The wheels of history have been turning rapidly in the Middle East over the past year.
For quite some time, Iran’s status as a rising regional power has been seen as a consistent reality in assessing Middle East geopolitics. However, events since the Hamas attack on Israel on October 7, 2023 have significantly undermined Iran’s position in the region. As a result, the balance of power in the Middle East has changed irreversibly.
A key pillar of Iran’s once strong position in the Middle East was the cultivation of the “Axis of Resistance,” a group of Iranian allies across the region who act together against the interests of Israel and the United States.
In addition to Iran itself, Axis members include Hamas, Hezbollah, Iraqi Shiite militias, the Houthis, and Syria’s Bashar al-Assad regime.
Read more: The fall of the Assad regime in Syria will further weaken Hezbollah and curb Tehran’s ‘Iranization’ of the region
axis thinning
Israel’s relentless war in retaliation for the October 7 attack has severely reduced, if not completely annihilated, some of the most important members of the Axis Powers.
Both Hezbollah and Hamas have been humiliated by the destruction of their respective leaderships, and their operational capabilities have been greatly reduced.
Perhaps the biggest blow to Iran’s proxy network was the recent ouster of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, ending a decades-long regime considered by Iran’s top strategists to be Iran’s most important regional ally. I hit it.
(AP Photo/Hussein Mara)
The negative impact of these developments on Iran’s grand strategy raises questions about how a significantly weakened Iran would impact the world at large, particularly in terms of its influence on the politics of the Middle Eastern powers.
This undoubtedly represents a welcome development in the United States, given the long-standing hostility toward Iran among the American foreign policy establishment since 1979. However, China is likely to take a more nuanced outlook, premised on its commitment to developing a pragmatic foreign policy to achieve its most important global goals.
China’s engagement with Iran
As China has grown richer and more powerful in recent decades, it has focused on increasing its diplomatic influence and economic presence around the world. Although all regions of the globe are affected by this development, the Middle East is of particular importance to China.
Beijing’s motivation to become deeply involved in the Middle East has been, and continues to be, driven by several important considerations. These are the Middle East’s status as a major oil producing power, its strategic geographical location spanning East and West, and its status as a nation. A long-standing pillar of American foreign policy.
China has fostered bilateral partnerships across the Middle East, but one of its longest regional relationships is with Iran. In Iran, Chinese authorities saw it as a country that offered Iran an opportunity to help achieve China’s main objectives in the region.
(AP Photo/Rafiq Maqbool)
After 1979, Iran was inherently anti-American. This meant that China was likely to be warmly welcomed by Tehran, especially when compared to other regional powers such as Saudi Arabia, which had relatively friendly relations with the United States.
Perhaps most importantly, given its status as a rising regional power, it may rely to some extent on Iran to impede American interests in the Middle East.
This does not mean that Iran has become a vassal state of China, but that when the Iranians exercised their power in destructive actions in an area of great strategic importance to the United States, China This means that we may be able to provide support.
China’s future movements
Considering the motivations underlying the historically deep relationship between China and Iran, it is clear that the evaporation of Iran’s influence is likely to significantly change the character of future China-Iran relations.
In short, a significant part of Iran’s appeal to Chinese policymakers has disappeared with the near-annihilation of its regional networks. This is likely to prompt China to seek deeper ties with other Middle Eastern powers such as Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates to achieve its goals in the region. The most important of these is increasing its influence in the region at the expense of the United States.
However, it is also unlikely that China will completely abandon Iran. China may try its best to deepen relations with other Middle Eastern countries rather than Iran, but it will be reluctant to further isolate Iran and thereby increase its tendency to act aggressively. .
China was one of the key mediators behind the scenes of the 2015 Iran nuclear deal, hoping that regional tensions would be eased through Iran abandoning its nuclear program.
(AP Photo/Vahid Salemi)
Now that Iran is weakened and effectively cornered, it has two main options going forward. Either it can achieve closer ties with the West or it can reinvigorate its nuclear program and become more aggressive.
The ultra-conservatives in power in Iran may want to take a more aggressive path, but China will use its considerable economic influence over Iran to pursue options to get closer to Iran. It is very likely that they will be encouraged to do so.
The reason is that China needs the Middle East as a source of oil to boost its economy, and it also does not want to be seen by the West as a tacit accomplice of a belligerent and destabilizing Iran. This is because it is not.
Is China a moderating influence?
On the contrary, China is currently working to mend relations with many Western countries, given the importance of Western markets to China’s deteriorating economy.
In fact, China is likely to encourage Iran to reach a deal with the West in the near future, as it will show the incoming Donald Trump administration, which is notoriously hawkish towards China, that Iran can be trusted and can do the job. Maybe you want to play a role. Constructively.
Ultimately, given the region’s importance to China’s economy, China will likely seek ways to minimize the possibility of full-scale conflict in the Middle East. The country has a strategic opportunity to demonstrate its trustworthiness and trustworthiness to the West by seeking to deter Iran from choosing a more aggressive path.
