China is emerging from the U.S.-Israeli war against Iran in a much weaker position. For years, Beijing counted on Tehran to serve as a bulwark against Washington. Today, though, that’s no longer possible as the Iranian government and its proxies across the Middle East have been neutralized, at least for now.
The conflict also exposed a major Chinese vulnerability following threats that Iran might close the Strait of Hormuz in retaliation for the attacks on its nuclear facilities. This would be devastating for the Chinese economy, given that between a third and half of all Chinese oil imports pass through this strategic waterway.
Ahmed Aboudouh, head of the China research unit at the Emirates Policy Center and an associate fellow in the Chatham House Middle East and North Africa program, joins Eric & Cobus to discuss the new realities facing Beijing in the aftermath of the war in Iran.
Show Notes:
- Associated Press: Beijing, a longtime friend of Tehran, turns to cautious diplomacy in Iran’s war with Israel by Didi Tang
- Bloomberg: Trump Baffles With Sudden U-Turn on China Buying Iranian Oil by Grant Smith, Ben Bartenstein, Daniel Flatley, and Mia Gindis
- Wall Street Journal: A Weakened Iran Poses an Alliance Test for China, Russia and North Korea by Timothy W. Martin, Thomas Grove and Austin Ramzy
About Ahmed Aboudouh:
Ahmed Aboudouh is the Head of the China Studies Unit at EPC and an Associate Fellow at the Chatham House, London. He is a foreign affairs, security, and geopolitics specialist focusing on China’s rising influence in the MENA region, US-China competition, and its worldwide implications. Ahmed is also a Non-Resident Fellow with the Atlantic Council in Washington, DC. He is a PhD candidate at the Defence Studies Department, King’s College, where his thesis focuses on the US-China competition in the Global South. He also holds a Master of Arts in International Relations from the Department of War Studies at King’s College London.
Transcript:
ERIC OLANDER: Hello and welcome to another edition of the China Global South podcast, a proud member of the Sinica Podcast Network. I’m Eric Olander. And as always, I’m joined by China Global South’s managing editor, Cobus Van Staden from beautiful Cape Town, South Africa.
A very good afternoon to you, Cobus. Good afternoon. Cobus, today we’re going to start a series of three programs that are exploring China’s role in the Iran-Israel-United States war that has escalated considerably over the past few weeks.
Today, we’re going to focus on the Gulf countries. Next week, we’re going to speak with Gedalia Afterman from Reichman University about the Sino-Israel relationship and where that stands now. And then finally, we’re going to speak with the Iran-China guy, William Figueroa, and he’s going to talk to us about specifically what the situation is between Iran and China.
Today, we’re looking at the Gulf, and there’s been a lot of discussions this week about the Gulf. In fact, Donald Trump earlier this week posted on Truth Social, let me read it to you, Cobus. He said, quote, China can now continue to purchase oil from Iran.
Hopefully, they will be purchasing plenty from the U.S. also. Now, in some cases, a lot of people were surprised by this because all of the rhetoric coming out of against China and surprised that this vital oil pipeline for the Chinese, which is a vulnerability for the Chinese, that Donald Trump would let him go. But interestingly though, Cobus, Donald Trump reached the same conclusion that previous presidents have as well, that cutting off the Iranian oil supply to the Chinese would also reverberate to the United States because it forces up the cost of production in China if the cost of energy goes up.
Now, this is very important because about 14% of China’s oil imports are sourced from Iran. But more importantly for Iran, 90% of Iranian exports go to China. Now, a lot of that makes its way to China through third countries like Oman and Malaysia trying to circumvent the U.S. sanctions. And there’s a whole black fleet that goes, that brings the oil all the way up to northeastern China, which is in Shandong province, where a lot of the independent, what they call the teapot refineries who process the Iranian oil. But before the oil gets to Shandong province, it has to pass through this tiny little passageway, this waterway called the Strait of Hormuz. A lot of you have been hearing about this.
And this has been a big topic of conversation in major capitals around the world this week over whether or not Iran will close the Strait of Hormuz in retaliation for last week’s U.S. attacks on their nuclear facilities. Now, just consider this, and this is going to set up our conversation today. 20% of the world’s oil passes through the Strait of Hormuz.
And about a third to about 45%, that’s the estimates of China’s oil, passes through the Strait of Hormuz. Now, the Iranian parliament last week after the attack passed a measure that authorized the government to close the Strait of Hormuz. We don’t have any confirmation from Tehran that they actually are going to do that.
They’ve said that all of the options are on the table, and it’s one that would have very severe consequences on the global economy if the Iranians did that. Now, what’s interesting here, Qobuz, is that the United States is once again calling on the Chinese to use their purported influence, their leverage with the Iranians, to discourage Tehran from closing the Strait of Hormuz. Secretary of State Marco Rubio, he raised that specific issue in an interview with Maria Bartiromo on Fox News right after the U.S. attacks on Iran. Let’s take a listen to what Rubio had to say.
SOUNDBITE: Secretary, final question here. Do you expect Iran to move to close the Strait of Hormuz to try to disrupt oil transportation across the world?
Well, I would encourage the Chinese government in Beijing to call them about that because they heavily depend on the Strait of Hormuz for their oil. If they do that, it’ll be another terrible mistake. It’s economic suicide for them if they do it.
And we retain options to deal with that. But other countries should be looking at that as well. It would hurt other countries’ economies a lot worse than ours.
It would be, I think, a massive escalation that would merit a response not just by us, but from others.
ERIC OLANDER: Cobus, if this sounds familiar, it should. Let’s kind of dial back the rewind machine to last January. If you recall then, U.S. Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, Jake Sullivan, who was then the national security adviser and former U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken, called on Beijing repeatedly to again use their influence with Iran to back then it was about the Red Sea and the Iranian-backed Houthi militants in Yemen from launching attacks on Red Sea cargo that was passing through there. Let’s also remember the outcome of what happened in that whole Red Sea thing. So the Chinese, they kind of feigned that they talked to the Iranians, but they really did a half-ass kind of discussion with them. But when it came out that the Houthis said, we’re going to give safe passage to Russian and Chinese ships, that should give us an indication of what might happen if the Strait of Hormuz is also closed.
So Secretary Rubio is right saying that the consequences would be grave, but they may not be as grave for the Chinese if what we saw in the Red Sea is anything to go by. So there we have, Cobus, that’s kind of a rundown of where we are. One other final data point before I get your reaction.
Bloomberg came out this week with a fascinating new chart that showed that Chinese oil purchases from Iran have been steadily declining. That may be also a factor that the Chinese are weighing, that it’s not as important to them or they have to wean themselves off of Iranian oil in order to reduce this vulnerability. You’ve been covering this story all week for our subscribers in the Daily Newsletter and on the site.
Give me your take on everything that we’ve kind of run through and what you’ve been reporting on.
COBUS VAN STADEN: You know, this is a great example of the difficulty of tracking the news at the moment, you know, because there is an entire set of relationships and interactions between China and Iran that we know are happening, but we have very little idea of what their content really is. And then on top of that, we have a set of like mega-charged, you know, kind of like very high volume narratives about a purported extremely close relationship between China and Iran, you know, kind of where China has all kinds of leverage. And, you know, so like making your way through the one in order to kind of get to the others is difficult.
Like, you know, I think from my perspective, and I’m very much not an expert, like it seems that there is more ambiguity within the Iran-China relationship than is assumed, I think, in Washington. I don’t know how close they really are. I mean, one thing that, you know, obviously, China has done a lot of work in bringing Iran into folds like the BRICS, for example.
They’ve, you know, kind of, they’ve done a lot of normalization between Iran and other kind of regional powers. But at the same time, like the big quote-unquote 25-year deal signed between Iran and China, one still sees more pressure from the Iranian side to kind of move that forward than necessarily enthusiasm on the Chinese side. And, you know, so it’s very difficult for me to pass exactly how close the two actually are.
And then with that, then, you know, kind of that raises a bunch of other questions about Chinese involvement in the conflict. And, you know, overall, what we do know is that China has been really working very hard to set up alternative shipping routes. And at the same time, you know, China’s decarbonization drive, complicated and slow as it is, is also real, you know, in the sense that, you know, we see less kind of like oil being used slowly over time.
You know, so there’s also this kind of overlap between decarbonization and national security in China is another kind of entire kind of factor that I think, you know, kind of needs to be pulled into this conversation.
ERIC OLANDER: Well, let’s get a view now from somebody who is expert on this much more than we are. Ahmed Aboudouh is the head of the China Studies Research Unit at the Emirates Policy Center and also an associate fellow with the Chatham House Middle East and North Africa program in London. We are thrilled to have Ahmed back on the show again to help share some insights as to where we are in this current moment in the Iran-Gulf relationship, and particularly what’s going on in Iran.
A very good afternoon to you, Ahmed.
AHMED ABOUDOUH: Good afternoon, Eric. Good afternoon. Cobus, thank you so much for this kind invitation.
I’m very, very glad to join you.
ERIC OLANDER: It’s wonderful to have you back again. You always help enlighten us so much when you’re on the show with us. Tell us a little bit about what your thoughts are about the Strait of Hormuz issue before we get into the broader issue of where are we right now, given all that’s happened.
So let’s start with your reaction to the events related to the Strait of Hormuz and particularly as it relates to China.
AHMED ABOUDOUH: It is, obviously, as you rightly said earlier, and your interesting data points, that it is a very vital and strategic waterway for China, especially energy imports from the Gulf. Forty-five percent, as we know, of oil imports going to China come from the Gulf region. That includes Iraq, UAE, Saudi Arabia, Oman.
And it is a very sensitive topic when it comes to China’s energy security. Now, the closure of the Strait of Hormuz has been a very heated debate, both in the Gulf and Iran, I would imagine. But historically, we could see that Iran has never closed the Strait of Hormuz before, whether that is lack of ability to do that militarily or strategic calculations.
And I lean towards the latter. Iran knows, as Secretary Robbie rightly said, that this might actually be a strategic suicide for Iran for two reasons. The first is it will badly affect oil trade all over the world.
That will be implemented in the spike of oil prices, but also insurance premiums. So the ability of Iran to close the Hormuz Strait or not is not very important because oil tankers will avoid this, as we could see also in the Bab-el-Mandab Strait, when the area was militarized by the Houthis. The second is it will invite a major military response, as Secretary Robbie pointed out.
And I think this will destabilize the region in the long term. And the Gulf states and Iran both don’t want this to happen. When it comes to China, it is very important for the Strait to remain open.
But also, I think China has some tools in its toolkit to deal with this situation. One of them is sending a flotilla from its military base in Djibouti to escort ships, not to intervene directly head-on with Western forces operating in the area or assisting anybody for that matter. It just will be very focused on its own interests, as we saw in the Bab-el-Mandab Strait, or reaching some sort of a deal similar to that deal they struck with the Houthis to give their oil tankers a safe passage in this regard.
But in the end, in the bigger picture, this will be another dilemma. I call it Hormuz dilemma for China in the long term, just like the Malacca dilemma that will incentivize China to diversify its energy sources. And we already started to see great emphasis on China and resuming the work on the power of Siberia 2 pipeline, gas pipeline, because they foresee long-term instability.
And this can be enforced by the preliminary bomb damage assessment that we saw in the New York Times that says that the nuclear program hasn’t been obliterated, as President Trump said before, which means or tells me that there is huge worry in the Gulf and China that this war was just the first opening scrimmage between Israel and Iran, and Israel might resume its strikes at some point in the future, which will destabilize the region, given that Iran might actually respond by the closure of Hormuz.
COBUS VAN STADEN: I was wondering, on a broad level, what your impressions were of the quote-unquote ceasefire that was announced by the Trump administration, and then, you know, the kind of fights between the Trump administration and some of the actors on the ground since then. Like, how should we think about the conflict and about the ceasefire as it stands at the moment?
AHMED ABOUDOUH: I think there is huge optimism in the region that it will last and it will hold, mainly because President Trump seems to be throwing his weight behind it and seems to be willing to use great level of pressure on Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and on Iran to stick to this ceasefire. So there is optimism, although it is still very fragile and it’s still to assume that it will hold. On the other hand, I think in the long term, the war is going to repeat, in my view, not only because of the nuclear program assessments on the side of Israel, but also because it’s all about regional dominance between Israel and Iran.
And you could see that when it comes to our conversation about China in China’s reaction, which is starkly different, in my view, from China’s response to the Gaza war, they understand that the Gaza war is a global conflict. It resonates with the majority of people in the global south and it will give China some political points to score. But when it comes to Iran, it is a very controversial country with very controversial influence in the region, especially for Gulf countries.
And it’s all about hegemonism or hegemony. That’s why you could see that Prime Minister Netanyahu calling it the rising line, this campaign vis-a-vis Iran. So in the end of the day, I think we are just at the beginning.
It’s a long term thing, but we could cherish and celebrate the short term ceasefire for now.
ERIC OLANDER: Yes, at least now the rockets temporarily, as we are recording this today, are not flying back and forth. And it’s interesting you point out the different tone that China took in response to this conflict and what they’ve been doing on Gaza, in particular because we’ve heard from a number of your colleagues in the China-Persian Gulf analysis space, namely Jonathan Fulton, who has been on our show a number of times talking about the primacy of the China-Saudi relationship in terms of China’s geopolitical hierarchy of interests in the Persian Gulf.
Qatar, UAE are much more important to the Chinese than Iran. Iran is nonetheless important, but nowhere near as important strategically as the Saudis. And so I guess I’m curious because the discussion that’s happening in the United States, and again, I’d like to hear you challenge this or agree with it, is that what Donald Trump demonstrated is this notion that in Beijing, there is the perception that the West is in decline and the East is in ascent or China is in ascent.
And flying B-2 bombers with bunker busting bombs with the level of precision that they had, they may not have destroyed the nuclear facilities, but they demonstrated a type of military power that the Chinese are a long ways away from. And they demonstrated also that the United States is still a formidable military power and that can project force far from its borders. And I’m wondering what you interpret how this frames China’s kind of framing of this in the Gulf in particular, where it saw itself as a new power.
It was negotiating detente between Iran and Saudi Arabia. It was bringing billions of dollars of investments. It was kind of carrying the upper hand on Gaza and beating the United States as it was an outlier in the international community.
And things seem a little bit different today. And there’s a different tone coming out of Beijing after all this. What’s your take on all of that?
AHMED ABOUDOUH: This is a very important question, Eric. And I think when it comes to tone, first of all, I could see a very different one because this is based on balancing and the Chinese, in my view, don’t want to burn all the bridges with Israel. And you could see that they are very, very cautious in the messaging they are putting out there.
Unlike a lot of rhetoric coming from the U.S. that China is standing behind Iran, that China is supporting Iran unequivocally. This is not true, in my view. And I think the American decision makers, policymakers and Israeli policymakers got the message right this time.
Why? Because Iran demonstrated very floppy way or ability to defend their own land and security. And China doesn’t want to put its eggs in one basket, knowing that it is very hard for Iran to emerge as a winner in this fight.
When it comes to the, and this ties into the assessment that you asked me about, the difference in relations between China and Iran and China and the GCC. And I think I can say maybe that after the war, I think Iran’s strategic importance in Chinese assessments in the Middle East has been reduced dramatically. Why?
Because if I was a Chinese policymaker sitting in Beijing now, I wouldn’t be able to continue to see Iran as a bargaining chip, a valuable bargaining chip in my deliberations with the United States, because Iran has been completely weakened by attacking its proxies or forward defense strategy and weakening its missile program and setting back its nuclear program as well. On the other hand, on the long term and at strategic level, if I was Chinese, I wouldn’t continue to see Iran as a balancing weight vis-a-vis Israel and the United States anymore in the Middle East. It is not going to be able to provide me with this function anymore in the strategic assessment in the Middle East.
So what does that mean after the war? It means that we could see China delays the implementation of all the initiatives under the comprehensive strategic agreement signed in 2021 even further. And on the other side, we could see more reliance from the Chinese side on their relationship with Gulf states, whether that is in investments, trade, high-tech cooperation or infrastructure, because there is great uncertainty now that Iran may stay stable in the long term as a country and as a regime.
And this weighs heavily on any calculations coming from China. On the other hand, I would say that China wants to preserve the Saudi-Iran rapprochement for its own interests and for its image. But as you rightly said, as a mediator, but as you rightly said, the United States, every time there is security tensions in the region, everybody look for the United States to come in and sort it out, whether that is militarily or diplomatically.
And this war reinforced the idea that China can call itself a great power, can position itself as a potential alternative mediator in peace times. But when security is on the line and national interests for regional powers is on the line, it’s always the United States that is able to come and turn things around for them and to provide some sort of protection for their interests. Therefore, I don’t think China is even near to being seen or considered from the Gulf States as security partner anytime soon.
COBUS VAN STADEN: So if we flip, move to the flip side of that, of that issue, like China’s own security, I was wondering how you see the conflict in the context of the Global Security Initiative? You know, so, you know, obviously, for a long time, the Global Security Initiative was very studiedly, very vague. And in a lot of ways, it was kind of, you know, a lot of times one would read documents and not really be sure of what you’re reading, right?
Kind of like the whole thing felt like vibes in lots of ways. But at the same time, we’re also seeing, like, you know, last week, we saw Xi Jinping’s meeting with the Central Asian states. This week, we’re seeing calls for greater, you know, kind of security cooperation within the Shanghai Cooperation Organization, all of these blocks that are sitting between China and this geographically between China and this war.
So I was wondering how, like, are we like, how, like, taking into account that, you know, that the Global Security Initiative is a key kind of, you know, initiative in Xi Jinping’s arsenal. How should we think of it in the context of this particular conflict?
AHMED ABOUDOUH: This is a very interesting question. And I could focus on two things. First, the Global Security Initiative.
One of Global Security Initiative’s main principle is common, comprehensive, cooperative, and sustainable security. And this war showed that the Middle East is so far away from this being reality. I would call even the GSI very inspirational, because it will take years, if not decades, for something like that to happen in the Middle East.
I could also link the Global Development Initiative. And the main principle is that is security through development. And the Middle East is the embodiment of invalidation of this principle, because it’s very highly securitized and antagonistic relations dominate networks in the Middle East, that it is not the place to talk about such principles that early in China’s journey to become a normative grey power.
The second point is the multilateral platforms that China is trying to build its vision on, mainly SCO, but also I would like to add the BRICS. And Iran is a member in both organizations. And this war showed us that these organizations are not able to provide any sort of protection for its members.
And although there is a lot of security-related rhetoric coming out of these meetings, especially the Shanghai Cooperation Organization, it is all theoretical and is all inspirational as well. And there is no practical mechanism that these members can actually refer to ask for protection or security cooperation. So in the end of the day, I think this war exposes all these mechanisms, China-led mechanisms, and doesn’t help China perspectives on China in the Middle East, especially, but also across the global South.
One last point I would say is this also throws spanner in the works of China trying to position itself as a leader of the global South, because there is no true leader that behaves like that when rockets start to fly. They don’t only rely on rhetoric and diplomatic backing, even being cautious in backing their own allies and partners.
ERIC OLANDER: Yeah. We saw a very big crack, by the way, in the Shanghai Cooperation Organization. Shortly after the missiles started flying, the SCO got together and issued a statement condemning the Israeli attacks on Iran.
But very importantly, the Indian delegation was not present at the drafting of that communique. In very rare diplomatic form, the Indian Ministry of External Affairs issued a statement that said we were not part of this drafting. And the reason why this is so contentious is because not only is Iran a member of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization, so is Pakistan.
And I guess the feeling was that they would not be able to draft a statement condemning Israel. And Israel, and particularly Modi and Netanyahu, have a particularly close relationship. They would not have been able to get a unanimous consent on that statement had India been there.
And again, that shows the weakness of these organizations as well. And so the BRICS faces a very similar challenge now that it’s getting larger. Koba said he wanted to flip the script.
I’m going to flip the script again, because we have been looking very closely at Chinese media coverage and the discourse that’s happening in China. Whereas in the United States and in the Gulf and in a lot of the media narratives are talking about how China was hapless. That was a word that we saw a lot, and that this revealed China’s weakness, and that this revealed also all the different things we’ve been talking about.
In China, and not only in the propaganda, but also within the academic and analyst policy discourse, they’re saying it was very tactical on their part not to get sucked into this region that has been a viper’s nest for not only the Americans, but also the British. And I mean, the Middle East has not been a very healthy place for major powers to grow. And so they are very limited in their engagement in this part of the world because the risks are so high.
So they limit their engagement to economic and to technology and to the safe spaces, and then they’ll let the Americans get dragged down into another 10-year war. And no doubt, people were giddy over the idea of the Americans getting back into another Eurasian landmass war. I mean, they might have been listening to the War Room podcast by Steve Bannon, who’s saying, don’t do this for the Americans.
But remember, the last time this happened, the United States spent the equivalent of what, five, six, seven Belt and Roads in Iraq and Afghanistan? And so nothing could be better for the Chinese if the United States gets bogged down in another Mideast war. So the view in Beijing was very, very different.
They said, this was more tactical, it was more strategic, let’s not get involved, this is a mess, why would we want to get involved? And they tried to limit their exposure. How do you see it from a Chinese perspective?
And you speak a lot with Chinese analysts. Try to understand it from their point of view.
AHMED ABOUDOUH: I think they’re right, but also that the narrative coming from the US or the West in general and the narrative coming from China don’t contradict each other. They are tactical because they don’t have the ability to be strategic. So they have to be very risk as usual.
And if you are Chinese and not risk averse in the Middle East, where would you be risk averse? Especially if you don’t have the capabilities and assets on the ground to help you to project power or influence. All you could see coming from China is diplomatic posturing, balancing between Iran and Israel, but not when it comes to the United States.
And this was very, very important as well. Because if you compare the language in Chinese statements towards Israel, it’s very cautious. But when it comes to the US, which reinforces your point, they want the United States to appear as if they are hypocrites, don’t have any credibility and biased and they can’t be mediators just like China, for example.
But the biggest thing that really caught my eyes in the Chinese discourse is how less respect Chinese analysts and also netizens started to grant Iran.
ERIC OLANDER: That was very interesting. They really were throwing shade on Iran. And that was permitted by, because the censors do guide some of these discussions.
And so that was very, I’m glad you brought that up because one of the themes in our China watching on these discourses was very negative towards Iran.
AHMED ABOUDOUH: Yes, because how it wouldn’t be. Iran approved that it is very easy country to infiltrate by spies. It has, from a Chinese point of view, very outdated military.
The economy has been under sanctions for too long and crippling and its forward defense strategy has been demolerized. So how could you rely from a Chinese perspective on Iran to do business in the future, even not only to put pressure on Israel and the United States? Plus, there is very important point from a Chinese perspective that it is not only Iran that doesn’t trust China very much.
And this heated debate dominating Iranians perspectives towards China, but also the Chinese don’t trust that Iran is fully locked in with China, just like other countries like Russia or Pakistan. They see this inclination within the Iranian society of wanting to be closer to the West, of wanting to do more business with the West. And they can’t trust that Iran will support China.
And you could see that in Iran’s attempts to balance between India and China, Russia and China, even having a deeper relationship with North Korea. So I don’t think there is a great level of confidence in China towards Iran, which makes the relationship much more complicated and nuanced than the rhetoric and narrative coming from the United States.
COBUS VAN STADEN: I wonder how you think this conflict affects China’s wider position in the Middle East? Because obviously, in this conversation, there’s a lot of focus on China’s strategic engagement in the Middle East, and also around the wider issue of the ongoing violence and the Palestinian areas and the wider region. There was a lot of talk and also a certain amount of fantasy projection about which role China wants to step into security-wise.
But at the same time, what we’re also seeing is a lot of action on the investment side, a lot of back and forth between China and Saudi Arabia, between the UAE, a lot of talk of cross-continental transport and logistics links connecting to Europe, working with Turkey around some of those issues, and so on. So it seems like that’s where a lot of the action lies on the Chinese side, rather than this kind of security-related role. So I was wondering where you see the real kind of energy lying in Chinese engagement, the broader Chinese engagement with the region?
AHMED ABOUDOUH: First of all, there is a great concern in my view, and I want to bring this back to our conversation, because it’s very, very important and timely, about what is going to happen in the short term after the war when it comes to Iran’s nuclear program. I think the first objective in Beijing, I would imagine, is to shield Iran from the snapback mechanism that can be implemented before the expiration of the GCPOA in October.
ERIC OLANDER: Just could you explain what the snapback mechanism is for those of us who…
AHMED ABOUDOUH: The snapback mechanism is a mechanism that allows the re-imposition of UN-led sanctions on Iran, based on an assessment that it didn’t show compliance with its commitments under the GCPOA and under the NPT, the Non-Proliferation Treaty. And the main concern in Russia and China is if the Europeans try to bring back sanctions on Iran after October, this will push Iran to withdraw from the NPT, which means pursuing a nuclear breakout, which means for great powers, a nuclear race in the Middle East. So this is the first thing that the Chinese want to prevent by trying to moderate indirectly Iran’s behavior when it comes to nuclear program, using Russia’s rotating presidency of the Security Council in September and other mechanisms.
When it comes to energy, I think there is a great emphasis now in China on renewable energy. And renewable energy plays a very important role because it falls in China’s strategic outlook to become the leader of the renewable energy throughout the world. And the Gulf want to pour billions of dollars into this sector in the long term, but not only the Gulf, Egypt and Morocco and other countries as well.
So they want to dominate this transition in the Middle East towards renewable energy. When it comes to traditional energy, I think they are in a bind. They will try, I suspect, to find other more secured routes.
One of them is the Gwadar-Xinjiang route, for example, which is very early on and it needs a lot of…
ERIC OLANDER: Yeah, but that is plagued by problems and terrorism and just a money pit the size of the White House that’s there. I mean, so that’s not necessarily a guarantee either.
AHMED ABOUDOUH: Exactly. And other tactical routes, such as the pipeline that ends in Fujairah, UAE, airport that avoid the stray of Hormuz and so on and so forth. These are not strategic solutions, as you rightly said.
This will keep the pressure on energy security in China. That’s why I can comfortably call it the Hormuz dilemma. But they will try to diversify regardless because they don’t have anything else to do.
They don’t have any other option to do. But from a connectivity point of view, this war will delay normalization between Gulf states and other Arab states and Saudi Arabia, which will put a hold on IAMIC corridor and other initiatives to connect Asia, Africa and Europe, which is a positive for China, given that all these initiatives were designed to compete with the BRI. So China will benefit from the delay in these initiatives.
But the question is, if Gaza war stops and we could see some positive signs coming out of the NATO summit today about this, will this normalization stay on hold for so long? And this is a challenge for China as well. The other challenge is if the war resumes and Iran try to strike another Gulf state, just like it did with Qatar, will that sit well with the rapprochement between Saudi Arabia and Iran?
You could see the forceful reaction from Saudi Arabia putting all the kingdom’s capabilities behind Qatar to defend it, the initial reaction. So this time it didn’t spiral to a wider war, but will it stay contained in the future? This is another question.
So all these challenges facing Chinese normative positioning and great power, responsible power image, and also energy and investment challenges, for example, between two brackets, the rockets from Iran hitting the Haifa Bay was a very, very dangerous and direct threat to Chinese investment.
ERIC OLANDER: Because China is one of the operators of the port of Haifa. It’s a Chinese state-owned company.
AHMED ABOUDOUH: Absolutely. So all these questions should be asked and carefully assessed by Chinese strategists.
ERIC OLANDER: Now, the concern in Europe and the United States is that the Chinese are going to do in Iran what they have been accused, and again, I don’t have the information to determine whether it’s happening or not, of what they’re doing in Russia by providing dual-use technology to the Russians that ultimately support the Russian war effort in Ukraine. We heard all week about these mysterious flights that were going from China to Iran. And I want to caution everybody, because this is very much in dispute.
There are a lot of people out there that credibly have said these are misinformation and disinformation campaigns to try and portray China as providing technology and ballistic missile materials to the Iranians. There are also very credible people who are saying it is happening. And what we wrote on our site is we don’t know if it’s happening.
We want people to be aware that there’s a discussion that these flights have been taking place, but we cannot validate whether or not these three planes happen. But what we do know is that Iran ran low, if not depleted, big parts of its ballistic missile inventory, and that it’s going to have to rebuild its arsenal. And one has to wonder, can it do it without Chinese support?
Because where would they get the materials from given the fact that they’re under sanction? And the Chinese have shown a willingness to bring materials to Russia that have been used in the war effort. Would they then be complicit in bringing potentially to Iran?
What you’ve said is that the strategic risk of doing that may be too high for the Chinese, that this is not worth supporting Iran because it puts in jeopardy their relationships with the Saudis, even the Israelis to some extent, which are more important, and certainly the Emiratis. Talk to us a little bit about forward-looking now. What does China do with Iran that comes knocking on its door to say, we need your help, we need material, we need technology, we need to be resupplied in order to be able to stand up to the Americans and the Israelis?
AHMED ABOUDOUH: I think the war gave us lessons on that interesting question. So the Chinese would prefer for Iran to have stable and peaceful relations with all its neighbors, including Israel. And in fact, there’s a lot of debate in China about what Iran should do, which is to take the Chinese journey of opening up and reform as an example to avoid the Soviet Union model and to align with the Chinese model.
Now, this is not going to happen, as we all know. The other scenario was a war, full-on war with the United States and Israel that involves boots on the ground. And that takes a very long time to resolve, just like Afghanistan and Iraq.
And this didn’t happen. So what happened is a tactical military strike that is part of the diplomacy that the United States is leading and wants to only weaken Iran to push it to give some concessions on the negotiating table. And this is the worst case scenario from a Chinese point of view, because a, it weakened Iran dramatically that it became obsolete when it comes to putting pressure in the future on the United States, meaningful pressure on the United States policies in the region and serving subsequently China’s vision.
But also it didn’t give the Chinese anything in return. So the only scenario that I see China taking the risk of supplying Iran with weapon-grade assistance, including the dual use tools and components of rockets is when we have the latter scenario, which is Iraq style war with the United States, because this will help bog down the United States for longer and deeper that it is strategically distracted from the South China Sea and the Indo-Pacific in general, which gives China the strategic space to broaden its influence. Sometimes it’s coercive behavior in the South China Sea and towards Taiwan. This is the best scenario.
But I think the cost also is very high because as we said, energy security relies on this region in Beijing and Beijing so far doesn’t have any alternatives that can satisfy its attempts to reinvigorate its economy and its manufacturing base, stand up to President Trump’s tariffs. So I think there is a huge dilemma here that China, quite frankly, in my view, at least doesn’t have a way out yet and they need to sit down and think deeply about it. The question is, will these components of rockets really strategically help Iran to regain its power in the Middle East?
I don’t think so. I think it’s too late for that. I think what the Chinese can truly help Iran with is a, convince them to change their defense doctrine, the forward defense, by essentially shift from a proxy-based defense strategy, subsequently help them buy J-10 fighter jets, just like they did with Pakistan, and rehabilitate their military power from the scratch.
Not only missile program and some transactional and tactical abilities like that.
ERIC OLANDER: But you can imagine their friends in Riyadh are not going to be happy about that and the folks in Abu Dhabi and Dubai as well would not be happy with that type of engagement, right?
AHMED ABOUDOUH: I mean… Absolutely, absolutely agree with you. But I’m talking here from an Iranian and Chinese point of view.
When it comes to the risk, it is very, very high. Not only the Saudis and the UAE, but also the United States and Israel will be furious with China if it opts to that. That’s why China is locked in, in the process of negotiations.
It can’t take any meaningful step forward in its relations with Iran until there is a long lasting deal between Iran and the United States. And until they can reach some sort of understanding between Beijing and Washington on what sort of relationship China should have in the future with Iran, especially when it comes to security. That’s why I think, also given the war and what happened and the humiliation that Iran faced, I think China will be even more cautious given that its deep relations with Saudi Arabia and the UAE, as you rightly said.
ERIC OLANDER: Yeah, well that could be a very long time given the fact that the Iranians probably do not trust the Americans when it comes to diplomacy, given that Donald Trump said he would take two weeks to evaluate this decision and then went ahead with his strike. So diplomacy may be hard to…
AHMED ABOUDOUH: Yeah, you’re right. But I just want to add, it depends on what the United States and Israel want to do.
ERIC OLANDER: Yeah.
AHMED ABOUDOUH: Assessment is the nuclear program is still intact, will that lead to another confrontation in the near future?
ERIC OLANDER: And Donald Trump, say what you want. He wants a deal. And I think he would love to walk away from this with a settlement of some kind and saying that he was the one who brought order to this region and somehow brought the Iranian nuclear program to heel.
So we’ll see. Ahmed, thank you so much for your insights. As always, it’s fascinating.
You’ve given us a lot to think about. Ahmed Abadou is the head of the China Research Unit at the Emirates Policy Center and also a research associate at, or an associate fellow at Chatham House’s Middle East and North Africa program in London. Ahmed, thank you so much.
Really great to speak with you. We look forward to following up again with you very soon.
AHMED ABOUDOUH: Thank you so much, Eric and Kobos. Thank you for having me. It was great to be here.
ERIC OLANDER: Cobus, fascinating what Ahmed was saying about the difficult situation that China is in right now. And I think that’s a position that, again, when you look at the Chinese discourse, that nuance is not there at all. The discourse in China is pretty blunt right now about how this is undermining the US standing in the world, that Iran is weak, but they don’t really have a lot of self-reflection in the academic and policy discourse right now.
Maybe too sensitive for them to do it. The part of this that I’ve been thinking about for a long time is that China may have backed itself into the same corner that Germany did by becoming reliant on Russian oil, in the case of the Germans, and that the Chinese have become overly reliant on energy from a very volatile part of the world. Now, let’s be very clear here.
The imported energy that China buys from the Middle East tends to support Chinese industry, so the factories. It’s not the homes. A lot of the homes are being supported by clean, renewable energy, solar, wind, hydro, and those others.
So this is really going to impact Chinese industry. Chinese industry today is already under enormous pressure, given the tariffs and the slow economy in China. And it makes me wonder that why would the Chinese have consolidated so much of their energy buys into this part of the world, which is prone to these types of disturbances?
And when you and I started the China Global South Project, which first was the China-Africa project back in the 2010s, China relied heavily on Africa for imported oil. Sudan, Republic of Congo, Angola. They’ve dialed down their African oil purchases in favor of ramping up the Gulf purchases.
I wonder if one of the beneficiaries of this might be a shift back to Africa to buy more oil in order to reduce the vulnerability in the Straits of Hormuz.
COBUS VAN STADEN: I think so. I would also assume probably from places like Brazil as well. In the larger scheme, not immediately of course, but this will likely push decarbonization in China, I think.
Because as you say, industrial decarbonization is the big hurdle. But China has also been making significant advances in that field too. And obviously we’ve seen over the last few years the full reframing of both green industry and decarbonization as vectors of national security under Xi Jinping.
So there’s a full discourse of securitization around energy and energy transitions in China now that I think is unique to China in lots of ways. So the kind of rhetoric is there, the kind of party direction is already aligned in that direction. Even though on the ground, obviously, it’s a mixed situation and a lot of Chinese industry I think would prefer to just keep running on oil because they’re facing a lot of other problems too.
But I think in the longer term, what we’ll probably see is that this will add more energy into that push in the longer run. Because in the end, this kind of Middle East engagement and general oil engagement is increasingly just more trouble than it’s worth. Because it just exposes China to a lot of different problems.
ERIC OLANDER: Yeah. And by the way, it’s not only the access to the oil, but the price of oil too. So if the price of oil shoots up, that too exposes China and everybody of course.
But China because… And the shipping logistics and everything. But because China is a manufacturing economy, it depends on energy so much more than say a tech and services economy.
That being said, data centers now are extraordinarily energy famished. So that’s going to be interesting as well. So I guess a couple trends to look at that come out of this conversation.
What you’re talking about is going to push green energy more. We’re probably going to see more diversification away from the Gulf and buying oil in other parts of the world, South America, here in Southeast Asia, other places, further diversification, probably back to Africa. Then the other part is this emphasis on the strategic waterways.
And that comes up over and over again. So Ahmed talked about the Straits of Malacca, the Strait of Hormuz, and then we have the Suez Canal. These are these choke points that make China very vulnerable to disruptions in their global supply chains, should they be cut off.
This is where I would like the conversation about Chinese basing to go to, because this is a core security interest for the Chinese. Not the West Coast of Africa, for example. Not in South America, where the United States continually comes up with these fantasies that the Chinese are going to put bases there.
It’s around these strategic waterways, like the Strait of Hormuz, Malacca, and the Suez Canal. This is where I think the Chinese are going to invest more in terms of security.
COBUS VAN STADEN: Yeah, I tend to think so. You know, what will be interesting for me to see is whether this disrupts the larger, or slows down the larger engagement between China and Middle East powers. So the physical trafficking of oil back and forth is one part of this.
But there’s a lot of Chinese capital moving in and out of the Gulf region, particularly. We’re seeing closer coordination between the Gulf region and ASEAN and China. A lot of big investment from the Gulf region into China.
ERIC OLANDER: So, exactly. And a lot of people, too. A lot of people-to-people exchanges that can’t be dismissed.
Exactly.
COBUS VAN STADEN: So in that sense, there is this kind of interesting, kind of like, larger kind of trans-historical shift, right? Kind of where, you know, the US and Israel’s engagement in the region feels increasingly like the kind of dark past of the region, you know? Whereas China is one of the few that actually provides any kind of different alternative view of the future, which is interesting for me.
ERIC OLANDER:
You say that, but again, security is an ever-present issue in that part of the world. So it’s not the dark past. The fact is that American security is the balance of power right now in that region, and continues to be the balance of power.
I think for the Americans, though, they see the Chinese as weak. I think, to your point, the Chinese are being very tactical. Now, tactical, as he pointed out, that’s out of necessity.
Maybe not because they want to be, but because they have to be. But at the end of the day, when Saudi Arabia thinks of electrifying its mobility system, or greening its grid, it’s going to think to the Chinese. When we look at the investments of Huawei around the region, they’re enormous.
And Donald Trump is aware of this, because on his visit to the Gulf, China was very present in the positioning. We saw this in the UAE, where they were really trying to push the Chinese out of the AI sector there. And by making, again, these types of agreements that say, if you deal with us, you can’t deal with the Chinese.
The UAE, at least on AI, seems to be siding with the Americans. So it’s, again, this is a very complex, nuanced answer, and I don’t think the lines are very clear. Americans are security.
Chinese are economic. Not quite like that. And let’s not forget that a lot of Gulf countries are buying Chinese weapons, including the UAE.
So when we think about security, they may not look to the Chinese to patrol their waters, but they will look for CH-4 drones. And when you go to the UAE, and the Dubai, and the Abu Dhabi airshows, boy, the Chinese are there in a very big way, and there’s a lot of buyers. So again, these lines are crossed.
COBUS VAN STADEN: Yeah, no, definitely. I mean, by that, I don’t mean some kind of like fantasy, peaceful future of harmony. That’s not the future I mean.
I mean more that some yet undefined future. I don’t think anyone can reasonably expect that Israel and the US is going to be anything else than they already are in the region. They’re not going to reinvent themselves in some kind of way.
Israel isn’t becoming some kind of vector for peace anytime soon. So in that sense, just the Middle East, through that lens, will always be a zone of securitization, always be a zone for bombing. That’s its only role in that logic.
Whereas China has this undefined aspect to its relationship with the region, which I think makes it very difficult to predict. Because of course, there is energy, there is a lot of weapons trade, there’s a lot of security thinking in China, but it’s not exactly the same security thinking that’s coming out of the US. And that’s what I mean, is that there’s a zone of ambiguity on the Chinese side that doesn’t exist on the US and Israeli side, I think.
ERIC OLANDER: But I guess what I’m saying is don’t box the US into this corner that it’s only there for security. I think what we’ve seen with the G42 deal in UAE, for example, is that the US is a major tech player in the region. And so it’s not only, it doesn’t look to the region, it’s not only just buying bombs and F-16s and F-35s.
COBUS VAN STADEN: Yeah, but I mean, that tech is highly securitized as well. Yes, but not only. So everything is seen through a lens.
And the lens, I don’t think, changes.
ERIC OLANDER: So next week, we’re going to look at this whole story from an Israeli perspective with Gedalia Afterman, who is one of the top China-Israel experts. And Israel, obviously, is a central actor in all of this because ties between Israel and China before this were on the up and up. But as we heard from Hamed, there was a part of this that the Chinese want to preserve those ties.
So we’re going to talk about that. And then again, the following week, we’re going to hear more on Iran, because obviously, this is an issue that we could talk about for the next three years and still never cover it all. So we’re going deep on this because this is the story of the moment right now.
So I hope that you’ll join us for the next couple of weeks. Of course, if you’ve got questions or comments and you’re watching on YouTube, we love the conversations that are going on. We’re getting hundreds of comments every week.
And I respond to some of them, but we’d love to get more of your feedback. So tell us what you think. And also, if you can like and subscribe, that does help us with the algorithms to get this more nuanced, moderated conversation to break through some of the kind of hysterical, extreme polarized views that now dominate so much of social media.
So we’re going to leave it there. And of course, if you want to follow all the great work that Cobus and the team are doing on the site, we have just amazing output now. I mean, it’s just, go check it out.
I can’t even, I’m just so proud. I’m speechless about it. All the great work that Cobus, Obra, Gérôme, Lucie and the rest of the team in Asia, Africa and the Middle East are doing at China Global South.
Go to ChinaGlobalSouth.com slash subscribe. As always, if you are a teacher or a student, you get half off. Just email me, Eric, E-R-I-C at ChinaGlobalSouth.com and I will send you the links for the half off discounted rate. And also want to thank all of our new subscribers. Cobus, we’ve had a little surge of subscribers the past couple of weeks and it’s great to have everybody aboard. And again, we just hope that more of you will join our growing community of readers.
So for Cobus van Staden in Cape Town, I’m Eric Olander. We’ll be back again next week with another edition of the China Global South podcast. Thank you so much for listening and for watching.
