The dragon’s new frontier: Mediating global conflict issues

“Let China sleep, for when she wakes, she’ll shake the world.” This prophecy made by Napoleon Bonaparte two centuries ago is well on its way to attaining fruition. China has effectively transitioned from Deng Xiaoping’s dictum of “hide your strengths and bide your time” and is now guided by Xi Jinping's ambition of reclaiming China’s rightful place in the world order. Two noteworthy events in the past 2 years stand testament to the fact that Xi’s maxim has been set in motion.

In March 2023, China achieved a major diplomatic breakthrough by mediating a rapprochement between arch-rivals of the Middle east-Iran and Saudi Arabia. One year later, China brought together 14 different factions of the Palestinian movement under the umbrella of the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO). Termed the “Beijing Declaration”, it aims to form a national unity administration for Palestinian issues. What was particularly surprising for chancelleries across the world was the Chinese prowess to bring together bickering stakeholders like Hamas and Fatah, who have been bitter rivals due to their diverging positions on Palestinian statehood and its coexistence with Israel.

An immediate implication of Beijing positioning itself as a global mediator was Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba (July’24) reaching out to his Chinese counterpart Wang Yi to put forth the following view –“I am convinced that a just peace in Ukraine is in China’s strategic interests and China’s role as a global force for peace is important.” This development implicitly places China as an important stakeholder in the Russia-Ukraine theatre of conflict, which can be seen as a favourable outcome for Chinese strategic policy practitioners.

This brings us to the question of what influences Beijing’s recent moves on the geopolitical chessboard.This article tries to make an effort to decipher Chinese strategic thought to attain a better understanding of the Chinese mediation bids that are transpiring around us.

Understanding Chinese strategic thought-What drives Beijing’s global ambitions?

To rival the US as a superpower, an aspiring nation needs to demonstrate superiority in key strategic domains. The first domain is the ability to not just be a passive participant in shaping global outcomes but playing a decisive role in executing multilateral agendas. Second is the symbolism of power projection, which involves mediating global conflicts to showcase a nation's comprehensive power to both allies and adversaries. With Iran and Saudi Arabia agreeing to restore diplomatic relations at China’s behest, Beijing has walked the talk in implementing its strategic thought.

Extrapolating the attributes above with the two Chinese mediation gambits, presents an intriguing facet of China’s modus operandi in the great power rivalry that we are witnessing. Beijing is deploying a novel strategy of vigorously publicising its mediation efforts without any inhibitions and in the process, salami slicing (practice of using a series of many small actions to produce a much larger action or result that would be difficult to perform all at once) the US’s sphere of influence in West Asia.

In his book the “Long Game”, eminent American political scientist Rush Doshi, simplifies the Chinese strategic doctrine for theorists and practitioners trying to develop a counter strategy for the Chinese moves. The Chinese strategic doctrine rests on three pillars: 

• Politically, China will project leadership over global governance and international institutions and weaken American alliances in Europe and Asia.
• Economically, concentrate industry expertise in emerging technologies like AI, quantum computing, semiconductors, strategic supply chains, critical minerals, etc.
• Militarily, expand the People’s Liberation Army’s presence with bases around the world and build a force adept in modern warfare.
• With a fundamental understanding of Chinese strategy, the pertinent question that arises is what does China aim to achieve as a mediator?

To answer this question, it is crucial to look at current developments from a historical perspective. China is no stranger to the Middle East. Its forays in West Asia go back a long way. In 2002,it had appointed a “Special envoy for Middle East Issues” and termed the Palestine-Israel conflict as the core source of tensions in the Middle East and sought active resolutions on the matter.

With the era of the US being the sole superpower behind us and America recalibrating its foreign policy attention from the Middle East to the Indo-Pacific, the Chinese are actively attempting to fill the power vacuum in the region. In light of this objective, the Chinese mediation activity in the Middle East is guided by two factors. First, their economic interests in the region. $242.78 billion is the value of Chinese investment in the Middle East, which makes it imperative for China to ensure that there is no threat to regional stability posed by actors like the Houthi rebels in Yemen or Hezbollah in Lebanon. The second plank is the geopolitical objective that China aims to achieve. China wants to position itself as a credible international mediator and provide an alternative to the US-led “rules-based order”. The rationale behind such a move is to present an alternative framework of global governance to build a new world order, which is rooted in Chinese characteristics.

From a strategic vantage point, the two mediations are a “win-win situation” for Beijing because even if these rapprochements do not sustain, Beijing can take the moral high ground of at least making an effort to resolve enduring disputes in the Middle East and by extension, add brownie points to their optics portfolio. In addition, mediating between Iran and Saudi has earned Beijing the support of two important oil producers.

Although,the October 7 attacks have had an adverse effect on the potential success of the Chinese mediation efforts because of Iran and Saudi Arabia’s differing positions on the two-state solution & Saudi being an ally of the US and Israel by extension,still the diplomatic channels established during the initial rapprochement remain intact and once the broader regional upheaval subsides,Beijing can expect both parties to come back to the negotiating table.Beijing is committed to playing a long term role in the region by institutionalising its diplomatic activity which is aimed at conflict resolution in the Middle East which would yield positive outcomes in the long run.

Beijing on the move: The Road Ahead

Articulation by China of ideas like the “Global Security Initiative”, “Global Development Initiative” and “Global Civilizational Initiative”, indicates a clear shift in Chinese foreign policy towards not just presenting Chinese frameworks on multilateral platforms but also positioning them as the go-to principles to address pressing global issues.       

Rising powers like India, Japan, Germany, etc. and an entrenched power like the US, who is facing multiple challenges to its long-held hegemony, should add a new vector to their strategic calculus, on how to pushback against China’s imposition of its world view on global governance platforms and devise a competing model to counter its mediation bids. The world cannot afford to be asleep at the wheel, as an unchecked dragon makes it play to achieve superpower status in a rapidly changing and tumultuous geopolitical landscape.

Fin.

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