China–Middle East Relations in Light of Obama’s Pivot to the Pacific

As the United States perceives the westward expansion of China’s influence as threatening both regional and worldwide balances of power, it has responded with an understandable but ill-conceived counter-action—the ‘Obama pivot’ from the Middle East to the Western Pacific. The new American thinking aims to divide the intercontinental and transoceanic regions that China and other nations want to integrate, while encouraging an ‘encircle China’ coalition among smaller maritime powers from India and Singapore to Australia and Vietnam and on to the Philippines, Japan and South Korea. The blind spot in the American plan is that all of these countries need China more than they need the United States. None of them wants a military alliance with Washington that will antagonise Beijing because their economic futures pull them inexorably towards greater integration with the mainland’s vast and growing markets. Obama’s eastward focus attempts to stem the powerful current of Islamic countries that have strengthened ties with China while quarrelling with the United States. A growing number of former American allies, including some that were virtual American dependencies, are now hedging their bets with more independent foreign policies that actively court Chinese investment, trade, military cooperation and diplomatic support.