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Journalism of Courage
China’s big geopolitical card in West Asia, the Saudi-Iran detente announced last week, is an ambitious new gambit that seeks to secure long-term economic interests as well as lay the foundations for political influence in the region, to rival the role that the United States has traditionally played.
Scene setter for Xi’s third term
The March 9 announcement of the deal came when the National People’s Congress, the Chinese parliament, was in session. As expected, the session confirmed President Xi Jinping’s third term. The Iran-Saudi deal appeared to usher in with a bang Xi’s new 24-character slogan for China: Be calm, be determined; seek progress and stability; be proactive and go for achievements; united under the Communist Party; dare to fight.
China was clearly “proactive” in pursuing an “achievement” in a region dominated by US influence. Unlike the Palestinian issue, the Saudi-Iran conflict is not an intractable problem. Beijing, new to international peace-making, sensed what observers have described as a “low risk, high impact” opportunity to establish its diplomatic and political credentials in West Asia, a region where it has high economic stakes.
The two countries severed ties in 2016 after mobs stormed the Saudi embassy in Tehran, in revenge against the execution of a prominent Saudi Shia cleric and political dissident, Sheikh Nimr.
From 2014, the two countries had been at each other’s throats in a proxy war in Yemen, where Iran is backing the Houthi rebels, and the Saudis lead a coalition of Gulf states backed by the US. A UN-negotiated truce came into effect in April 2022, and the fighting has not resumed even after the six-month ceasefire lapsed last October.
No one believes this deal will end all differences between the Sunni monarchy and Shia republic. The modest hope is that the deal sealed in Beijing may lead to a lasting peace in Yemen, and also end proxy Saudi-Iran hostilities in Lebanon, Syria and elsewhere in the region.
It is significant that China is also a signatory to the deal, called “joint trilateral statement”, projecting itself almost as a guarantor of the terms: resumption of diplomatic relations and reopening embassies and missions within two months; respect for the sovereignty of states and the non-interference in internal affairs of states; agreement to implement the Security Cooperation Agreement of April 2001, and the May 1998 General Agreement for Cooperation in the Fields of Economy, Trade, Investment, Technology, Science, Culture, Sports, and Youth.
The Saudi-Iran pact shakes up the region by driving a wedge into the Arab-Israeli alliance that came about as a result of the Trump Administration-brokered Abrahamic Accords.
Last year’s Saudi-Russia agreement in OPEC to cut back oil production to keep prices high, and Russia’s outreach to Iran to buy drones equipped with long-range missiles may now develop into a four-way alignment.
As Xi heads to Moscow likely next week for a meeting with President Vladimir Putin, there is speculation if he will attempt to make peace in Europe, even though that is hardly in China’s interests. The state-owned Global Times noted cryptically that “the fact that China can be a peacemaker reflects the kind of peace that more countries around the world are looking for”.
Made in four months
China’s role is said to have begun in December 2022, during Xi’s visit to Riyadh, where the Saudis requested Beijing’s facilitation, frustrated that five rounds of talks hosted by Baghdad since 2021 and attempts by Oman had reached a dead end. In February 2023, Iranian Prime Minister Ebrahim Raisi visited China and met Xi. The negotiations that began after this culminated in the signing on March 9.
Both Saudi and Iran had compelling reasons to normalise relations.
For Saudi, the frosty relations with the Biden Administration; the absence of American security guarantees against Iran as made clear by the Trump administration after the Houthis successfully targeted its oil facilities in 2019; and China’s rising profile in West Asia at a time of lowering American engagement in the region.
For Iran, which signed a long-term strategic agreement with China in 2021, the isolation that came with the nuclear sanctions; more importantly, the coming together of archenemy Israel with the UAE and Bahrain in the Abrahamic accords with the apparent silent support of the Saudis; plus its own domestic difficulties with the uprising of women against hijab rules. Last August, Iran normalised relations with UAE and Kuwait. Saudi was the next step.\
World’s response
The US welcomed the agreement immediately despite its confrontational relations with China, saying if it brought lasting peace, it did not matter who brokered it. At the same time, it sought to play down the assessment of diminished US influence in the region. Sections of the US establishment are betting that this pact of “three autocracies” will fail. Saudi’s deal for 121 Boeing aircraft earlier this week, an apparent balancing act with the US, has also brought cheer in Washington.
In Israel, the deal was a clear setback for Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu’s foreign policy. He claimed credit for the 2020 Abrahamic Accords, and projected himself as the only Israeli leader who could bring together an Arab-Israeli coalition against Iran. The new pact has heightened Netanyahu’s domestic political troubles, with opposition leaders blaming his ultra far-right government for alienating Arab friends.
The Israeli PM was to visit the UAE in January soon after taking office, but the trip was cancelled amidst rising tensions over his government’s plans to expand settlements in the West Bank, and a cabinet minister’s tension-provoking visit to the Al Aqsa complex. Last week, the UAE welcomed the Saudi-Iran pact as “an important step in the region towards stability and prosperity”.
India’s week-long silence
Delhi, taken aback at China’s new avatar like the rest of the world, took a week to break its silence on the deal brokered by its principal adversary in a region where it has invested much diplomatic energy over the last decade. “We have seen the reports regarding this. India has good relations with various countries in West Asia and we have abiding interests in the region,” MEA spokesman Arindam Bagchi said in response to a question at the weekly briefing on Thursday. And in what could be read as a message to China on the LAC problems, he added: “India has always advocated dialogue and diplomacy to resolve differences”.
China’s big-ticket diplomacy in the region is sure to impact the I2U2 (Israel-India-UAE-US) grouping. It calls for India to work on its ties to the region independently of the US (for instance with Iran), and in ways that project its civilisational and cultural links and the positive contributions of the Indian diaspora.
