Just How Revisionist is China?
Or, what Is China's stake in the global economic order?
Saying that “the global order is unraveling” can sound glib…. were it not for the fact that the global order really seems to be unraveling. It’s there in the data: check out the Uppsala Conflict Data Program or the Global Peace Index if you want quantitative metrics. Check out Paul Poast in the Atlantic or Joshua Keating in Vox or Derek Thompson’s multi-episode “World on Fire” series on his Plain English podcast if you want a menu of possible explanations for why.
For the hard-working staff here at Drezner’s World, there are two key points worth noting about all of this. The first is that the fraying accelerated after Hamas’ October 7th immoral assault on Israel and Israel’s brutal response in Gaza. All of Iran’s proxies — as well as Iran itself — saw the Hamas attack as license to escalate conflicts across the Middle East. The Houthis decided to fire rockets on Red Sea shipping, thereby creating global ramifications, spurring the U.S. to start an open-ended conflict, and highlighting the growing risks in seaborne trade.
The second point is that it is easy to argue that the likes of Russia, Iran, and China as gleefully spurring on all their proxies to make mischief. The Russians, as we learned earlier this week, are pretty open about these intentions. Iran would also seem to be delighted to expand their disruptive influence around the Middle East. And China, of course, would love for the United States to be brought down low.
The thing is, Chinese and Iranian preferences might be a wee bit more complicated than that. China has benefited enormously from a relatively open global economy, and probably wants Red Sea shipping unthreatened. And while Iran certainly wants to advance its regional preferences, it does not want an open conflict with the United States. So as much as both countries might want to stick their finger in America’s eye, neither country is willing to blind itself in the process. Both countries are revisionists — but unlike Russia there appear to be limits to their revisionism. Their ideal outcome appears to let the order fray and then let the United States expend resources to repair the damage. This is complicated revisionism — which is consistent with international relations theory.
Do I have any evidence for this? Well…. consider this Reuters story by Parisa Hafezi and Andrew Hayley:
Chinese officials have asked their Iranian counterparts to help rein in attacks on ships in the Red Sea by the Iran-backed Houthis, or risk harming business relations with Beijing, four Iranian sources and a diplomat familiar with the matter said.
The discussions about the attacks and trade between China and Iran took place at several recent meetings in Beijing and Tehran, the Iranian sources said, declining to provide details about when they took place or who attended.
"Basically, China says: 'If our interests are harmed in any way, it will impact our business with Tehran. So tell the Houthis to show restraint'," said one Iranian official briefed on the talks, who spoke to Reuters on condition of anonymity….
On Jan. 14, China's foreign minister Wang Yi called for an end to attacks on civilian ships in the Red Sea - without naming the Houthis or mentioning Iran - and the maintenance of supply chains and the international trade order.
Now the Reuters report should be read in tandem with a more recent Politico story by Phelim Kine:
The U.S. failed in two days of talks to prod China into pressuring Iran to stop Houthi attacks on commercial shipping in the Red Sea, an administration official said Saturday.
National security adviser Jake Sullivan raised U.S. concerns about the ongoing attacks in the meetings with China’s Foreign Minister Wang Yi in Bangkok, Thailand, on Friday and Saturday. But the talks ended with no sign that China is willing to take decisive steps to use its economic influence on Iran — which funds and equips Yemen’s Houthi militia — to stem the threat to global supply chains….
“Beijing says they are raising this with the Iranians … but we’re certainly going to wait before we comment further on how effectively we think they’re actually raising it,” a senior administration official told reporters during a call on Sullivan’s meeting on Saturday.
China publicly rejecting U.S. pressure while privately pressuring Iran is entirely consistent with the constraint on their revisionism.
As for Iran, they seem cognizant that a line was crossed by their proxy Kataib Hezbollah in Iraq. The group announced a “suspension” of all military attacks against the United States. The New York Times adds that the group did so, “under pressure from the Iraqi government and from Iran.” Another NYT report suggests that Iran does not want to escalate the conflict in the region any further: “The head of Iran’s Revolutionary Guards said on Wednesday that Tehran was ‘not looking for war,’ appearing to signal that it would not escalate tensions with the United States. But he also warned that Iran was prepared to respond if attacked.”
This situation remains extremely murky. It could be that Iran’s control over their proxies is more limited than it appears to the outside world. And maybe emergent shifts in U.S. foreign policy will cause these countries to react in different way. Or I could just be wrong.
The important thing, however, is that even with global order fraying, there might be limits on just how much they will fray.