Deal of the Century
Why the West should come to terms with China

The decline of US (i.e. Western) power in the Middle East is fast becoming a sad spectacle. The US air strikes against the Houthis in Yemen following their piracy in one of the world’s main maritime trade routes is the latest assault by a global power whose military capabilities are immense but whose wrath is no longer feared – not even by a war-ravaged failed state. Like everyone else, the Houthis can see that Washington is dangerously stretched by commitments to Europe and the Far East to counter Russia and China, and that it can ill afford a costly and likely messy entanglement with Iran and its growing number of proxies. Tehran’s success in civil wars in the last twenty or so years has given it strong stakes in Iraq, Syria, Lebanon, Yemen, and Gaza; and armed confrontations with the US are now happening in all of these territories in a ‘death by a thousand cuts’ strategy. The goal it seems is to goad the US into ever more costly commitments with a view to eventually extracting US recognition of Iranian dominance of the region. New technologies and tactics developed by Iran’s Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC) have helped it level the playing field – at least for short bursts of fighting. More importantly in the geopolitical context, however, is support from China and Russia that encourages Tehran to grow in confidence and dictate the escalatory tempo. In the West, the popular wisdom today is that any aggressive US measure, such as a war with the Houthis or with Hezbollah, would lead to a political defeat that would shred what is left of US credibility as a global hegemon; and that Washington would be well advised to resort to diplomacy (read: a deal with Tehran) thereby saving much  blood and treasure. 

That the US cannot or will not contain Iran has already shaped the foreign policies of several important regional actors, chief amongst them Saudi Arabia. Its turn to Beijing points to a growing realisation that the global world is moving towards bipolarity, with the US leading the Western camp and China leading a Eurasian/Global South camp. As in the Cold War era, conflicts today cannot be decided easily by one party (e.g. Libya, Syria, Yemen, Gaza); and successful political settlements require the cooperation of both camps. Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman shrewdly recognised that only Chinese influence could put a check on Iranian aggression against his country. There is a lesson here for the West: rather than seeking separate deals with Khamenei or Putin, the West should go straight to Xi Jinping – and for a deal on the world, not only the Middle East. The goal should be a new global world order that recognises China as the equal of the United States. The simple fact is that the growth of China economically, militarily, and politically is unstoppable, however hard the West attempts to check it through protectionism and containment. At any rate, it will lead only to a cycle of economic countermeasures and a dangerous arms race. In any event, the West needs China as a trading partner and an upholder of international law – the basis of the ‘rules-based order’ that the West claims it is fighting to defend. 

A grand bargain between Washington and Beijing will need to be comprehensive if it is to succeed. In the Middle East, the Israel/Palestine and Syrian conflicts could be settled, Iran’s nuclear ambitions curtailed, and the sovereignty of the Gulf Arab states guaranteed. For this to happen, the US would have to learn to “share the region” with China, and this means a Chinese military presence that, together with the already significant US presence, would be sufficient to maintain stability.

In Ukraine, Chinese influence is badly needed to bring Russia to heel. A negotiated peace guaranteed by the US and China is the only way to end the futile, WWI-style conflict in a face-saving manner for all concerned. Crucially, it would diminish Putin and establish a permanent buffer to Russian expansionism. This is a priority for Europe, whose enthusiasm for supporting Ukraine is fading and is being replaced by a new hard-nosed realism. 

In the Asia-Pacific region, the West’s bet on India is misguided because it will only empower an authoritarian and anti-Western Hindu nationalist regime expert at playing both sides of the fence. Instead, the US should seek an understanding with China on what really matters in that region: free trade through its maritime waterways and peace between India and Pakistan. 

In the Far East, a difficult but pragmatic trade-off should be made: settlement of the Taiwanese question in return for settlement of the Korean question. A political solution for Taiwan would be sufficient to deflate China’s aggressive strategy in the South China Sea, while the reunification of the Korean peninsula under democracy and capitalism would require the dismantling of the North Korean regime and its nuclear stockpile – a task only China can undertake. 

Critics could point to many gaping holes in this vision for a new world order. China might not want to play the role of co-world policeman, which entails too many commitments in places in which it has not demonstrated much interest. It can simply sit back, enjoy the spectacle of US missteps, and pick up the pieces, as it has already been doing. Whether Russia or Iran would accept their second-class status is questionable. Perhaps the biggest obstacle to a pragmatic accommodation with China, however, is the West’s inability to manage its own decline. Foreign policy circles on both sides of the Atlantic remain stubbornly neoliberal in outlook, adhering to the idea that international rivalry among great powers could still be overcome through economic integration. But China’s entry into the WTO in 2001 did not herald an era of peace and goodwill. Many in the US defence establishment now regard a hot war with China as inevitable, and assert that the answer is building even greater numbers of missiles and ships. 

The recipe of the 1990s has manifestly failed; and a new paradigm is needed to ensure peace in our time. As crucial as it is, that paradigm shift is unlikely to occur under an administration in Washington whose foreign policy leaders are discredited by the reversals of the past two decades and remain beholden to “the blob.” For the shift to happen, the West needs a US leader with a keener sense of global power politics and a readiness to make counter-intuitive decisions that cut across the familiar and reassuring. The West needs a US president who can negotiate a deal for the 21st Century.