The "Chinese model" in the Middle East

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The "Chinese model" in the Middle East

Author: (Jon M. B. Altman)

Jon B. Alterman

Translator: Zhang Yimei

Introduction to France and Italy

While the liberal democratic ideology that has been espoused by Western countries has been challenged since the outbreak of the conflict in Gaza, the author reviews China's achievements in the Middle East in recent years and hopes to respond to Western anxieties about whether China seeks to replace the West in the region. Recently, the British magazine "Survival" published an article by Jon B. Alterman, director and senior fellow of the Middle East Program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) in the United States, entitled "The Chinese Model in the Middle East" It is attractive for Middle Eastern countries, because even if the Middle East has long been friendly with the West, its national conditions are very different from those of the West, and it is difficult for the Western model to achieve economic development without ensuring social stability, and the success of the "China model" complements another development path It is also possible for Middle Eastern countries to oppose the hegemony of Western discourse and the single development path defined by the West, and to use this to enhance their international influence in the third world. Finally, the authors conclude that there is no need for Western countries to be anxious about whether China is trying to replace the West, because the West still dominates and has the ability to play a dominant role in regional affairs, and for China, it has no intention of replacing the West, but only wants to soft-export its own empirical model.

It is worth noting that the author, as director and senior fellow of the Middle East Program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) in the United States, has difficulty understanding the plight of the Middle East and China's cooperation with the Third World objectively and neutrally. He did quote and verify a large number of official statements from the Chinese and Middle Eastern authorities, but it is difficult to say that his understanding of the social and cultural backgrounds and motivations of each country is not superficial. At the same time, he believes that China has no intention of dominating regional affairs, and that Western countries should understand the predicament of the Middle East and assume the responsibility of mediating conflicts and planning for future peaceful development in the Middle East.

In the spring of 2023, China made good progress in the Middle East. In December last year, Chinese leaders held a successful two-day meeting with Arab leaders in Riyadh. The kings, princes and presidents in attendance embraced the Chinese side warmly, rather than the formalities and awkward fist bumps that were seen when they hosted US President Joe Biden last July. A spokesman for the Chinese Foreign Ministry called the visit "an epoch-making milestone in the history of China-Arab relations," which is indeed a true description. On March 10, news came from Beijing that shocked the world: representatives of Saudi Arabia and Iran said that thanks to Chinese mediation, the two countries had now agreed to normalize relations.

In December 2022, on the occasion of his visit to Riyadh, the Chinese leader published an opinion piece in a local newspaper setting out the idea of the trip and calling for closer Arab ties with China. The article argues that "the Arab people advocate independence, oppose foreign interference, resist power politics and arbitrariness, and always pursue progress." The same is true for China in this regard. It is not difficult to understand who the article is implicitly criticizing, and it is not difficult to understand why many Arabs regard the conference as a success. Since then, Saudi Arabia has announced more than 30 agreements with China involving an investment amount of about $50 billion.

In stark contrast, when Biden visited Saudi Arabia five months ago, he claimed that he discussed the murder of Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi in 2018 as soon as he met Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, and he made clear his "views then and now." According to Biden, the prince said he was not responsible for the matter, and this response was as if to imply that Biden believed he was responsible. While Biden reached an agreement with the Saudis during his visit, it is clear that tensions remain between them.

The Arab countries want to get rid of the harsh conditions imposed by the West, to gain more political leverage and to win something that the Western powers will never give up to them – they are united in the pursuit of a more multipolar future in the Middle East. In pursuing this goal, they agreed on a simple point: China represents a new model of governance at home and abroad, and the Chinese model has much to emulate. What makes this quest special is its ambiguity. Neither side specified what the "China model" meant and how it could be emulated, but both sides agreed that breaking the monopoly of Western countries on the future development of the Middle East was a far-reaching good thing. Both sides are desperately seeking tools capable of countering the West. The vague "China model" acceptable to all countries satisfies this need, and in other words, the more ambiguous, the better.

The flaws of the Western model

The idea that success can be achieved without copying Western systems has unnerved many Western countries. The reason why the West has no doubts about the universality of its own system is that there are both missionary and colonial roots behind it. Although the missionaries did not consider themselves to be interested only in profit, as the colonizers were, there was a strong sense of Western superiority in their views. Many believe that following the example of the West is progress, and that the more you emulate, the greater the progress. The fact that liberal democracy serves the political and economic interests of the West is not the point, on the contrary, Western missionaries, colonizers, diplomats, and others have for 500 years defended that they forced others to imitate the West only to promote the common good.

For most of these 500 years, the Middle East has struggled to embrace Western culture. Some Middle Easterners appear to be the deepening of the Western invasion, seen by the Westerners as their efforts to revitalize impoverished holy places and fill the vacuum left by the collapsed Ottoman Empire. Over time, what started as a war for the soul evolved into a war for the hearts and minds. The Cold War, which accompanied the world's transition from the coal age to the oil age, escalated disputes in the Middle East and transformed the economic and political struggle into a civilisational struggle. In the early '50s, fear of communism led to an Anglo-American alliance to intervene in Iranian politics, and later the oil-rich monarchies of the Persian Gulf were resolutely anti-communist, which led to a sigh of relief for the West, and in the '70s, Egypt's turn to the American camp further demonstrated the predominance of the West.

With the collapse of the Soviet Union, the world seemed to have entered a new phase. As Francis Fukuyama famously put it in 1989, "The triumph of the West and Western thought is self-evident in the utter defeat of all other alternatives". Countries in the Middle East seem to accept this view. By the end of the 90s of the 20th century, each country in the Middle East either had close ties with the United States or was trying to improve their relations.

But that didn't last long. At the beginning of the 21st century, as the United States recovered from the shock of the 9/11 attacks, people's emotions changed. China only became a net energy importer around 1993, but as the 21st century entered a period of rapid economic growth, about half of China's oil was imported from the Middle East, and soon became an important driver of global energy demand growth, making it the largest trading partner of the Middle East countries in the process.

At the same time, the United States is expanding its influence in the Middle East in different ways. The U.S. strategic response to the 9/11 attacks had three main components: the wars in Afghanistan, Iraq, and attempts to democratize the Middle East. The war in Afghanistan is not a concern for most Arab countries, but the war in Iraq and democratization in the Middle East are to the point. Although the Arab countries are dissatisfied with Iraq, they respect Iraq and see it as a bulwark against Iran. The war against Iraq appears to have reinforced two forces feared by the United States: Iran's Iraqi allies, and the jihadist movement that fights Iran, the United States, and threatens war with other countries in the region. For Arab countries, as well as other U.S. allies, it is troubling to watch the U.S. find itself bogged down in Iraq. India's External Affairs Minister Jaishankar perfectly illustrated this uneasiness, observing: "For two decades, China has been winning without a fight, while the United States has been without a fight. ”

One of China's winning strategies is to convince a global audience of China's achievements in modern times. Joseph Fewsmith observes that Pan Wei of Peking University tried to promote the idea of the "China model" in the early 21st century, and there are early signs of success in the Middle East. Nobel laureate Naguib Mahfouz argued in 2002 that Arab societies should learn from abroad, including lessons learned from China, because the Middle East's socio-historical traditions are closer to those of China than in the West. As early as 2008, an Emirati scholar on China wrote that the China model proved that "there is another path for governments around the world to achieve economic growth." The "China model" began to emerge at this time, with Internet searches yielding 500 articles in 2007, 750 in 2008, and 3,000 in 2009.

What is the China model?

While there is a heated debate inside and outside China about the existence of a Chinese-style development model and its implications, the world's acceptance of the Chinese model is generally increasing. Western analysts tend to see it as a case of state-led economic development because it can "make big, complex decisions quickly, and at least relatively well done in terms of economic policy." At the same time, when China's economic growth is at its strongest, different core cities have adopted different development methods, and China has adopted different strategies at different times and places, and some scholars believe that the most appropriate word to describe the Chinese government's policy is "directed improvisation."

When China's leaders speak openly and consistently about the "China solution" (which can also be translated as "China proposal"), they do their best to avoid using the word "model." The soft promotion rhetoric of China's leaders contrasts sharply with the West's imposition of Western standards, which China sees as simply wanting to respect differences.

Ideological challenges

For the Middle East, it doesn't matter what China's goals are, it's the Chinese way of doing that gives them a legitimate case against the West's own political system, and provides a living example of how there is more than one path to economic growth and social stability. At the same time, China considers the United States to be a hegemonic country, and it has forcibly exported not only its own political model, but also its social and cultural system premised on American religious beliefs and political experience. For Middle Eastern countries, China's claims are convincing.

China does have some experience to speak of, and these experiences undoubtedly point to success. China's lifting 800 million people out of poverty is a remarkable achievement, and China has achieved tremendous socio-economic transformation with relative political stability. In 1979, China's urban population was less than one-fifth of its total population, and today it accounts for two-thirds of the total population, and has also formed a large, educated, consumption-oriented middle class that has fueled the country's economic development. It is not obvious that China can maintain its unity and cohesion in the face of such tremendous material, social and demographic changes, nor is it an ordinary achievement.

Still, the Gulf states' understanding of China's political economy is based almost entirely on impressions. With the exception of a few newspaper columns, there is no Arabic literature on China's economic and political developments. Academic articles on China's geopolitical role rely almost entirely on secondary English sources rather than Arabic or Chinese materials and primary sources. Just as the elite group of Gulf businessmen who have not lived in China can act as a bridge of communication, just as the Chinese living in the Gulf cannot easily deal with the Arabs.

Egypt's interests

China's success is an inspiration to the countries of the Middle East, which face the difficult task of economic and social transformation and a deep sense of insecurity. In many ways, the country most in need of China's embrace is Egypt, because its dilemmas and opportunities seem to be closest to China's. Both have experienced the influx of vibrant countryside into fast-growing cities over the course of a few decades. China's role in the construction of the electrified light rail connecting Cairo, the city of Ramadan and the new administrative capital has been under scrutiny. The first phase of the US$1.25 billion project is a 66-kilometer, 11-station line that is scheduled to open in July 2022, five years after the agreement between China and Egypt. The railway is an example of how China can build infrastructure faster and more economically than Western companies, and China has helped boost Egypt's economy by using its extensive experience in domestic railway construction. Because Egypt sees China as a developing country, the Egyptian media portrayed the railway as part of an equal partnership between the two sides, and secretly hoped that China's economic magic would influence Egypt.

The position of the Arab countries of the Gulf

The oil-rich countries of the Persian Gulf are far less concerned with attracting investment than Egypt and more concerned with guiding their economic, social and political development. For decades, the Saudis actively cooperated with the most potential domestic opposition and paid special attention to coexistence with the clergy, which legitimized the political legacy of the ruling family. More recently, under the Vision 2030 plan, Saudi Arabia pursued an aggressive policy, or more accurately, a strategy of enforced tolerance that would promote diverse social and economic liberalization.

The United Arab Emirates (UAE) faces roughly the same challenges, but it has a different institutional history. Since it is a relatively loose confederation of seven emirates, diversity (and sometimes inefficiency) is an inherent part of its structure. From the very beginning, each emirate has developed independently, often repeating each other's initiatives. For example, each emirate has built its own cement plant, and four different emirates are competing to build their own international airports. The Ministry of Planning envisioned a five-year plan beginning in 1981, but it lacked the political authority to implement its plans throughout the country, and attempts to communicate with local development planners, let alone coordinate with them, proved ineffective.

Despite the lack of central control, or perhaps because of it, the UAE has been able to grow strongly. Arguably, their divergent paths and aspirations for results are similar to the many strategies pursued by China in the 1990s. Dubai, in particular, is known for its ambition, and Abu Dhabi seeks to compete with one of them. The state (in this case, both the federal government and the governments of individual emirates) remains key to economic decision-making, through state-owned conglomerates such as Dubai World, Dubai Holdings, and government-controlled real estate development company Emaar. Dubai has an "Executive Office" that allows rulers to coordinate government and economic affairs, and in recent decades, Abu Dhabi has been looking to build a similar "Executive Affairs Authority".

Due to the oil boom, the overall concept of economic development in the Gulf region is different from that of countries such as Egypt. The resulting economic system is a blend of capitalism and socialism, which has few precedents in the United States or China. Politically and socially, tribal, clan and family systems in the Gulf are increasingly required to respond to the international demands of rapidly evolving cities, mobility and generational change. In this regard, they also do not have a clear direction. Governments in the Bay Area believe that liberalism has led to the social ills of the West and the destruction of social progress by ultra-conservative elements. That is, they insist that the government has a central role to play in managing controversial issues in society, and that more open politics will only exacerbate polarization and hatred. It is at this point that the Chinese government's management model, centered on a combination of economic, social, and political change, becomes particularly attractive. For countries in the Middle East, China is not only a country that ignores Western rules but can still grow, but also a country that has deviated from the path of Western expectations.

The West's response

It is difficult for Western governments to respond immediately, but, as one American veteran with long-time exposure to the Middle East explained, "We have to find an alternative that doesn't condescendingly intimidate people into not following the Chinese model." I think liberal democracy, capitalist democracy, frightened them. Because it is not entirely consistent with their culture and history...... And it was brought there by the colonizers. ”

For the United States and its allies, an accurate understanding of the situation is the first step in solving the problem. China is not trying to replace the United States, but to complement and improve it. U.S. partners and allies in the Middle East — including eight of America's key non-NATO allies — are seeking to complement relationships beyond the United States. They want military equipment that the United States is reluctant to sell, they want investment and financing of capital development projects. But more importantly, they want to be sought after, not taken for granted, and they want to be able to seize every opportunity to pursue profit. All four of Donald Trump's speeches at the UN General Assembly called on the United States to pursue an "America First" strategy, and called on all other countries to do the same. In turn, almost all countries in the Middle East believe that it would be beneficial to pursue their interests more actively and to adopt a firmer non-aligned position.

Governments in the Middle East see improved governance as a risk-benefit approach, and they believe that improved governance can be achieved regardless of the path they take. It is true that China's governance is superior to that of the United States in some respects. Rather than believing that they had chosen one option over another, they had adopted parts of all of them, exploring potentially contradictory initiatives, hoping to make small but steady progress in an increasingly crowded and noisy policy environment.

In order to maximize the enduring and increasingly close ties between the countries of the Middle East and the West, the West needs to focus on three things. The first is to measure what success should look like. No country in the Middle East sees the current geopolitical situation as a new Cold War, no country wants to become a satellite of other great powers, and China has no interest in creating an orbit that they want to join. There is no escaping the fact that these countries see themselves as being in a dynamic market where they constantly perceive demand signals and want to increase their value. As a result, Western governments need to do a better job of making decisions and agreeing on important matters. Middle Eastern countries will have close ties with China, just as Western governments are close to each other, but growing closer ties in itself does not mean the defeat of the West.

Second, the West cannot ignore its own innate superiority. Most Middle Eastern countries understand that their future is more dependent on close relations with the West. Not only are Western economies larger than China's economy as a whole, but the "software" they need – human capital, managerial skills, scientific knowledge, and organizational complexity – is deeply rooted in Western society. China has already learned its lessons, and the countries of the Middle East are confident that they can achieve this by reaching an agreement that is roughly the same as China's. At the same time, Western countries should be more sensitive to the perception of China by Middle Eastern countries. Competition is not going away, and Western governments should seize this and do better.

Western governments need to do a better job of articulating the benefits of close alliances, the disadvantages of loose alliances, and the criteria by which close alliances are judged. They shouldn't list every thing they don't approve of one by one, implying that the partner adheres to those lists. Rather, they should clearly outline principles and examples, allowing partner countries to judge for themselves what is acceptable and what is not, while ensuring that there are consequences for State actions.

Article Source:

Jon B. Alterman, The ‘China Model’ in the Middle East, Survival,28 Mar 2024

Web Links:

https://doi.org/10.1080/00396338.2024.2332062

·Translator Introduction ·

Zhang Yimei is currently a member of the compilation team of the French and Italian view of the world.

END

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