Is the US gradually losing the Middle East to China?

The US guardianship in the Middle East has been put in question many times over the past two decades, thanks to its misadventures in Iraq, its failure to prevent ISIS and Assad's subsequent rise in Syria and most recently, the rejuvenation of the Taliban in Afghanistan. And it appears, China is willing to take its place; with money, if not with might.

The US hegemony took the latest blow as the United Arab Emirates (UAE) recently cancelled a deal with the country to buy 50 F-35 fighter jets worth $23 billion. The US had threatened to cancel this deal unless the UAE backed away from its telecommunication deal with Chinese tech giant Huawei technologies.

The oil-rich Gulf nation upheld the Chinese deal and decided to buy 80 Rafale fighter jets from France instead.

But this is not the first time the Gulf nation has been caught entangling with Beijing. Earlier in November, the US intelligence agencies came to know that China was building a military site at a port near Abu Dhabi. 

The Chinese claimed that Washington's claims were false. The UAE, however, halted the construction as Washington warned that a Chinese military presence could hinder ties with the country. 

Clearly, there is a cold war going on between the US and China. The latest and certainly the grandest front of this war is the Middle East; and the Gulf nations are getting caught in the crossfire, as evidenced by the UAE's abrupt cancellation of the F-35 deal with the US, a few weeks after halting the alleged construction of a Chinese military facility. 

But this is just the beginning and we may experience similar occurrences more frequently in the coming days, as China keeps bringing more lucrative offers to the table.

Why the Gulf nations are gravitating towards China

Such contradictory moves by the UAE could be understood if one considers the nature of the two deals and the basic economics of substitutes. Allowing the construction of a military facility would threaten US security and may justify any retaliatory action taken by the state to weaken ties with the UAE. 

China, on the other hand, still has a long way to go to substitute the US as a plausible military ally in the Middle East. When it comes to security, no gulf nation would be stupid enough to ruffle feathers in the Pentagon.

However, The Chinese tech giant Huawei sits on the top of the telecommunication technology food chain and the US cannot offer a better alternative to the UAE. So, it only makes sense for them to scrap the F-35 deal and go ahead with Huawei. 

Although the US would like to brand Huawei as a threat to privacy, its own scandals (Cambridge Analytica, the NSA spying on the Saudi Royal family) put the country in a rather awkward position. 

Moreover, China is the largest importer of crude oil in the world, as well as, the 2nd largest importer of oil from the KSA, following only Japan, and is the largest trading partner of the UAE. China is the harbinger of promising initiatives like the BRI and RCEP and the gulf nations simply cannot miss out on getting a slice of that cake. 

The different fronts of the US-China tug of war

In a way, such a move was inevitable and had long been written on the card with the US' selectively protectionist (when it comes to the Middle East) but otherwise Eastward foreign policy approach.

Following the 2007-08 global financial meltdown, the deteriorating US domestic economy went through mass upheaval and anti-intervention sentiment in the US grew exponentially rendering any misadventures in the Middle East a luxury. 

Consequently, the US began to abdicate its self-appointed role of regional guardian, gradually since the Obama administration, whether by replacing overt military operation with covert, unmanned drone strikes, withdrawing troops from Iraq, Syria and Afghanistan or the selective non-interventionist policies under the Trump, as well as, Biden administration.

On top of that, the US seems to have shifted its longstanding focus of military and economic might from the Middle East to the Asia-Pacific region where China - a country long-known for having no military ambitions in the region - intends to become a regional hegemon with its Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), as well as, the recently formed Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP). 

Although China claims that its intentions are purely economic, it is the hostile treatment of Taiwan, Hong Kong, as well as its bullying of neighbouring states to win territorial disputes in the South China Sea points toward a different direction.

The US responded to China's presumed militarisation with two blocs of its own in the Asia Pacific, namely, the AUKUS (a trilateral security pact between Australia, the United Kingdom and the US) and the QUAD (the Quadrilateral Security Dialogue comprising India, Japan, Australia and the US). 

Biden's recent democracy summit was just another power play to send a message to Beijing: China, beware! 

China is here to stay!

As the US shifted its focus eastward, the vacuum was soon filled by China who patiently fomented its relationship with the Gulf nations with lucrative trade deals and promising ventures like the BRI. 

Following the Trump administration, the GCC nations also realised that their over-dependence on the US might come at a cost they are not willing to pay. Instead of putting all of their eggs in one basket, i.e., the US, it was time to diversify. 

But pundits were afraid that the US would get its way by hook or by cook and would bully the Chinese out of the region, especially after the UAE was forced to halt the alleged construction of a Chinese military site.

But much to the surprise of everyone, the small, oil-rich Gulf nation dared to stand up to the bullying of the United States. This unprecedented move by the UAE may mark a shift for the whole region away from an overdependence on the US unless the global superpower can offer better alternatives. 

It also sends a message to the US that they cannot bully their way out of this cold war and they should be better prepared for increased economic partnership between China and the GCC nations. 

While some may argue that the strained relationship between Saudi Arabia and the UAE (over oil quota disputes in the OPEC and subsequent travel bans) may lead the KSA to defect, recent developments suggest otherwise. 

China is assisting Saudi Arabia in making ballistic missiles and it is beginning to make the US Congress suspicious of Saudi dealings as they have just approved a military sales package to the country consisting of, among many, $650 million worth of air-to-air munitions (allegedly used to bomb the Houthis in Yemen). 

How worried should the US be?

Although the US military might in the Middle East remains unparalleled and will be the case for many of the coming years, these developments should nonetheless worry the US. 

Firstly, China seems to have fomented economic ties with crucial US allies in the Middle East and maybe winning the initial battles of the cold war in the Middle East. It also points towards an inevitable Chinese penetration in the Middle-Eastern geopolitical landscape, essentially meaning that the US no longer holds the economic monopoly in the Gulf, despite having military superiority. 

Secondly, the US must level up its game and come up with more lucrative offers than China to entice its middle-eastern allies. Otherwise,  it may not be able to close the gaps with China in the economic cold war. 

On top of that, a strained relationship between the UAE and Saudi Arabia also makes it difficult to check Iran and its allies in Yemen, Lebanon and Syria. 

Hence, it is high time the US formulated a comprehensive trade policy towards its Gulf allies that complements its military support in the region. Otherwise, its regional allies may become more disobedient as they grow closer ties with China and all of that would be making it more difficult for the US to protect its strategic allies and its interests within the region. 

More importantly, the role of a guardian angel in the Middle East is most of what makes the US a superpower. The Chinese penetration of the region would ask serious questions of that role and might just be what China needs to truly emerge as a global superpower.

Sheikh Rafi Ahmed. Illustration: TBS