,
35:35
pre BRI, they would be anthropologists
35:38
who were looking at tribal, tribal Libya in the 18th
35:41
century kind of thing, right?
35:42
They weren't, they didn't
35:44
Have, yes, I know. Yeah.
35:46
Right. And there was a, there was a great program at beta
35:49
and there was a great one at, you know, a couple of sisu,
35:51
a couple of universities that had a kind
35:53
of a Middle East program, but it was very modest.
35:56
And since the BRI,
35:57
we've seen just a lot more work going into area studies
36:00
programs in Chinese universities.
36:01
And the think tank space has really exploded.
36:04
And the, my, my group of China,
36:08
middle East experts who are really great,
36:11
great language skills, great knowledge of the region,
36:14
but also like a pretty small number.
36:16
But they're training the next generation
36:18
of really well-trained social scientists
36:20
who have the language skills
36:22
who come here and do field work.
36:23
I'm meeting one tomorrow, you know,
36:26
and you can see a, A-A-A-A-A not too distant future
36:30
where China's knowledge of the region is much more mature
36:34
and that will change things.
36:36
And the other side of it is, you know, the region is,
36:39
is becoming more awake to China as well.
36:41
You know, like I teach at a local university,
36:44
everything is done in English, everything is done in English
36:47
because of the US and the uk.
36:50
My students, there's a handful of students here
36:53
that are learning Chinese.
36:55
The Confucius Institute is directly beneath my office.
36:57
It's rarely being used
37:00
because students think Chinese is hard and it's foreign.
37:03
And why do I want to learn anything about that place?
37:05
It's so far away. But you know, the presence here,
37:08
like I said, the E's got between 370,000,
37:11
400,000 Chinese here.
37:13
Yeah. It's a very big population in a country of 10 million.
37:17
And they're playing a bigger role in the cultural space
37:21
and the social space and the educational space.
37:24
Chinese language is part
37:25
of the K 12 curriculum in the UAE now it's been introduced
37:28
as part of the curriculum in Saudi.
37:30
It's kind of like when I was
37:33
growing up in Canada in the eighties, where kids had
37:35
to learn French, but almost none of them wanted to,
37:38
and they would never use it in their lives.
37:40
That's kind of how the Chinese teachers explain it to us,
37:43
that, that the students are reluctant, hesitant to hate it.
37:46
But obviously like in any group like that,
37:48
there will be some that really take to it.
37:50
And that that next generation
37:51
of China Watchers is being built.
37:53
So you can imagine 20 years maybe that
37:57
that relationship, China's presence here will be more
38:01
significant and the region's engagement
38:04
will be reciprocated.
38:06
But right now it, it still remains massively overblown.
38:12
So just to be clear, 'cause
38:13
I'm, I'm quite interested in this.
38:14
Is the, is Chinese now mandatory in the K through 12
38:18
or is it an elective?
38:20
It is mandatory in certain grades.
38:23
I think they started in an upper and,
38:25
and lower grades rather.
38:26
And they've been rolling it out as they get more teachers.
38:30
And it started out as a very small pilot project, you know,
38:33
of, of a couple of schools.
38:36
And I think it was close to 200 schools within two years.
38:39
So it's really taken off.
38:41
Yeah, it'll be interesting to see.
38:42
I mean, because Chinese here in the United States,
38:44
of course has, you know, waxed and waned
38:46
and there've been periods where everybody wants
38:48
to study Chinese
38:49
and, you know, all the wealthy families in the United States
38:52
have Chinese, you know, help so
38:54
that they can practice with their children.
38:56
And then kind of a big plummet in terms of
38:59
the relationship became more fractious and,
39:02
and more difficult and, and more concerning for people.
39:05
So, you know,
39:06
and Confucius Institutes, you know, had this ambition.
39:09
I remember to have a thousand Confucius Institutes by 2020,
39:13
and I think they ended up with about 500 and,
39:15
and Confucius Institute, not just in the US
39:16
but globally started to close, you know,
39:19
mostly in advanced democracies.
39:21
But it's just been interesting to see.
39:23
But perhaps there's gonna also be a resurgence, you know,
39:27
I think because China is the second largest economy in the
39:31
world, and as you point out, you know,
39:33
is deeply now invested, you know,
39:35
not only in the Middle East, but but everywhere globally.
39:39
So, you know, one of the things we've seen also just in the
39:43
past few years is
39:44
that several Middle Eastern countries like Iran
39:46
and Saudi Arabia, I think UAE have joined the bricks, right?
39:51
China pushed for an expansion of the bricks,
39:53
and you started to see, you know,
39:54
more countries including these three, I believe
39:58
in the Middle East, become members.
40:00
Is this another way in which the relationship is
40:03
between China and Middle East?
40:05
Is, is becoming, you know, stronger, tighter,
40:08
more integrated, or are there differences?
40:11
You know, we've seen some, you know,
40:13
disagreements within the bricks on certain issues.
40:17
How, how is that playing out?
40:18
You know, is it becoming a, a sort of a vehicle
40:20
for closer cooperation
40:22
or a space where we're seeing increasing sort of, you know,
40:27
fissures or fractures?
40:29
So the Saudis haven't officially they were,
40:33
they were issued the invitation
40:35
and they sat on it ever since.
40:37
So we're not really sure
40:38
what Saudi's position within Brix is.
40:41
It's there for the taking if they decide they want it,
40:43
but they haven't really indicated what they'll do.
40:46
But the Emiratis and the Iranians absolutely
40:48
did for different reasons.
40:49
I mean, for Iran it's all about
40:51
international legitimacy, right?
40:52
Like, I think I, I don't think they really saw, I'm, I'm,
40:57
I should preface this by saying I'm a
40:59
such a big brick skeptic, okay?
41:03
And I just don't really see the material u material utility
41:07
for a lot of countries when they join this for the Iranians.
41:10
I mean, at the last, at the last summit in Russia,
41:12
they talked about, you know, payments and,
41:14
and local currencies.
41:16
And of course for Russia and Iran, that's great, you know,
41:19
but for everybody else who wants a bunch of, you know,
41:23
rubles and, you know, Iranian reals,
41:26
it's not really so helpful.
41:28
But I think what Iran does get from it,
41:30
and the same thing they got from the Shanghai Cooperation
41:32
Organization membership, they can say
41:36
to domestic audiences
41:37
and international audiences, look, we're,
41:40
we're a pariah mostly in the western world, you know, which,
41:44
you know, with their economic sanctions regimes
41:46
and their heavy handed moralizing
41:48
and liberal values that they're trying
41:49
to impose on all of us.
41:51
But look at us, we've got like membership with the Russians
41:53
and the Chinese and the Indians in Pakistan,
41:55
like in whatever percent of the world's population
41:58
that SEO represents now, and whatever percentage of GDP,
42:02
and it, it, it, it kind of legitimizes them
42:04
and says, look, we are not alone in the world.
42:05
We have these partners.
42:07
And what that means, again, materially,
42:09
we've seen since they've joined, they've gotten not a lot
42:12
of support in their moment of need from Russia or China
42:16
or India, but it, it has created opportunities for them.
42:21
And I think there's more happening beneath the surface.
42:23
I I was at a conference
42:24
after we saw each other in, in Europe.
42:26
I went to another one in, in Iranian scholar,
42:29
an American Iranian scholar was researching what,
42:32
what Russia and China are doing with
42:34
Iran since the war started.
42:36
And it sounded much more significant than, than
42:39
what we're seeing in the media.
42:40
You know, a lot of Chinese machinery, industrial goods going
42:43
to Central Asia or, or Guar and Pakistan,
42:47
and then making their way to Iran to help support their,
42:50
their industrial power during the war.
42:52
And a lot of grains from Russia.
42:55
But I think joining Rx, you know, largely for Iran, that's
42:58
what this represented, was a chance
43:00
to show people at home and abroad.
43:02
Look, we do have friends.
43:03
We're not, we're not as isolated as we look.
43:05
And interestingly to me, there's always this narrative,
43:08
what kind of leverage does China have over Iran?
43:11
I flip it with the SEO
43:12
and Brix to say, this has created leverage
43:14
for Iran over China and the other SEO and Brix members,
43:18
because how are you going to get any other country
43:20
to join your organization if you throw existing
43:24
members under the bus?
43:26
And I think for Iran, this created a chance for them
43:28
to say like, you need me
43:29
because your two, you know,
43:31
international organizations are going to look pretty flimsy.
43:34
If you totally leave me hanging high
43:36
and dry for the Emiratis.
43:39
I think it's, it's different.
43:41
I think they are looking at
43:45
emerging markets, you know, the Emirates is,
43:48
is a very economically ambitious country,
43:50
despite their size.
43:52
They, they do so much with India.
43:53
India, the Indian population here is about
43:56
43% of the country.
43:58
Wow. Prime Minister Modi seems
44:01
to be here more than he's in Delhi.
44:03
And the investment, the trade, the energy relationship
44:06
with India is really significant.
44:09
What they've done with China has
44:10
also been pretty impressive.
44:11
What they do with Russia prior to their exit from opec.
44:16
I think OPEC was kind of the, the Russia angle
44:19
where they'd say, how can we, you know,
44:21
maintain energy markets by working with Russia
44:24
and our OPEC partners?
44:26
So I think the Emiratis looked at it as a chance just
44:28
to extend their influence
44:29
with some pretty significant emerging markets
44:32
and, and, and countries.
44:34
But I don't think it, it,
44:36
I think it also dilutes the utility again,
44:39
of this, you know, for bricks.
44:40
You can see moments when Russia
44:43
and China would like bricks to be an instrument to,
44:47
to chastise America.
44:49
Yeah. And there were points where this happened
44:50
and the Emiratis said, no, we're not signing onto that
44:52
because, you know, Americans are most important partner.
44:56
So yeah, I, I'm, I'm not sure that I read too much into
44:59
how those two organizations really have meaningful change,
45:03
particularly in the China Middle East space.
45:05
But, but it is a data point worth watching for sure.
45:08
Yeah. And just outta curiosity, do you have any insight?
45:11
I mean, presumably for the Saudis to get an invitation
45:13
to join, they must have expressed a little bit
45:15
of interest at some point.
45:17
Yeah. Right. So, you know, do you have a sense for
45:20
what made them perhaps pull back
45:21
or not, I guess ratify an agreement
45:24
or formally sign it sort of an interesting,
45:29
you know, issue.
45:31
I think around the time that they
45:34
didn't join was
45:36
around the time the Biden administration was working very
45:39
closely with the Saudis about a, a deeper
45:43
security relationship
45:45
that would've brought them into the Abraham Accords.
45:47
And that would've involved a, a significant level of support
45:50
for their artificial intelligence program
45:53
and their commercial domestic nuclear energy program.
45:58
And I think when you look at all of these incentives
46:00
that were on the table, probably the Saudis were reluctant
46:05
to, to dive with or jump with both feet into bricks
46:09
and create an extra layer of tension
46:11
with the American relay administration.
46:14
Fair enough. So I think the way,
46:17
without saying it explicitly, I feel as though the way
46:21
you've described the region and the US
46:23
and China is that this is a region
46:26
where there is strategic competition and the US
46:29
and China are competing.
46:30
And I think the us you know, having served a few years in,
46:33
in US government, I could say, I, I do think that
46:37
that was the perspective,
46:38
at least in the previous administration, that, you know,
46:42
again, and you talked a little bit about what was going on
46:45
with G 42 and the UAE, and,
46:47
and I think those are, those are important data points for
46:50
how the US is viewing things.
46:53
I mean, do you, is that
46:54
how you would characterize this from the
46:55
perspective of China?
46:57
Do you think China views this region as,
46:59
as being in competition with the United States or more?
47:03
I think in the way that you kind of set out initially
47:06
as just China wants to do business, right?
47:08
It wants to do business. It may have some greater strategic
47:11
diplomatic ambitions, you know, further down the line.
47:14
But for the moment, it wants what it wants,
47:16
it wants its energy, it wants, you know, it to, to be the,
47:20
the sort of provider of, of digital infrastructure
47:24
and clean tech, et cetera, you know, for the industries
47:27
of the 21st century.
47:29
But it doesn't really see itself as in competition
47:32
with the United States.
47:33
And, and if that's the case, do you think there's room
47:37
for some form of cooperation between the United States
47:40
and China, you know, and in some, in some issues.
47:43
And what would those issues be?
47:47
So in 23,
47:53
A, a China golf specialist, one
47:55
of the best golf specialists I know in China, came here
47:58
for a visit and we were having lunch.
48:01
And this again was kind of this peak hype period
48:03
where everybody's talking about China replacing the
48:05
US in the region.
48:07
And I said, you know, I'm being kind of provocative,
48:11
but I don't see you anywhere close
48:13
to peer status in this region with the us.
48:15
I think of China as a second tier actor,
48:18
and he was like, oh,
48:19
I would love it if we were at the second tier.
48:21
That's where the British and the French are.
48:23
We're at like the third tier.
48:24
You know, I think they, they have a more modest view
48:27
of their capacity here.
48:29
And I've seen this time and again, talking
48:31
to commercial actors, you know, arms, arms
48:33
or defense contractors and diplomats and journalists,
48:37
and they keep saying like, how does America see us
48:40
as a strategic competitor in this part of the world
48:43
where we are so far behind
48:44
and we're just kind of clawing our way up?
48:47
I don't, like I said a few minutes ago,
48:49
that's where we are now.
48:50
I don't think that's where we'll be, you know,
48:52
in 10 or 20 years.
48:54
But they're starting from a very, you know, say,
48:57
like I said earlier, starting in the, the first decade
49:00
of this century, starting to build a presence at a kind
49:04
of a nascent level and,
49:06
and, you know, making pretty significant significant gains
49:09
since, but nowhere near at the scope
49:13
or scale of what the US does here.
49:15
Now, you know, it only takes a few reckless decisions
49:20
by the US where that could start to change.
49:25
But it's not just about the US and China here, right?
49:28
Like, like I said, India's a major actor here.
49:32
We always say, you know,
49:33
China's the number one trading partner.
49:35
True. You know, India is usually number two.
49:37
Japan is usually number three. Korea's like top five.
49:40
What you see are a lot of America's Indo-Pacific partners
49:44
and allies also have pretty significant interests here.
49:47
And they also have pretty significant problems
49:49
with the way China does things.
49:51
So this could be a competitive environment,
49:53
but not just competing between the US and China,
49:56
but a whole host of actors.
49:59
And I think local actors also have a lot of say as well,
50:02
you know, like there was a really interesting think tank
50:04
report published here in Abu Dhabi two years ago.
50:08
The headline was something like, you know,
50:10
or the title rather was like, great power competition
50:12
and how should the, the UAE, which, which direction,
50:16
and I kind of rolled my eyes, went, oh,
50:17
another US China thing, but no, it was China, India.
50:21
And I thought, this is interesting.
50:23
And they're saying, look, India has matured defense
50:26
cooperation relationship with the us
50:29
India has very deep trade relations with us and,
50:32
and religious connections and family connections
50:34
and historical cultural, we know India really well.
50:37
We don't know China very well,
50:38
and India works with Australia who we like,
50:40
and they work with Japan who we like.
50:42
And China doesn't seem to have very many friends
50:44
that we do like or work well with.
50:46
So, you know, I think local actors will see China
50:49
and think transactional, we can do business
50:54
with these guys that can help us build a railroad,
50:56
they can help us with our digital economy, they can help us
50:59
with our renewable energy, get to net zero.
51:02
But I, I really don't think there's a whole lot
51:04
of trust here
51:06
and a whole lot of comfort Now that could change,
51:09
but, you know, the,
51:10
the Middle East expertise when I walk down a random street
51:13
in DC compared to the Middle East expertise when I walk
51:16
around Beijing aren't comparable.
51:18
And I, I know a handful
51:20
of Chinese speaker in the Arab world.
51:24
It's, it's really, really,
51:25
really at a low level at this point in time
51:28
that will change, but it will take a long time.
51:32
Okay. Fair enough. Lemme just finish up
51:33
with two, two questions.
51:35
First, something we, we haven't talked about, but,
51:38
and it was really a bigger issue, I think a few years ago,
51:41
and, and that's the issue of the lack of support
51:44
by countries in the Middle East for, you know,
51:47
the Uyghurs in Xinjiang
51:49
and that, you know,
51:50
countries seem just unwilling when the United States was
51:54
working with Europe and,
51:55
and other allies to sort of sort of, to try to push China
52:00
to, you know, lift to sort of, you know, move out
52:04
of the business of, of these, you know, labor
52:06
and reeducation camps in Xinjiang.
52:10
It's not a role that we're, we're playing really right now,
52:12
at least the Trump administration is not playing that role.
52:15
Well, Congress is still interested the fact that, you know,
52:18
the United States and, and Europe could muster, you know, 30
52:22
or 40 countries behind it
52:23
and, you know, a resolution in the UN
52:25
and China could muster 50 or 60 countries behind it,
52:29
and you didn't see, you know, again,
52:30
these Middle East countries standing up in, in any way is,
52:34
what is that a reflection of?
52:39
Yeah. The wedge issue that won't wedge.
52:42
And I've seen it's the us the Europeans, everybody has,
52:45
has brought this up with every official they can
52:49
and it just doesn't take hold.
52:51
And a lot of it, I think from the China side, you know, I,
52:54
I talked about core issues a few minutes ago,
52:57
and the core issues are almost all domestically focus as,
52:59
you know, things like Xinjiang and Tibet and,
53:02
and you know, Taiwan want Hong Kong, whatever, if you
53:07
brush up against one of those core interests, you're going
53:09
to get the sharp end of the Chinese
53:11
economic statecraft stick.
53:12
Like, you know, like the Norwegians,
53:14
when the Oia bo won the Nobel Peace Prize
53:16
and suddenly there's salmon just rotted on the docks.
53:19
And when China, sorry,
53:20
when South Korea brought the fad missile defense system,
53:23
and suddenly there was an unofficial and tourism dropped
53:27
and they, they got like, you know, not sanctioned,
53:31
but they, they felt the, the, the, the pitch.
53:33
And I think everybody knows if you take a position on
53:37
something that brushes up against China's core interests,
53:39
then, then you can expect that.
53:41
And for local countries
53:42
that have these dense economic relations with China,
53:46
there's a reluctance to do that
53:48
because the issue doesn't resonate here.
53:51
And one reason why the issue doesn't resonate is
53:53
because almost all
53:55
media is state owned across this part of the world.
53:59
And it's not something that you'll find
54:01
most publics know much about.
54:04
If they do hear about it, they'll say, oh, that's,
54:07
that's just the west trying
54:08
to make China look bad the same way they tried
54:10
to make us look bad after nine 11.
54:13
You, you won't see it represented in local media ever.
54:18
And part of it is local geopolitics.
54:19
So there was, if you,
54:21
if you remember the Khashoggi affair back in, in 2018, yes.
54:25
That represented kind of a, a bigger competition
54:30
between Turkey and Saudi
54:31
and the UAE for, you know, kind of dominance
54:34
of the Sumi Muslim world,
54:36
which country is the rightful leader of the segment
54:39
of the Muslim world.
54:41
And it was a very bitter competition.
54:44
And countries
54:47
who were aligned against Turkey against Erdogan
54:51
would use this issue and say, look,
54:52
you're always going on about the Uyghurs.
54:54
The Uyghurs are Turkic people. They're ethnically Turkic.
54:57
This is his issue. Why isn't he doing anything?
54:59
You know, if you wanna blame someone, blame him.
55:01
So there were a lot of smaller factors that would kind
55:04
of create an, you know, combine to make this an issue
55:07
that just doesn't really take root here the way
55:10
that people would expect.
55:13
But the bigger one, I think just at a,
55:14
at a broader scale is just that one of Arab
55:19
deep frustration with
55:20
how they've been represented in western media
55:23
and western narratives.
55:24
Over the past 30, 40, 50 years.
55:28
And when they see Western media talk about another other,
55:33
they're very skeptical.
55:35
Yeah. So, yeah, it doesn't really take hold.
55:38
Okay, fair enough. And then last, I, I always like to ask,
55:43
you know, what, if anything, if you were sitting
55:47
with President Trump, you know, let's put aside Iran,
55:52
what, what might you recommend to him in terms
55:55
of thinking about, again, China's role in the region,
55:58
where it stands now, where it seems to wanna go,
56:01
how should the US be positioning itself, maybe not just
56:05
for this moment, but for the future, differently perhaps,
56:08
than what it's doing right now?
56:11
Yeah. So it's unusual at this moment that, you know,
56:16
we aren't hearing the strategic competition
56:18
or great power competition framework being used by, at least
56:22
by the president, the way that it was used in the,
56:25
the previous administrations.
56:28
And that creates an opportunity, I think,
56:29
'cause to the, your point,
56:31
which I didn't address in the last question, like about
56:34
how do us and Chinese interests in this part
56:37
of the world either bump up against each other, or,
56:39
or, or, or align.
56:41
I mean, in most regions in the world, you can look at
56:44
as purely competitive, you know, say in Asia writ large
56:49
or in, in Latin America or Europe.
56:51
You can see how China's interests really aren't,
56:54
are not very compatible with America's interests here.
56:58
If you break down America's main interest in this part
57:00
of the world, I would say it's, you know,
57:04
keeping maritime shipping lanes open, Israeli security,
57:09
getting energy to global markets,
57:11
I think would be America's three core
57:13
interests in this part of the world.
57:15
And other than Israeli security,
57:17
which China doesn't concern itself with, with very much,
57:20
I'd say the other two, they, they line up pretty neatly.
57:23
And you can see areas where I remember talking
57:25
to somebody in the state department, either late Trump
57:29
or early Biden,
57:31
and I, I said, you know, there's, there's room
57:33
for cooperation.
57:34
And we were trying pre COVID to set up this dialogue
57:37
between American and Chinese Middle East experts,
57:40
where we bring them together every six months at different
57:43
capital cities across the region just to kind
57:45
of create dialogues about areas of, of shared interests
57:50
to create a more positive, and of course, COVID happened
57:53
and that, that project died on the vine.
57:56
But my, my state department friend said, you know,
58:00
don't use the word cooperate,
58:01
but maybe use the word coordinate.
58:03
And you could see areas where coordination on certain issues
58:07
would be very beneficial to both, to both countries.
58:11
And whether that's maritime security issues
58:13
or whether it's how to support local development agendas.
58:17
You see very different approaches to how the US
58:21
and China operate in, in these spaces.
58:24
But the end goal looks remarkably similar.
58:27
So you could see how there might be opportunities
58:30
to look at these, these different regional policy plans
58:33
and think, how could we,
58:36
how could we coordinate our agendas in a way
58:38
that we don't have to necessarily compete here?
58:40
Because I think local actors benefit always, you know,
58:45
when there's great power competition, they can play,
58:47
play them off each other.
58:49
But I think they also feel this region has had
58:51
an up of competition.
58:52
They would like some stability.
58:54
They would like to create a functional region where,
58:57
where supply chains flow easily across countries rather than
59:01
having a very, you know, fractured region of, of,
59:03
of competing interests and security nightmares.
59:07
And I think great powers can contribute
59:09
to helping them achieve that.
59:11
And it doesn't necessarily have to be a zero sum game.
59:15
I think that is a topic worth exploring further, for sure.
59:21
But we are out of time today,
59:23
and I wanna just thank you so much for taking the time out
59:27
of your really busy schedule
59:30
and with such a time difference between Abu Dhabi and,
59:33
and New York, and sharing your really incredible
59:38
expertise with us.
59:40
Again, it's such a, a really timely
59:42
moment. It's been terrific.
59:45
Oh, thanks Liz. It's been a lot of fun.
59:47
So if you enjoyed this podcast
59:49
and want to hear more recent discourse
59:50
and debate on China, I encourage you to subscribe
59:53
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59:55
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