China’s Eurasia Strategy May Deliver Beijing Its Coup de Main

Commentary

Xi Jinping may be close to achieving a coup de main that would increase Beijing’s dominance over Eurasia, the Middle East, and Africa. Provided, that is, Beijing itself can retain cohesion and control at home in the face of economic collapse and impending food and water shortages.

People’s Republic of China (PRC) leader Xi Jinping followed his ground-breaking visit to Saudi Arabia and the Gulf Cooperation Council (December 7-10, 2022) with a major Middle East breakthrough in March 2023 … and the likelihood that Beijing could provide the fig-leaf excuse for talks to end the Russia-Ukraine conflict.

This is no longer your grandfather’s Cold War. The Eurasian bloc built around the PRC, Russia, and Iran has access to a far wider selection of global nations than the Soviet bloc had during Cold War I. Beijing will need this broader trading canvas, and the increasing ability to trade in the PRC’s yuan, rather than in U.S. dollars, if it is to rebuild its economy and get immediate access to food and energy from the outside world.

Xi’s recent successes in some diplomatic arenas come as the PRC becomes mired in greater economic, food, and water crises—all exacerbated by droughts unprecedented in recent decades—which truly jeopardize the Chinese Communist Party’s control over mainland China. So, Xi’s mission is a race against time.

It is possible that talks brokered by Xi between Russia and Ukraine to end the war could be another major victory for Beijing, leaving the United States and its European NATO allies out of the action. But to achieve this, Xi would have to offer something really substantial to Kyiv. More importantly, he would have to offer some safeguards to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyi, who had said on February 25, 2023 that he wished to meet with Xi Jinping to discuss Xi’s 12-point peace plan for the Ukraine war. He noted: “We need to work on that with China. Why not?” So that meeting could occur after Xi’s meeting with Putin in the second half of March 2023.

Moreover, the approach emerging from Beijing is that it will appear as though Moscow will offer concessions to Kyiv, but, in reality, it will be about getting combatants “off the hook” that have both painted themselves into non-negotiable situations.

The goal would be a peace treaty brokered without the input of the United States, and, ideally, even without any European involvement. Such a deal could leave Washington—and NATO—sidelined. But Zelenskyi needs real safeguards before he would negotiate; he already knows that senior military and intelligence officials blame him for the losses incurred by Ukraine in allowing the war to start when it could have been averted in February 2022 by negotiation. Several key Ukrainian security officials have indicated that they would “take care of” Zelenskyi when some kind of peace could be achieved, and most are aware that any peace now possible would likely result in a smaller Ukraine than existed before, say, 2004. So, if Zelenskyi wished to retain his presidency after a peace deal, he would need to get major concessions for Ukraine.

This begs the question as to whether the PRC-Russia-Iran combine could offer something more appealing to Ukraine than Westernization and considerable US funding. It would of necessity also include some “geopolitical creativity” which could, for example, see Ukraine revived in its post-Soviet borders, though divided between East and West, and with some restored common features, but with unambiguous control by Moscow over its basing in Crimea and over the Donbas. Belarus or a Persian Gulf location could be a site for negotiations or the announcement of the results of shuttle diplomacy.

A post-conflict Ukraine could resume its place as a major food-producing area at a time when the PRC would willingly guarantee a market for its produce.

Meanwhile, on March 10, 2023, a joint trilateral statement was issued by the PRC, Saudi Arabia, and Iran supporting “good neighborly relations” between the Kingdom and the Iranian republic. It also began the process of restoring Saudi-Iranian diplomatic ties after a seven-year gap.

This was facilitated by work undertaken in advance by Iraq and Oman, who are keenly aware that Beijing can no longer be ignored in the region. The accord also papered over initial Iranian unhappiness that the PRC-Saudi talks occurred in December 2022 without Iran’s blessing or involvement. It doesn’t change all the realities on the ground in the region, however: the United States is still the dominant security partner.

But it does change the psychological and economic meter: Beijing is perceived to have done what Washington could not. Moreover, it moves the region a degree or two away from total reliance on the “petro-dollar”—the measurement of all oil and gas sales in dollars. Again, this may be “re-arranging the deck chairs on the Titanic after it hit the iceberg,” but it covers up the growing reality of inherent weakness in the PRC economy and currency.

The March 10, 2023 accord moved Beijing further toward energy security while demonstrating that Xi, and not U.S. President Joe Biden, had control of a peace-making agenda. None of this is lost on Kyiv. What can the US do to counter Beijing’s move when Biden has built up a “no compromise” approach, urging Kyiv to fight Moscow to the last U.S. dollar and the last Ukrainian?

Views expressed in this article are the opinions of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of The Epoch Times.