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How America's Mistakes In The Middle East Are Benefiting China
h/t Instapundit...China ‐ without firing a shot, committing troops to active military intervention in the Middle East’s myriad proxy conflicts, and doing little more in international diplomacy than raising their hands against the occasional contentious resolution at the United Nations Security Council ‐ became the world’s largest investor in the Arab Middle East two years ago, with commitments of almost $30 billion and a close to 32 percent share of all foreign direct investment. Beijing seeks to integrate the Middle East’s largest economies into its One Belt One Road development initiative while avoiding imperial overstretch, recognizing the crucial role of economic development, human capital, and strategic investment to future global power. In line with its cynically independent foreign policy ‐ which seeks little to no input from secondary powers about its interests ‐ China has methodically reaped the rewards of America’s mistakes. The U.S. spent anywhere from $1.7 to $2.2 trillion, and suffered almost 4,500 dead and over 32,000 wounded, to remove Saddam Hussein and his Ba’athist regime from power in Iraq, run a provisional government, fight a Shia and Sunni insurgency, and try to impose western institutions and norms on a country simmering with tribal and sectarian conflicts. China stood to the side, pocketed the American expenditures and elimination of the sanctions imposed prior to the 2003 invasion, and emerged as Iraq’s biggest import partner. For context, petroleum products account for anywhere between 93 and 99 percent of Iraq’s exports. China has committed billions to Iraqi infrastructure development and reconstruction, pledged to build an oil refinery near the Gulf port of Fao, and in recent years poured over $2 billion and hundreds of workers annually to develop Iraqi oil deposits. These dynamics led former U.S. Defense Department official Michael Makovsky to note, "The Chinese had nothing to do with the war, but from an economic standpoint they are benefiting from it, and our Fifth Fleet and air forces are helping to assure their [oil] supply." ...Across the border in Iran ‐ empowered by America’s removal of an obstacle to its regional influence in the form of Saddam Hussein, and a close partner of the Iraqi government that the U.S. spent years building and propping up ‐ it is the same story. ...As the U.S. operates a disjointed regional paradigm and spends considerably in search of elusive gains ‐ limiting who it can do business with and sometimes attaching conditions removed from the Middle East’s realities ‐ the Chinese begin and end their regional policy with what is in China’s narrow national interest. This has allowed them to deal with everyone without making political commitments, assurances, or promises. As American policy unwittingly upends the Middle East’s balance of power, China adjusts to the situation, recalibrates, and fills the vacuum to generate geopolitical and/or economic returns. Posted by: g(r)omgoru 2018-04-26 |
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