Bringing China into the Middle East

Speaking last week at the Middle East Institute, Ken Pollack of the Brookings Institution surprised me by saying that the United States ought to invite China into the Middle East -- from Iran to Iraq to the Arab-Israeli conflict.

It wasn't what I expected from Pollack. He was speaking about his new book, A Path Out of the Desert: A Grand Strategy for America in the Middle East, a rather grandiosely titled tome whose principal focus is the need for political, economic, and social reform in the region. It was Pollack's earlier (2002) book which earned him the enmity of the liberal-left. It was called The Threatening Storm : The Case for Invading Iraq, and it probably did more to rally the liberal interventionists and Democratic hawks in support of President Bush than any other effort.

Well, Pollack hasn't reformed, though he did make some ironic references to the subtitle of his earlier book. But when I asked him about the role of China, and whether China could help rebuild and stabilize the region, he agreed. Not only should the United States ask China to get involved in the Persian Gulf, but the rather dysfunctional Quartet (the US, the EU, the UN, and Russia) set up to deal with the Arab-Israeli conflict should become a Qunitet, including China.

"The rise of China is the preeminent issue," he said. "China is really the big issue. ... They are fixated on the Middle East. And the Chinese are the rock stars of the Middle East."

"China has exactly the same interests as the United States in the Middle East," he said, citing primarily the need for the sustained flow of oil at reasonable prices. During his recent trip to China, said Pollack, he heard from many senior officials and analysts there the same thing: "We are terrified of the Middle East." The Chinese, said Pollack, see the Middle East as "the graveyard for great powers," having watched first Russia disintegrate in part because of Afghanistan and then the United States bog down in Iraq.

"You've got to let them in," he said. "You've got to make them our partner."

Now, the Chinese aren't dumb, and neither is Pollack. China already has good relations with Iran, and Iran counts on China as a potential friend and ally in its looming showdown with the West. China is also building close economic ties with Iraq, and it recently signed a $3 billion oil deal with Baghdad that could be worth $55 billion in petroleum supplies. And China is deeply involved in Saudi Arabia, too, where thousands of Chinese workers are helping to build an entire new city there. The industrial future of China will be fueled by Middle East oil.

But in contrast to some neoconservative analysts, who seem eager for a showdown with China over the region (and who probably intended the invasion of Iraq in 2003 to be a triumphant coup against China, which had oil deals in place with Saddam Hussein), Pollack gets credit for suggesting that rather than use our sharp military elbows to keep China out, we need to invite them in.

I asked Pollack if his view about inviting China into the region (rather than keeping them out) was widely shared among the American establishment, and he said that it wasn't. "But when I talk about it, they nod their heads." We'll see.

Comments (11)

1. Wonder how long the neo-cons would last, if al-Maliki "our democratically-elected guy in Baghdad" ...cut a deal with Chinese oil interests over OUR oil interests...

   before they'd call for a new invasion???

   Posted by Maskdelta at 09/15/2008 @ 1:59pm

2. >>>"China has exactly the same interests as the United States in the Middle East," he said, citing primarily the need for the sustained flow of oil at reasonable prices.<<<

   This has always been a myth.

   The US gets the VAST MAJORITY of its oil from Mexico and Venezuela.

   The only reason the US has an interest in Middle East oil is that this oil is used in much of Europe adn the US has traditionally played the cop role in securing that flow of oil for them. Also, many American oil companies have financial interests in the Mideast region, and US foreign policy has been perverted so that protecting the financial interests of American companies appear to be "primary" considerations.

   Posted by Metteyya at 09/15/2008 @ 2:00pm

3. In an increasingly globalized world you will see more and more need for symbolic actions to create an image of bilateralism. The reason the US is disliked around the world right now is because we are acting like the stereotypical cowboys.

   Posted by Cccomfo1 at 09/15/2008 @ 2:40pm

4. kudoos to Mettyya! we also get quite a bit of our oil from destabilized countries in africa(nigeria to name one). most of the oil from the oil sands in canada makes its way to the u.s.. the problem isn't that we are policing the world. the problem is that multi-nationals are so intertwined that there is no such a thing as the american brand. if you think that there is anything left in america that is truely american in nature you are very naive. the true owners of nations are the monied people, and they have no national intrests other than the pursuit of capital and how it can be exploited and manipulated for personel gain.

   Posted by jbone1976 at 09/15/2008 @ 2:48pm

5. I disagree with jbone1976. I've always argued that it was control over the Middle East's oil that the U.S. elite wanted, the better to hold their capitalist competitors in Europe, China and - oh yeah, remember them? - Japan by the short and curlies. We've see the same national competition in Central Asia and Africa over energy and other resources.

   The multinational corporation has still not replaced the nation state as the pre-eminent way of organizing the world and its economy. Even if Europe is moving in that direction (with much of the public being dragged along kicking and screaming), that doesn't mean the German and French bourgoisies, for example, aren't very aware of their OWN unique interests (Germany in the Balkans and France in Central Africa, for instance).

   Posted by cka2nd at 09/15/2008 @ 5:38pm

6. Noticeable absence of the right-wingers on this thread...

   wonder why????

   Posted by Maskdelta at 09/15/2008 @ 7:57pm

7. I'm not a right-winger, but I see both the potential and the danger in inviting China in. However, any role they will take on will be primarily economic. China has had ample cause to intervene militarily in both the India-Pakistan conflict (mainly because of their Tibetan interests) and also the various instabilities affecting Central Asia, yet wisely they keep their sizeable military at home. I occasionally wonder if they learned their own lessons from the VietNam and Korean conflicts, and have determined that the power of the yuan is stronger than the power of the bullet.

   Posted by yutsano at 09/16/2008 @ 12:46am

8. <i>Posted by Metteyya at 09/15/2008 @ 2:00pm </i>

   I mean, this isn't ENTIRELY accurate. One, we obviously have an interest in the Middle East because Israel's there (and yes, go ahead and insert "AIPAC flunky!" point here; it doesn't work); clearly Israel continuing to exist and so on=good. Secondly, and more to the point, a fair amount of our oil DOES come from the Middle East (and this is important not just for companies but for anyone who drives a car or depends on anything linked to the price of oil). That's why OPEC's actions in the 70s hurt us, and that's why deals with some Middle Eastern countries to manipulate the oil market affected the Soviet Union.

   Posted by Thrawn at 09/16/2008 @ 09:38am

9. I don't think the Chinese would be interested becoming involved in the internal political affairs of other countries. They are not interventionists and do not seek to physically own other countries. They will seek to recover any territory they regard as Chinese, but they are not interested in overt Imperialism. Because Western business interests were interested in cheap labor, they have become the host country for "Chinese" economic Imperialism. The previous host countries were the larger European Western powers and the U.S., but the rising wages in the former host countries have taken these business interests to China for cheap labor. However, there is an Islamic population in China who think because Russia has cut loose some Islamic countries from the former Soviet Union, they can separate from China. China is not Russia, and Chinese territory will remain Chinese. If terrorists threaten their territorial integrity, they will ruthlessly go after them. However, Western business interest better watch their wallets, the Chinese are wired for the business world.

   Posted by P. J. Casey at 09/16/2008 @ 1:34pm

10. I would really like to throw some stones into this pond:

    Wow try to lure China into the Middle East Conflict with the promise fair sharing of it's oil. Time to allow China to joint the world's big boys' club in the Middle East, isn't it? To the right wing or left wing of the West, do not worry your pretty heads off. I believe China is too smart to take the bait. If China want the Middle Eastern oil, they go ask and buy from the people of the land via mutual agreement. Not by military force.

    Their foreign policy has been and will be "non invasion, non interferance other country's..." And if the West feel really short on it's army men, want to use the Chinese men in the Middle Eastern battles, I believe Chinese men are sold only in two available forms: either as cheap labors or as businessmen. Never sale their men in armed force brand. The only times China use her army is when the nation (China) is in natural disaster, like the Sichuan earthquake or the Souther China floods, or when China is threaten by foreign invasion (during Korean and Vietnam wars,) or when the country is threatened by separatists ( when CIA in Tibet 60s - 70s, Tibet riot in March, Xinjiang bombing recently,) or when her border territories are raided by the neighbor countries (like with Vietnam during the post the Vietnam war period.)

    China will never send her men into any foreign country to change it's political regime. Only the people of the land have the rights to change their government, not the Chinese government.

    Posted by ricecake at 09/16/2008 @ 9:06pm

11. So Ken Pollack is a multilateralist, after all! Well, well, well. Two cheers for him!

    On the other hand, inviting China to participate in one's hawkishly liberal military re-formation of the rest of the world seems a little counter-productive, doesn't it? Especially when one considers that Pollack's original "Case for invading Iraq" strongly implied that we ought to have been promoting DEMOCRACY in Iraq, not merely seizing control of oil wells and then inviting the world's biggest one-party dictatorship to help with their supervision.

    Let's take one of those cheers back.

    And Pollack's candor regarding oil as the real motive for war was pre-empted by Alan Greenspan's bald-faced admission over a year ago. So our remaining cheer should really go to Greenspan.

    How does Pollack feel about the fact that the invasion he favored has now led us to the "necessity" of sharing control of Iraq with China? Duly ashamed of himself, I should think.

    Posted by JakobFabian at 09/20/2008 @ 10:23am