China is forced to rip up its Middle East playbook

Military strikes by Israel and the United States against Iran have left China scrambling. Beijing buys up to 80% of sanctioned oil from the BRICS+ ally, while its strategic partnership is worth US$400 billion, according to a Shanghai-based think tank with government links.

In the broader Gulf countries, Tehran has retaliated with a missile barrage, with explosions rocking the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain, and Kuwait. Saudi Arabia and Oman have also been targeted. Trade ties with the Gulf nations topped more than $250 billion last year.

Diplomatically, it has been a disaster for China. Foreign Minister Wang Yi described the “blatant killing” of Iran’s hard-line leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei as “unacceptable.” He also condemned US incitement to overthrow the hated theocratic regime in Tehran.

“This is not coming at a good time for China,” Alicia García-Herrero, the chief economist for Asia Pacific at the investment bank Natixis, said in a note, as the nation’s energy demand surges. “The trend is less and less oil at below-market prices,” she added this week.

Behind the news:

• As Trivium China pointed out, the killing of Khamenei and the capture of Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro show the US “is comfortable targeting leaders of rival regimes.”
• “This will spur Beijing to build up its capabilities to guard against a similar fate in case of escalating tensions with the US,” the research and consultancy group stressed.

The US-led campaign may prove a valuable lesson.

Charles Lyons Jones, the Lowy Institute

Delve deeper: Zheng Yongnian, the founding director of the Institute for International Affairs at the Chinese University of Hong Kong in Shenzhen, described the attacks on Iran as a return to a “fear-based jungle world” in a Sinocism newsletter.

Between the lines: US President Donald Trump’s “hit-and-run” strategy “deliberately avoids the occupation trap of the Bush era,” Zheng added, referring to the 2001 and 2003 invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq.

Big picture: There are other key takeaways for China. “The US-led campaign may prove a valuable lesson in how to disrupt continuity of government and the military chain-of-command during an invasion of Taiwan,” Charles Lyons Jones of the Lowy Institute said.

Bottom line: “But it may yet become a cautionary tale of what can go wrong after a successful decapitation strike,” he wrote in a commentary for The Interpreter, which is published by the Lowy Institute, a Sydney-based think tank.

China Factor comment: Still, only when the fog of war breaks will the true cost to Beijing and its fragile alliance of autocracies become clear.