The Replacement - China buckles in as the United States slowly backs out of the Middle East

Opinion analysis by Nour AlMortada, Featured Writer

February 23rd, 2022

It's hard to pinpoint when the change started. The United States has been involved in the Middle East’s struggles and conflicts for as long as many of the people alive today could remember, so to accurately pinpoint when the withdrawal began is difficult. For decades, politicians and economists, even regular folk, have been pointing out the obvious: the United States’ decline has already begun. While many would wish to argue differently, the United States has become entrenched in its own internal dilemmas, hence the withdrawal from region. Its actions in the years that followed the end of the cold war showed everyone around the world that the United States would use anything to get what it wants, so why is the U.S. leaving the Middle East? Why has it seized most of its activity and why is it allowing China to fill its place?

The United States has slowly pulled out of the region as its domestic conditions become less favorable. With constant violent events and a possible recession, the U.S. has chosen to focus its effort inwards while the Middle East goes up in flames. China, on the other hand, had decided early on to spread its presence slowly, with the Belt and Road Strategy. The strategy itself is mainly based in economy and development and has helped China worm its way into the region, while growing strong alliances. The recent GCC visit to China was one of the most public signs that China has already settled, but plenty of signs were present beforehand, it was the people who did not pay attention. China, for the past decade, has been investing in different facets of state, from infrastructure to education and most recently, telecommunication, China pushed its way through without creating public disdain.

The relationship between China and the Gulf is evidently the strongest in the region. As mentioned prior, a GCC visit to China in January of 2022 set the scene for public recognition of the relationship in place. China is highly dependent on the gulf for its crude oil, with Saudi Arabia topping the list, a feat that will only increase with China’s growing economy. Due to the major benefit of this relationship between the two, with China needing the resource and the Gulf’s financial benefit, it made sense that China would push for investments in different sectors. However, China has made strides to invest in more than just the Gulf. While it made sense to focus on the Gulf, the region is vast, and the Belt and Road Strategy encompassed it whole. Recently China has been procuring military deals with Iraq, a step that would be considered a threat to the U.S., how non-sensical it is that while the U.S. attempts to escape Baghdad, China is slowly moving in.

It is important to note that while China may be involving itself in the region, it is not following in the United States’ footsteps, meaning it does not follow the same strategies. The United States has been known for interfering just about anywhere its interest lay, however, as mentioned its domestic conditions no longer allowed for such unchecked interventions, and as populations grow angrier with the constant interference, the U.S. became public enemy number one. China did not follow that same policy, for obvious reasons. The United States is considered a world-class hypocrite, mainly for preaching human rights, but being the one to violate them the most. China’s foreign policy in the Middle East, and the world for that matter, is simple; invest but don’t interfere. China’s documented human rights abuses in Hong Kong and Xinjiang are proof that it is no saint, yet it never claimed to be, and it never attempted to use human rights as leverage. This is one of the main reasons for why the region gets along with China, they each ignore the other’s doing and reap the economic benefit.

The world is changing, the United States is slowly losing its footing, and China, along with its allies, has slowly wormed its way into its place, but is the Chinese-Middle Eastern agreement better than the U.S.-Middle Eastern one? China actively ignores the human rights violations in the region and in turn they do the same, while expanding its influence through development and investment, it built a solid base for its influence, without angering the locals and the leaders, and forcing itself through military intervention. So, can it be said that a new phase has started for the region?

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