By brokering peace deals in the Middle East, China and Russia seek to subvert the American-led Middle East order, according to Brandon Weichert, author of “Winning Space: How America Remains a Superpower.”
According to him, the success of the U.S. rivals reveals the Biden administration’s diplomatic failures.
“The Biden administration has abandoned the region, and China is moving in at full speed using Iran as their proxy, and the Russians are moving in along with the Chinese partnering with them as well,” he said.
“And it’s pretty much the makings of our own failures. We spent 20 years, trillions of dollars, [and] thousands of American lives trying to maintain our control and influence over the region and for a fraction of the cost. And in half the time, China’s moved in at breakneck speed, and they are completely reordering the map,” he added.
The success of U.S. foes in exerting more strongly their influence in the region, he said, will harm not “just American power, but also it’s probably going to be bad for Israel, which is the region’s only progressive democracy, and only recently was being recognized as a fellow nation state by the Sunni Arabs.”
According to Weichert, China’s move caught the United States by surprise.
“China is exerting its presence on the world stage in previously unknown ways to us; they’ve always been a power, obviously, in Asia. And they were primarily predominantly a geo-economic force. But now they have become so wealthy, and so integrated with the rest of the world, that China is now taking that geo-economic power, and they’re translating it into diplomatic power, as well as now into military power,” he said.
Beijing’s Real Intentions
Despite diplomatic efforts, Weichert believes Beijing does not intend to bring peace to the region.“But what do we see? The ink is not even dried on this Chinese-back deal between Iran and Saudi Arabia, and Iranian-backed Hezbollah and Lebanon [are] popping off rockets at Israel,” he said.
“And so this is not bringing peace, love, and happiness. What this is doing is creating disorder; this is managed disorder by China to stir the hornet’s nest, push the Americans out of the region.”
The order formed by China’s communist regime would be based on its autocratic image and, thus, leads to “creative destruction,” he added.
The ultimate goal of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) is to gain greater control and access to critical energy flows out of the Middle East, while isolating the progressive democracy of Israel, to gain access to high-tech countries.
On the other hand, securing oil and natural gas from the Middle East would also facilitate the CCP to prepare for the wider battlefield for an inevitable invasion of Taiwan and try to curb any American counter-moves that might be designed to slow down or stop the Chinese invasion, he said.
It was part of the Saudi Vision 2030 plan that Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman has been pioneering, he noted.
The move would enable the CCP to “force Israel to come to terms with it in the Middle East” by turning to Beijing for protection against China’s other partner, Iran, Weichert said.
Containing China
To push back on the rivals, Weichert said the United States should realize that the Chinese regime is the No. 1 threat while all other threats are ancillary and, thus, the focus should be on containing China first at the geo-economic level.To that end, the expert urged the United States to build up its own comprehensive national power at home.
“We need to bring American manufacturing back, get our industrial base going again, and get Fourth Industrial Revolution technologies built here rather than in China. Those [are] things we can do. That’s how we can beat China. That’s how we can ensure that the next century is an American one. But right now, we’re not making those moves. And that’s why we’re declining and losing,” Weichert said.
