West Asia has been at the center of the business and diplomatic rivalry between the US and China for the last few years. In recent times, China has not only taken an important step in the geopolitics of the region by getting agreements between West Asian countries Saudi Arabia and Iran, but has also surprised the world by tarnishing the image of America’s so-called ‘peace ambassador’.
Noted author Zorawar Daulat Singh, in a column in TOI, wrote, “Taking a lesson from India’s peacemaking role in the past, Beijing has stunned the diplomatic world with its mediation between Saudi Arabia and Iran and geo-political tensions.” China is poised to become a major player in conflict-torn West Asia on the immediate periphery, eschewing traditional ways of politics. Even as China limits the US power to negotiate peace ”
Singh writes that the US has been playing the role of a security guarantor to a select group of client states, excluding independent minded ones, which has been limited to a certain extent by China in the emerging multipolar world order.
Singh writes that the superpower that shaped questions of war and peace in the past was the US, which intervened militarily in Iraq (2003), Libya (2011), Syria (2012) and, to an extent, contained Iran. All these were done with the aim of creating a unipolar security structure. At that time there were instability, proxy wars in the world and finally seeing a power vacuum America managed it from its level.
Now the world is again moving towards a multi-polar order of power and influence. Major regional powers such as Iran, Saudi Arabia and perhaps even Israel are recognizing that Washington alone cannot maintain a security architecture around the world. Since the Syrian war, Russia has proved that it has both the military wherewithal and the will to intervene in aid of states facing threats to governance or regional security.
However, China’s role is a bit offbeat. He has been focusing on building infrastructure in any geographical area and its outer periphery seeing desperation and war fatigue. America was unable to play this role in West Asia. Even US National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan admitted: “Given our relationship with those two countries…we were in no position to be a mediator.”
Singh writes that China, backed by Russia (which has been playing an important role as a security partner for Syria and Iran), shares geo-economic interests with major oil producers such as Saudi Arabia. It has now promoted an alternative multipolar security architecture, which is more balanced, less dependent on any single great power, and crucially engaging with regional states as primary stakeholders of the regional order.
Singh writes that it is this global diplomatic phenomenon, which also reflects other major trends. According to Singh, this is a transfer of geo-economic power to Eurasia and Asia.
