How China thrives in a world of turmoil
Subscribe to enjoy similar stories. Modern China is a superpower with its roots in a guerrilla army. This helps explain its self-interested responses to crises, including the turmoil now raging in the Middle East.
To hear America and other long-established powers tell it, China has unique influence over that region’s worst agents of disorder, starting with Iran, and an unusual need for stability in the Middle East. China is the world’s largest importer of both oil and liquefied natural gas, buying vast quantities from Iran and Arab countries alike. It is a big regional investor, with tens of billions of dollars at stake in such countries as Egypt, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates.
As the world’s biggest manufacturer, China is exceptionally exposed to spikes in global shipping rates. That is a painful distinction when drone and missile attacks by Iranian-armed Houthi rebels in Yemen have all but closed the Red Sea and Suez Canal to container ships, sending Europe-bound Chinese exports on a costly detour around Africa. With these arguments in hand, the Biden administration and other Western governments have spent months asking China to lean on Iran and the Houthis.
In meetings with Western officials, Chinese diplomats are ambiguous, hinting at messages passed to Iran while playing down their influence in Tehran, and questioning whether Iran has much sway over the Houthis. Far from sending People’s Liberation Army (PLA) warships to join an American-led military coalition that has escorted civilian ships and attacked Houthi radar and missile sites, China’s foreign minister, Wang Yi, has noted that American and British strikes in Yemen lack UN Security Council approval. In late July leaders from Fatah and Hamas, the
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