South China Morning Post
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China’s top diplomat Wang Yi (centre) attends a meeting with Saudi Arabia’s national security adviser Musaad bin Mohammed Al-Aiban (left) and Ali Shamkhani, secretary of Iran’s Supreme National Security Council, in Beijing on March 10. Whether the China-brokered detente between Riyadh and Tehran holds will be keenly watched. Photo: China Daily via Reuters
Opinion
Emanuele Scimia
Emanuele Scimia

China the peace broker will find Ukraine war a far bigger test than the Saudi-Iran stand-off

  • Beijing’s role in getting the two Middle Eastern rivals to resume formal ties is a sign of its growing diplomatic heft and raises expectations of its ambitions to be an international mediator
  • To realise its peace plan for Ukraine, however, China will have to overcome many more obstacles – including bringing the US and EU on board
Emanuele Scimia
Emanuele Scimia
Why you can trust SCMP
China scored a great diplomatic point by brokering a surprising agreement between Saudi Arabia and Iran to restore formal ties after seven years. It signals that the Chinese are cutting their teeth for more ambitious endeavours, such as a concrete initiative to resolve Russia’s war against Ukraine.
Some view Beijing’s recent 12-point peace plan for the crisis as lacking substance, but Friday’s deal adds weight to China’s Global Security Initiative, a recently published document that lays out how it intends to manage world crises.

But while the Chinese government is getting a lot of applause for its role in facilitating a thawing of relations between Saudi Arabia and Iran, the hard part comes now. The entente will take two months to be fully implemented, a long time frame for tricky Middle Eastern politics.

Traps are everywhere in the region. Iran is advancing its nuclear programme after two years of failed attempts by the Biden administration to revive a 2015 agreement that aimed to prevent the Islamic Republic from producing a nuclear bomb. The civil war in Yemen, in essence a proxy war between Saudi Arabia and Iran, remains unsolved. The same goes for the Syrian civil war and Lebanon’s never-ending political crisis, where Riyadh and Tehran are on opposing fronts.
Then there’s the Israel variable. The Jewish state and Iran are arch-rivals, and the Israeli government will inevitably watch with concern China’s diplomatic manoeuvring with the Iranians and Saudis. Israel is a significant trading partner for China, and a potential source of technology, at a time when the US is successfully preventing the Chinese from acquiring much-needed tech solutions from Western countries.

While China’s growth has slowed under President Xi Jinping, the country has made inroads on the global stage. But if the Chinese-mediated detente between Iran and Saudi Arabia does not hold, Beijing will suffer a diplomatic loss of face as Xi is trying to dismantle the US-led world order born out of the Soviet Union’s collapse in 1991.

04:31

China’s new foreign minister Qin Gang hits out at US on Ukraine, rate hikes and Taiwan

China’s new foreign minister Qin Gang hits out at US on Ukraine, rate hikes and Taiwan
It’s not by chance that in remarks on Saudi Arabia-Iran talks in Beijing, a Chinese foreign ministry spokesperson said that “China has no intention to and will not seek to fill [the] so-called vacuum or put up exclusive blocs”. The words were a clear reference to the US’ global system of alliances, from Nato in Europe to the Aukus grouping in the western Pacific.
Despite accusations of disengagement in the Middle East, the US has actually proved that it can still flex its diplomatic muscles in the area. Between 2020 and 2021, the US government mediated a series of agreements to normalise diplomatic relations between Israel and several Arab countries, and others are in the pipeline.

There’s no doubt that with its mediation efforts between Riyadh and Tehran, China has demonstrated it can be an effective diplomatic actor, something many have questioned.

During the negotiations for the Iran nuclear deal, China played the role of facilitator with the EU, but in the back seat. In 2018, Beijing signed South Sudan’s peace accord as an “international witness”, working more as a peace builder than peace broker. Furthermore, its attempts to mediate between Israel and the Palestinian authorities have so far foundered.
A further step in its diplomatic journey would be a concrete way forward in Yemen and to renew the 2015 Iran nuclear pact.
A man passes a wall of banners in Sanaa, Yemen, depicting portraits of late Houthi fighters allegedly killed in Yemen’s conflict, in essence a proxy war between Saudi Arabia and Iran, on March 13. The easing of tensions between Tehran and Riyadh has raised hopes of an end to the hostilities in Yemen. Photo: EPA-EFE

A mediator is an active party in a negotiation. To broker a deal, you must have something to offer and possibly compensate the relevant parties. With Iran and Saudi Arabia, China could use economic leverage.

The problem with the Ukraine war is that geopolitics has trumped economics as Russian President Vladimir Putin continues the armed adventure despite huge human and economic losses for his country, and the Ukrainians are ready to do the same to recapture lost territories.

Russia’s narrative of a Great Patriotic War in Ukraine must be buried

Iran and Saudi Arabia have so far been regional competitors and at most fought one another by proxy. But Ukrainians and Russians are slaughtering each other directly on the battlefield. That’s a big difference.

Last but not least, in the Iran-Saudi talks, China acted autonomously without other parties. In Ukraine that will not be possible. The US and European Union have supported Kyiv with billions of dollars of economic and military aid, and simply cannot be put aside.

If Xi really wants to get his hands dirty in the Ukrainian quagmire and find a compromise between the warring sides, he will have to come to terms with US President Joe Biden.

Emanuele Scimia is an independent journalist and foreign affairs analyst

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