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This is not the first time that distant Arab tribesmen are reshaping the world. Pirate attacks on international shipping by the Yemen-based Houthis have created a major security crisis in the Red Sea. The world’s largest shipping company was forced to suspend shipping through the Red Sea and, by extension, the Suez Canal. And normally, nearly a third of the world’s container traffic passes through Suez, causing severe disruption to global trade. But the most lasting impact of this crisis may be on the geopolitical balance between China and the United States, two great powers thousands of kilometers from the scorching sands of the Arabian Peninsula.
As the world’s largest trading nation, China has many at stake in the Red Sea. Europe is China’s largest trading partner, with more than 60% of its trade volume typically passing through the Suez Canal. With that route disrupted, cargo ships are being detoured around Africa’s Cape of Good Hope, adding up to two weeks to travel time and significantly increasing shipping costs. By January 25, the average shipping cost for a 40-foot container from Shanghai to Genoa had jumped to $6,365, an increase of 464% compared to two months ago. Insurance premiums have also skyrocketed. Additionally, Chinese companies have poured billions of dollars worth of investment into assets in the region in recent years, such as the 20% stake in the Suez Canal’s East Port Side Container Terminal, which is now owned by Chinese state-owned shipping giant Cosco. . China’s growth rate is already sluggish, but the current crisis risks putting a further strain on the Chinese economy.
Apparently recognizing this vulnerability, the US government is using it as leverage to persuade Beijing to help end the crisis. China is Iran’s biggest economic and geopolitical supporter, and Iran also supports the Houthis and uses them as a proxy to sting Israel, the United States, and its allies. Some officials in Washington believe that if China really wanted to, it could soon pressure Iran to stop its Houthi attacks. Biden administration officials “have repeatedly raised this issue with senior Chinese officials over the past three months,” the paper said. financial timesand U.S. National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan recently flew to Thailand to make the administration’s case directly in a meeting with Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi.
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This diplomatic effort appears to have failed. Other than a lukewarm official statement calling on “all parties” to “ensure the safety of navigation in the Red Sea,” the Chinese government appears to be making no moves to improve the situation. Instead, he called on the US government to “avoid adding fuel to the fire” in the region. The attack continues.
Some people in Washington are also pouting. For example, Rep. Jake Auchincloss (D-Mass.), at a Congressional hearing in late January, argued that China “not only doesn’t pretend to be a champion of international trade and rules…but actually… “We are actively undermining the potential for international trade.” Peaceful resolution of this issue. ” This failed intervention is just “another example of the Chinese Communist Party’s malicious attempts at global leadership.”
But Auchincloss and like-minded people in Washington should probably be careful what they wish for. For decades, in fact, perhaps for most of her two centuries, it has been the United States that has served as the world’s “defender of international commerce and international rules.” Indeed, the determination to protect the flow of maritime commerce from pirates led the young United States to its first foreign interventions, the Barbary Wars of 1801 and 1815, and permanently forged its identity as an international actor. It is. If this nation is truly to become, and continue to be, a commercial republic, then, as then-President Thomas Jefferson declared, we must “increase the power of trade” through “our own resources of strength and courage on every sea.” This means that safety must be monitored.
Two centuries later, the U.S. Navy still operated under the slogan “World Forces for Good.” In other words, America’s overall image and reality as a superpower, like the British Empire before it, is heavily dependent on its ability to secure global trade. If any fragment of the “Pax Americana” that has formed the basis of the entire recent era of globalization remains, this is it.
In this context, Washington officials should consider what it would mean if China heeded their pleas and actually took over America’s role as a security provider. If countries around the world begin to look to China, rather than the United States, for “global leadership” whenever they need protection for their merchant ships, it will definitively mark the transition from the American century to the Chinese century, just as it did with the United Kingdom. right. In the past, Japan ceded the sea to colonies. The US government should consider itself lucky that the Chinese government has so far refused to challenge it for the position.
Meanwhile, America’s own efforts to fulfill its age-old mission of securing sea lanes proved to be nothing short of a colossal failure. The U.S. Navy, severely understaffed and overstretched around the world, attempted to form Operation Prosperity Guardian, a commanding multinational military coalition to patrol the Rhea Sea. . But the effort almost immediately functionally collapsed when France, Italy, and Spain (all of which the U.S. government had prematurely announced would become members) refused to join, saying they would not accept U.S. command. . Other Middle Eastern countries other than Bahrain also did not participate. In a throwback to the past, navies each act independently, escorting ships sailing under their own flags and titles. What we are witnessing, therefore, is a true collapse of the “international order” – in the sense that there is any order at all – that was once imposed by American power. We are returning to an older, more typical world where there are no world police officers and everyone has a duty to protect their own national interests.
The Chinese side is ready to take advantage of this situation. COSCO has also abandoned the Red Sea route for now, but other smaller Chinese shippers have seen the opportunity and are stepping up to fill the gap. For example, China United Lines (CULines) is rushing to launch its Red Sea Express service, which will connect Saudi Arabia’s Jeddah to ports in China. They are able to do so because the Houthis appear to be under strict orders to avoid attacking Chinese-linked vessels. Vessels still navigating the straits that enter the Red Sea still regularly display the Chinese flag prominently and use satellite identification data to identify Chinese owners or only Chinese crew members. It has been announced that it is. The number of ships passing through the area, pre-emptively broadcasting that they are carrying Chinese crews, has soared from less than two per day to more than 30 by the end of January. Apparently this is a magical talisman to keep pirates at bay, but the Chinese Navy has at least three warships in the area to protect ships, but if that proves not enough. We are prepared.
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It’s clear why the Chinese government seems so relaxed about the crisis. This is a situation where China wins either way. Although the threat continues, the navigation of Chinese vessels is safer than that of other vessels, in which case sailing under the protection of the red and gold flag could be a much-needed competitive advantage Either there is, or the Chinese government eventually tells Iran to stop doing it, in which case China is the primary beneficiary of the security vacuum left by the United States. Either outcome would be a geopolitical coup. No wonder China is willing to accept some short-term economic pain as the situation evolves.
On the other hand, the crisis also provides real legitimacy for China to continue rapidly building a “blue water” navy capable of projecting power far from its own shores. Coincidentally, this is the same justification that the United States has traditionally offered. In other words, in the absence of security and stability, we need the ability to protect the world’s sea lanes and the lives of our citizens abroad. The military base China built in Djibouti in 2016 to allow it to deploy warships across the Indian Ocean and around the Horn of Africa now looks prudent.
This is how the “world order” has always been formed and reshaped. That is, nations and empires have been formed and reshaped by their actions abroad to protect their own interests, or by their gradual failure to act while other states sought to fill the vacuum. is. The Red Sea crisis therefore has both symbolic and practical significance. If the United States and her allies fail to act together, we may look back on this as the moment when vast geopolitical changes became clear to all. For everyone else, this crisis is likely to signal that the time has certainly arrived to prepare for the harsh realities of a much more “multipolar” and less globalized world.
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