My diary at the weekend,
Saudi's got a New Best Friend - China!, was a tongue in cheek glimpse of Saudi Arabia's ecstatic welcome of Hu Jintao and its blossoming romance with China. Today we'll look at the deadly serious outcomes of Hu's charm offensive and the practical implications for the Middle East, Africa, Israel and for Americans.
China is racking up bilateral agreements for supply of the minerals, energy and markets China needs to sustain its rapid development. China's sales pitch is security and stability for ruling elites and prosperity for local populations. America demands democratic regime change and threatens war, overthrow and embargoes unless its corporate kleptocrats are given free reign to exploit natural resources.
Americans can hold the moral high ground and say that China doesn't care about human rights or civil rights. That is true, but our performance in Iraq makes our hypocrisy transparent. Americans will find the high ground increasingly cold and dark if we're denied energy for heat and light, so we need to be at least objective in assessing our situation.
Political Stability and Resource Security:
The most critical outcomes from Hu Jintao's visit to Saudi include:
- Saudi commitment to increase oil exports to China by 37 percent;
- A strategic oil reserve of Saudi oil in China;
- China's assumption of a key role in mediating peace and security in the Middle East and South Asia;
- A defense and security agreement that pledges Chinese weaponry and technology to defend Saudi in exchange for energy security;
- Extensive investment plans for Saudi/Chinese joint infrastructure in oil refineries, petrochemicals and other ventures of mutual interest.
Agreements on similar themes will be signed in Morocco (ports), Nigeria (natural gas and oil) and Kenya (minerals) as Hu pursues his global charm offensive. These agreements come on top of existing agreements and joint investments in infrastructure throughout Asia, Latin America and Central America.
China is explicitly offering support for ruling elites in exchange for resource security and market access. Part of the package for Nigeria, Sudan and Iran seems to be shielding them from international criticism or sanctions. It is an attractive proposition, especially when China shares the profits with its partners through joint ventures and co-development deals more generously than tax-shy Western corporations ever did. This model has already paid off handsomely in South America where it has contributed to the pro-Chinese sentiment in Brazil and Venezuela in recent years with massive infrastructure and co-development investments.
The GOP right already fears China's Global Strategy of of win-win investment and stability:
In Latin America, Cuba, Venezuela, Chile, Bolivia, Brazil, Argentina, Columbia and Panama are receiving instructions from Beijing on a regular basis. Recognizing an opportunity for a permanent base of influence and operations in the Western Hemisphere, China has stepped into the void left by the Soviet Union's collapse to create a new, multi-faceted communist umbrella, using defense, trade and energy agreements as ammunition. Recent elections in Bolivia, Peru and Chile have resurrected fears in the U.S. of a socialist, pro-China continent devoid of economic pragmatism and resentful of U.S.-led free trade initiatives and long-held security alliances. . . .
In resource-rich Africa, Nigeria, Sudan, Angola, Algeria, Ethiopia, Zimbabwe and South Africa, have worked with Beijing in the areas of defense, trade, minerals and energy development. China has gained several strong allies on the continent by supporting known dictators like Zimbabwe's President Robert Mugabe and Sudan's Omar al-Bashir; providing the economic, intelligence and military means for both leaders to remain in power.
In the volatile Middle East, Kuwait, Saudi Arabia and Iran have become close energy partners with Beijing. In December, Kuwait, an important regional U.S. ally, signed a multi-billion dollar energy agreement with China to invest in the country's refinery and petrochemical infrastructure. At approximately the same time, Beijing began high-level discussions with OPEC to secure energy supplies from the organization's suppliers. Another U.S. ally, Saudi Prince Abdullah, visited China in January and signed several bilateral agreements to assist China in the development of its strategic reserves and refinery capacity.
There seems little that the USA can do to counter China's charm offensive so long as Americans are discredited by their close association with wars of aggression, phoney intelligence, torture and death squads on the political front, and decades of resource exploitation, labour oppression and economic injustice on the social front. Forced to choose between the USA and China one might reasonably argue that at least China offers the hope of stability with its exploitation.
China as Peacemaker:
The most dramatic statement Hu made in Saudi was his commitment to engage in resolving the open sore of Palestine as the key to ensuring stability in the Middle East.
Hu as a peacemaker:
"The Middle East is a vital region in the world and there will be no achievements and development in the world without a stable Middle East," Hu said in the translated comments.
"China is ready to work with Saudi Arabia and other Arab countries to strengthen peace and development in the Middle East and to build a world of peace, stability and prosperity," he told Saudi Arabia's Shura council, an unelected legislature.
Exhausted by the intractable disputes in Palestine and terrified by the instability and destruction they observe in Afghanistan and Iraq, many intelligent Arabs and Muslims are welcoming China's new willingness to address regional concerns.
We should be worried, and so should Israel. If China is as pragmatic in its international peacemaking as it is in its development strategy, we are unlikely to like the result. A little genocide and a lot of repression seems like a reasonable trade-off for peace and stability going by past Chinese policies.
Would China care about genocide of Jews in Israel more than it cares about the genocide of minority tribes in Darfur or Nigeria or Indonesia? If I were Israel, I wouldn't bet on it. If Israel were interfering with China's energy or financial security - or threatening to - then China would be very likely take the side of those nations holding their oil supplies and their infrastructure investments. Perhaps this is what Israel and the USA really fear about Chinese coziness with Iran.
And if Israel were weakened, and other nations turn away from alliances with the United States, how would the US assert its waning authority? Where would we base our fleets and our warplanes? Would we have to behave ourselves to get along with the new power structure, much as Britain has done for the past 60 years?
There may be domestic political repercussions in the USA too. If the trade off of security and comfort for civil and human rights becomes the norm in Latin America, the Middle East and Asia, how long will it be before it is embraced in the USA? Already in the past five years we have seen our countrymen happily trade the Constitution for the illusion of security.
Hu's travels and China's growing influence on the global stage have many implications. I can't know all of them right now, but what I see worries me.