China Bears Watching
Watch China. Our political and military focus has, of necessity, been on Iraq, but Chinese behavior has an impact on our policies in a variety of areas including the Middle East.
Watch China. Our political and military focus has, of necessity, been on Iraq, but Chinese behavior has an impact on our policies in a variety of areas including the Middle East.
China is on an arms production and purchasing binge, including the installation of hundreds of ballistic missiles opposite democratic Taiwan, which Beijing considers a renegade province of the mainland. Thus far, the U.S. and the EU have maintained an embargo on certain types of military sales to China – a result of Tiananmen Square – but EU resolve is melting in the face of Chinese money. Taiwan’s position is increasingly precarious. Most countries won’t sell Taiwan military equipment, making its reliance on the U.S. for protection a major factor in American diplomacy in the region.
China’s tremendous economic growth, plus the inefficiency of its oil industry, has turned China from a net oil exporter to the world’s primary importer. This, even more than nerves over OPEC policy or Iraq, is a key reason for the hike in oil prices and it isn’t likely to change soon. This desire to secure its energy sources for the future is, in part, driving Chinese policy toward Iran.
China, not a signatory to the Missile Technology Control Regime (MTCR), had agreed anyhow not to aid Iran’s missile program. According the MENL news service, U.S. officials said dozens of Chinese companies and individuals have provided components and technology for Iran’s Shihab-3 and -4 programs. They said the components and technology also aimed to help Iran develop a WMD warhead. Exports to Iran went through North Korea and a State Department spokesman called China an “unrepentant proliferator.” Twenty-eight Chinese companies have been sanctioned by the U.S. for selling missile and WMD components to Iran.
China also has a brewing Central Asian Muslim rebellion in its western provinces and desperately needs Iran to agree NOT to stoke the flames.
China is thus opposed to sending the issue of Iranian nuclear capabilities to the UN Security Council. China is opposed to sending the issue of North Korean nuclear capabilities to the Security Council. China is also opposed to sending the issue of Darfur to the Security Council as well.
Darfur? Southern Sudan has oil resources and China has a tremendous investment in extracting it. The deal was made with the Arab-dominated Muslim government in Khartoum, and so China has an interest in protecting that government even as it prosecutes a vicious war against the Christian and animist south, where the oil is and, by extension, protecting the government’s genocidal behavior against the African Muslim inhabitants of Darfur.
All of this is by way of reminding ourselves that the world is interconnected in ways we think about and ways we don’t think about – it is the latter that gets us into trouble.