a Pandemic coronavirus gave impetus to a more active presence of China in the middle East, writes columnist for Le Monde, Jean-Pierre Filho. According to the historian, aid to middle East countries to combat the new crisis gives Beijing the opportunity to present an alternative to the incompetent Americans and to fill the gap left by the disappearance of Russia from the international arena.
Prior to the beginning of this year, China showed great interest in the Middle East, focusing on major investment projects like the “New silk road” and allowing Russia to reap the fruits of the departure of the Americans from the region, writes a columnist of Le Monde, historian and Arabist Jean-Pierre Filho. However, the coronavirus, the crisis forced Beijing to stand in the middle East the alternative to American power, unable to inspire the country in a coordinated effort in the fight against the pandemic, said the expert.
As the author recalls, in 2015 China became the world’s largest oil importer, procuring 40% of their supplies from the Middle East, strictly observing the variety of suppliers, among which were Saudi Arabia, Iraq, Oman, Oman, Kuwait and the United Arab Emirates. Beijing also does not want to become a member of one of the regional alliances, choosing their main partners Saudi Arabia, Iran, United Arab Emirates and Egypt, despite the friction between Tehran on the one hand and Riyadh and Abu Dhabi on the other.
According to experts, the long-term strategy is based on the unconditional support of Beijing existing regimes in the region, including the most authoritarian, despite their differences. This “solidarity of dictatorships” has fully justified itself from the very beginning coronavirus crisis, when the President of Egypt was not sending medical aid covered the pandemic China, and Iran support Beijing has not diminished even despite the fact that the spread of the virus in a country affected by the epidemic is much stronger than other States in the region, could be caused by Chinese presence in the Holy city of Qom.
China not only had defiantly middle Eastern countries in the fight against the pandemic, in particular through widely publicized supply of masks, but became with never-before-seen intensity to build effective cooperation, for example, with the Israeli defence Ministry, which last month delivered from China eleven planes loaded with medical equipment (expenses for the three-millionth batch of masks was carried out by the Foundation Russian-Israeli billionaire). While China now accompanies all such actions and aggressive rhetoric against the Western democracies, accusing them of failing to cope with the crisis, and the middle East, g��e USA systematically be the object of denigration, this campaign has been especially bitter, says the expert.
In particular, Beijing blames the U.S. for all the ills of Iran, leaving France, Germany and the UK alone in their attempt to save what is left of the nuclear agreement, increasingly reject the Iranian “hawks”. According to experts, Beijing is no longer afraid to pursue policies in the spirit of confrontation in the middle East, where resentment against the US is becoming ubiquitous, including in Saudi Arabia. As the author reminds, recently, Donald trump has threatened to crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman withdraw us troops from the country if an agreement on the price of oil is achieved. Despite the effectiveness of this threat, the U.S.-Saudi relations, it will leave a “deep impression”, the expert believes.
As noted by the historian, until recently, the greatest benefit of a U.S. withdrawal from the Middle East removed Russia, exposing their unconditional support of Bashar al-Assad in Syria as a pledge of loyalty to the current regime. However, the struggle for power in Damascus and the failure of Moscow to stabilize the situation in Syria, “made the star of Vladimir Putin to fade”, said the expert. Russia’s withdrawal from the international arena in the period of the coronavirus crisis allows China to fill a formed in the middle East “gap” in the long term add to its foreign policy, which had previously focused on the economy, the military aspect, the author concludes.
