China and the Middle East
It's increasingly beginning to look like China has the initiative in the Middle East, not the US. The lynchpin is Iran. Can Washington and Beijing cooperate to head off the incipient crisis? China is one of the only actors that might persuade Iran to stop its "flinty tongue" and save it from itself, but wll the US trust it do so?
Asia Times Online :: China News, China Business News, Taiwan and Hong Kong News and Business.
China's Middle East strategy is brilliant. It is a multi-splendored thing. There is great adventure in it insofar as it almost overlooks the so-called non-state actors that one hears so much about in the Middle East - let us say with a dash of Marxian idiom, the "forces of history". China's strategy is cautious, yet pragmatic. It is, arguably, near optimal.
Thus, despite the United States' defeat in the Middle East, China will not take on a condescending attitude toward Washington. On the contrary, this is the time for China to cooperate. If the Bush administration were to work out a withdrawal of US forces from Iraq by manipulating the introduction of a pro-Western Arab military force under United Nations mandate, China would have no problem. China might even counsel Iran to take the bitter pill. China is working hard to expand its influence at the same time with the various Middle East protagonists - Iran, Saudi Arabia, and Israel.
