{"id":24810,"date":"2017-05-01T08:47:26","date_gmt":"2017-05-01T12:47:26","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/joshualandis.com\/blog\/?p=24810"},"modified":"2017-05-01T08:47:26","modified_gmt":"2017-05-01T12:47:26","slug":"china-u-s-future-middle-east-sam-farah","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/joshualandis.com\/blog\/china-u-s-future-middle-east-sam-farah\/","title":{"rendered":"China, the U.S, and the Future of the Middle East – By Sam Farah"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"\"

Sam Farah<\/p><\/div>\n

China, the U.S., and the Future of the Middle East
\n<\/strong>By Sam Farah
\nfor Syria Comment – May 1, 2017<\/p>\n

Richard Fontain, and Michael Singh propose\u00a0Chinese – US cooperation<\/a> to stabilize the Middle East in a\u00a0recent article:<\/p>\n

The United States and China undeniably have overlapping interests in the region, providing a possible basis for competition, collaboration, or both. They also share a modest record of cooperation, including the Iran nuclear negotiations and on antipiracy operations\u2026. Given the likelihood that the United States and China will remain at loggerheads in East Asia for the foreseeable future,\u00a0the Middle East could represent an important arena through which to lower bilateral tensions and demonstrate that the otherwise highly competitive relationship need not be zero-sum.<\/em><\/p>\n

Fontain and Singh are correct. The benefits of a cooperative relationship between the U.S. and China in the Middle East can have tangible benefits for both countries. A stable Middle East is at the heart of China\u2019s new vision for its One Road One Belt project, a strategy that underlines China’s push to take a bigger role in global affairs.<\/p>\n

\"\"The increased instability and radicalization in the Middle East poses a security threat to China\u2019s mainland. \u00a0Thousands of Chinese jihadists from the western province of Xinjiang have come to Syria<\/a> since the country’s civil war began in March 2011 to fight government forces. And in 2016 a suicide bomb attack on the Chinese embassy in the Kyrgyz capital was ordered by Uighur militants active in Syria.<\/a><\/p>\n

At the same time, the Middle East has become a major source of energy for China.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

And while the Middle East remains a security threat for the U.S. as a source of terrorism, it is less strategically important<\/a> than it once was. The U.S. has become more energy self-sufficient, and is projected to significantly cut its reliance on oil from the Middle East.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

In the same article, Fontain and Sing make a misguided proposal that the U.S. should reengage in the region the\u201d traditional way\u201d:<\/p>\n

The best way for Washington to minimize the opportunities for further inroads by Beijing or Moscow\u2014or at least to set the framework by which other external powers engage in the region\u2014is to shore up key relationships with allies like Egypt, Turkey, Israel, and the Gulf states.<\/em><\/p>\n

This traditional engagement will\u00a0polarize the Middle East further, and exacerbate the war in Syria.\u00a0 U.S. officials know that these allies are arming and supplying the most radical terrorist organizations including ISIS and Al Qaeda in their bid for regional influence.<\/a><\/p>\n

The traditional U.S. \u00a0peace-building effort in the Middle East has focused on individual conflicts and has yielded precious little despite intense effort by several American administrations. Neoconservatives, who argued that the promotion of liberal democracies is a precondition to peace in the Middle East, have pushed for regime change in many countries in the region, only to see violence, extremism and terrorism reach new heights, all at a huge cost to the American taxpayer.<\/p>\n

The Chinese approach to the Middle East will be different. According to Yang Guang<\/a>, the Chinese solution would pair a regional approach with economic development. This is a much different and likely a better approach to peace building in the Middle East. It is clear that the Syrian crisis is a regional war, and the Kurdish issue is a regional issue as is the Israeli \u2013 Palestinian issue. The Chinese would also have an easier time than the U.S. facilitating dialogue in the region. China won\u2019t be viscerally rejected by the leftists in the region, and is less suspect than the Europeans whose colonial history in the Middle East has never been forgotten.<\/p>\n

The current conflicts in the Middle East are not primordial. The same communities that are at war today have lived peacefully together for centuries. According to Philip Mansel\u2019s book Levant; Splendor and Catastrophe on the Mediterranean<\/em><\/a>, many of the cities in the Levant were multicultural, multilingual and mixed; mosques, churches and synagogues were built side by side. Trade bound its inhabitants, and their cities were at once Middle Eastern and Mediterranean. They were cosmopolitan then, as Singapore, London, and New York are today.<\/p>\n

The descent of the Middle East into what seems today as perpetual war began with the rise of nationalism in the Middle East<\/a> at the turn of the twentieth century.<\/p>\n

When it comes to the Middle East today, all the major global powers are engaged in\u00a0reactionary stopgap measures. What the region needs is a departure from nationalist and identity politics. \u00a0Creating the conditions and framework in which nationalistic and identity politics dissipate, allowing for communities to live peacefully side by side is the answer. That won\u2019t happen at the bilateral level; it requires a regional approach.<\/p>\n

A stable Middle East,\u00a0neutralized political Islam (depoliticizing islam),\u00a0and secure energy and trade routes are a win-win for Russia, China, and the U.S., not to mention Europe.<\/p>\n

Neither China, the U.S. nor Russia can do it alone. It is also doubtful that any of these major powers want to “win” in the Middle East and be held solely responsible for the stability and security of the region.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

China, the U.S., and the Future of the Middle East By Sam Farah for Syria Comment – May 1, 2017 Richard Fontain, and Michael Singh propose\u00a0Chinese – US cooperation to stabilize the Middle East in a\u00a0recent article: The United States and China undeniably have overlapping interests in the region, providing a possible basis for competition, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":24812,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"sfsi_plus_gutenberg_text_before_share":"","sfsi_plus_gutenberg_show_text_before_share":"","sfsi_plus_gutenberg_icon_type":"","sfsi_plus_gutenberg_icon_alignemt":"","sfsi_plus_gutenburg_max_per_row":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[522,62,23,19,523],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-24810","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-china","category-farah","category-peace","category-us","category-uyghurs"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"yoast_head":"\nChina, the U.S, and the Future of the Middle East - 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