The two major regional Islamic powers of the Middle East, Saudi Arabia and Iran have established with the direction and guidance of China a new agreement that will restore full diplomatic, economic and security relations between both countries, a diplomatic move that asserts China´s rise of influence in the region and eases the regional tensions, rebalancing the power in the region which has increasingly become more unstable with the departure of the US.
The new agreement made by China with Iran and Saudi Arabia further solidifies the rise of power of China in the region and the ruling era of Mr. Xi as the leader of the Chinese Peoples Republic while representing a major paradigm shift in the balance of power in the Middle East.
It further advances the Beijing´s Global Security Initiative Plan in the region, managing to put successfully both Russia and the US in second plan and advancing simultaneously its international relations and security policy plan drawn.
This plan, drawn out by Mr Xi in the previous year that represents an alternative to the liberal US-led world order, is key effort in the process of applying “Chinese solutions and wisdom” to the worlds security challenges and making China the global leader.
Ultimately, the initiative, which reprises Mao-era leadership language regarding the promotion of “peaceful coexistence” calls for a clear alternative paradigm in which global power is distributed in a more balanced manner. In other words, a multilateral world order where the global south and the east have more power than the Western US liberal order and where China has a leadership role, ultimately rejecting “unilateralism, bloc confrontation and hegemonism”.
Multiple sources have pointed out that this strategically important agreement seems to have been moved forward during President Ebrahim Raisi visit to Beijing in the previous month and it should also be considered that for the past months the fact that Saudi Arabia has put pressure on Iran through its reported support for Iran International, a foreign media outlet spoken in Persian which is critical of Iran´s government.
In addition, the main reason why Iran has decided to open up to this agreement with Saudi Arabia and China as a mediator is connected to the fact that it needs to strategically ease its regional tensions and isolationism, with the agreement opening the possibility of Tehran being capable of becoming less isolated while also creating a channel of communication through Riyadh with Israel.
This is further proven by the fact that ever since President Raisi took office in August 2021, the Iranian government has announced has one of its most critical goals in the region to be achieved with high priority, the initiation of a new diplomatic peaceful process with its regional Muslim neighbours.
With the agenda focusing mainly on improving its relationship with Saudi Arabia, which historically the Islamic Republic has had- and still has- a series of structural and strategic differences throughout the region that have been expressed often through proxy warfare launched at each other from Lebanon and Syria to Yemen.
However, in order to fully comprehend the strategic significance of such an agreement for China and the region as well as the strategic effect it has on the US, one must understand China´s strategic plan and its geo-political interests in the region.
The Middle East has direct and indirect effects in the balance of power on a world level, due to it being a region of high importance for energy security as well as being the centre of the Islamic world and a region where multiple commercial routes pass that are critical for China´s economy and the worlds stability.
These three reasons alone make it a central region to have power and influence on if a super-power wishes to gain influence not only on the world economy but on the geo-political affairs of our globalized age.
Ultimately, with the slow and increasing retreat of power from the US from the region after it being the primary promotor of geopolitical resolutions of power for region as well as the super-power that for a long time guaranteed the security of the oil supplies, China has for the last year’s increasingly reached for diplomatic deals and has become one of the most important energy partners of the region.
Consequently, the Gulf Cooperation Council Countries has been in the past years at the forefront of Beijing’s foreign policy priorities as the CCP ultimately has one of its main geopolitical interests the plan to bolster its energy security, accelerate its economic growth and deepen its ties with the Gulf Nations in a way that ultimately substitutes in the long term the position the US has had in the region.
It should be taken into account as well that a major geo-strategic step in the grand strategy of China for the region that ultimately also plays a central role in its great-power politics agenda is to deepen its economic and political ties with the Gulf nations through a series of infrastructure buildings and telecommunications developments, both of which are critical domains for China´s ambitious Belt and Road Initiative (BRI).
Through its strategic investments in critical sectors of the GCC countries, as well as its deals with Saudi Arabia and its historical commercial energy deals with Iran, China has managed to become the world’s biggest economic partner of the regions biggest oil producers, with the aim of in the next decade extending its existing presence in the region.
As a result of China being highly dependent for the continued growth of its industrial power on oil, its trade volume with Iran and Saudi Arabia as increased over the years in significant manner and China has become the regions biggest investor as well as the GCC leading trading partner.
On the other hand, China´s trade reflects its already mentioned strategic dependence on the region for energy security, with Beijing the region being its biggest oil and gas supplier, and with China having imported 176 billion of crude oil from the region, with such amount accounting for close to half of the region’s official imports, most of which are from Saudi Arabia.
China was thus well placed economically to engage both sides since Iran is highly dependant on its trade with China as well, representing a total of 30 per cent of Iran´s international trade.
There is however a distinctive feature that make´s China a distinctive player from other powers in the region which is that fact that unlike the polarizing and militaristic attitude of the US in the region, Beijing has managed to effectively establish stable diplomatic ties with the various states of the region, in a diplomatically smooth fashion, by focusing on a non-interventionist attitude that ultimately focuses on a win-win understanding.
This is precisely what China sought to create while building its power and influence as a mediator a regional leader through its new treaty with Saudi Arabia and Iran, and in sum with such the treaty it must be understood that its already established relationship with other Gulf states have shown that Beijing is highly determined to forge comprehensive strategic partnerships with the main geopolitical powers in the region.
Although Beijing has still a long way from fully dislodging Washingtons influence in the region, it has successfully bolstered its diplomatic image and simultaneously weakened the image of US as a power in the region, consolidating its relationship with Saudi Arabia.
This treaty comes also in a wave of strategically positive decisions taken by regional states for China, that have a bad effect for US power in the region, since both the GCC and the Saudi crown decided recently to engage in trade in other currencies other than the dollar, with the addition that the Gulf states have also had multiple disagreements with the Biden administration over the OPEC´s decision to cut oil production, which has also had the effect of bringing the GCC states to seek closer relations with China.
Consequently, one must understand that under the current geo-political power balance in the region, strategically speaking the US government has a seriously limited set of options to take, with the additional important fact that needs to be considered that the US could not have managed to establish such an agreement due to its lack of contact with the Iranian regime.
This reality of limited options for the US further became solidified with the departure of former Iraqi prime minister Mustafa al-Kadhimi´s from office in October 2022, ending any possibility of an agreement with both regional powers with the indirect support of the US through Bagdad taking place.
In addition, the gradual retreat of the US from the region under the previous and the present presidential administration has left a strategic scenario in the region that has benefited the US adversaries in the region rather than weakening them.
It´s necessary to comprehend the fact that Saudi Arabia, while doing this agreement, entirely excluded the United States, sending the clear message that the Saudis are seeking to diversify their bets on security and that the Saudi crown does not rely anymore wholly on the US to assure the stability needed in the region.
Ultimately, it should be also understood that the US is of two simultaneous positions regarding the whole situation with Saudi Arabia, firstly it wants the Saudi state to take increasing responsibility for their own security, but does not want Saudi Arabia freelancing and undermining US security strategies.
On the other hand, from the point of view of the Saudi crown, it seems that the Saudi state has structured these negotiations in a way that purposively left Washington excluded from possibly entering any future negotiations with the clear intention of becoming more independent from US influence.
It seems however also that Riyadh is playing a diplomatic game of manipulation with the US by having let officials from its government leak to the Wall Street Journal that the Saudi government is open to negotiate a diplomatic normalization with Israel if the US would provide strategic help to the Saudi state in giving Saudi Arabia a greater security guarantee and help the Saudi government build its nuclear energy program.
Saudi Arabia still wary of Iran and thus seeks to maximise all its strategic chances at gaining a strategic advantage on Iran. Its ultimate message is that it will not be passive in regional diplomacy and if necessary, it will take its own measure of how to balance its interests, being highly sceptic of a peaceful arrangement with the Iranian state that will last very long, since it is aware of the well ingrained hostility towards its existence by the Iranian leadership.
Consequently, both Iran and Saudi Arabia are aware that of each other’s mutual hostility and that their regional rivalry will inevitably continue, but they still believe that more direct channels of communication will serve their interests.
It should be understood however that regarding Saudi Arabia, it is still from a strategic analysis perspective somewhat early to fully judge whether the rapprochement between Saudi Arabia and Iran will have any long-term durability or serious depth, although it is important simultaneously to take these developments within the context that such deliberations have taken place alongside the deliberations between Israel and Saudi Arabia.
What this ultimately means is that the Saudis have consistently played an opportunistic game in their diplomatic relations at every chance, with the Saudi Crown contending with rising tensions at home, waning influence in the Muslim world, and its increasingly tense relationship with the US.
Neither the US nor more importantly Israel will demur their efforts in the long term of improving their relationship with the Saudi´s as a result of this agreement and the Saudi government is also aware of this.
Saudi Arabia´s hefty new demands have not yet had a response from the US government, with Washington having thus far offered no diplomatic signs that it is willing to meet a price tag this high without significant changes form Saudi Arabia and the Saudis are aware of this.
Ultimately, the Saudis are playing several hands at the same time with the agreement with Iran helping them get further closer to China and bolstering its image in the Islamic world, with this agreement reinforcing Riyadh position and making it closer to the ultimate goal of becoming the cultural, religious and political leader of the Middle East in a post-US age.
In order to regain a greater position of power in the region that might in the long term neutralise the rise of China in the region, Washington must create a new diplomatic and security effort that creates a stronger bond with Saudi Arabia and the Gulf monarchies, it must however do this within its current capabilities and perhaps a less interventionist approach would be the more convenient strategic diplomatic option at least in the short to medium term.
However, inevitably, it will have to chart up a new security effort for the region, even it is one where its role is not as great as before given the fact that its resources must be focused in the pacific and eastern Europe given the war in Ukraine.
Simultaneously, opening a new communication channel with Iran for negotiations regarding the nuclear deal, perhaps through a diplomatic channel in Iraq, would be an option that could in the very least on the medium term make Washington gain more influence in the decision-making process of the Iranian regime while balancing off to certain degree the rise of China.
In conclusion, the diplomatic image of the US gets weakened as result of this agreement and Washington has now the strategic challenge of having to rebuild its influence in the region while simultaneously stop the ongoing rise of power of China in the region.
It´s imperative to be understood that if the US fails to do so China will simply fill the vacuum of power the US as left and use its new energy and political influence in the region to ultimately undermine US economic, energy power and national security.
By The European Institute for International Law and International Relations.
