Opinion | World needs China to take up diplomatic gauntlet in Middle East
As it seeks to project itself as a major global power in contrast to the US, China would be well advised to review its tangible contribution to the global good
Beijing has a rare opportunity to explore options for lowering the temperature in the region, by first seeking to end the spiral of violence and enable tentative negotiations
The UN Security Council emergency meeting, held on Monday at Russia’s request to deliberate the US military strikes against targets in Iraq and Syria – and the potential implications for peace and security in a region still reeling from the October 7 Hamas attacks on Israel and the disproportionate reprisals – ended in an inconclusive but predictable manner.
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The five permanent members stuck to their respective national positions – as is often the case when there is a sharp divergence between the United States and Russia – and there appears to be little light at the end of a dark, blood-spattered tunnel. An escalation stemming from miscalculation could have catastrophic consequences given the number of interlocutors in the turbulence that has engulfed the long-troubled Middle East.
The US justified the strikes as acting in self-defence after the killing of three of its military personnel at a US base in northeastern Jordan in a drone attack on January 28. It conducted 85 strikes on February 2 in Iraq and Syria against reported Iranian Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps Quds Forces and affiliated groups. Meanwhile, Russia and China both denounced the US response.
Russia’s representative to the UN, Vassily Nebenzia, said the US actions had increased the level of instability in an already “burning” region. In a more temperate turn of phrase, Zhang Jun, China’s ambassador to the UN, noted that US military action was creating new turmoil in the Middle East and called on all countries concerned to stop acting out of self-interest, adding: “We are standing at a critical crossroads and should not forget that we are all in the same boat.”
This is a pertinent observation, and a similar sentiment has been voiced in different ways, the most relevant being in relation to the Cold War decades, when former Soviet president Mikhail Gorbachev remarked that “security is indivisible”. It is worth remembering, too, that Chinese President Xi Jinping dwelt on this concept during his address at the 2022 Boao Forum, just three days before the Russian invasion of Ukraine on February 24 that year.
Russian Ambassador to the United Nations Vassily Nebenzia attends a UN Security Council session at UN headquarters in New York on Monday. Earlier, the US military had launched retaliatory air strikes against Iran-backed militias in Iraq and Syria after a drone attack killed three US troops at a base in Jordan. Photo: Kyodo
Scholars Zha Daojiong and Dong Ting wrote in an Asian Perspective journal article last year that Xi’s speech “used the expression ‘anquan buke fenge’ put forward as a principle (‘yuanze’). The core elements therein are ‘anquan’ (security) and ‘buke fenge’ (not to be divided or separated in conceptualisation). When used to discuss topics pertaining to national security and/or international affairs, ‘buke fenge’ can be translated into English as ‘inalienable’, ‘inseparable’ or ‘indivisible’.”
