Peace in the Pacific? by risa
by Foggy Bottom
On Saturday February 4th, the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) Board of Governors referred Iran to the UN Security Council. For the US, this was a significant and long awaited diplomatic victory. Since 2003, it had been actively lobbying the member-states of the IAEA Board of Governors to sanction Iran for technical violations of its treaty obligations and what it saw as a clear Iranian drive for nuclear weapons. Although there was mounting evidence of Iran’s violations of the Nuclear Non-proliferation Treaty (NPT), the US had found it difficult to rally international support for sanctions. First, the EU was committed to using diplomacy, persuasion and incentives to convince Iran it was in its best interests to abandon its nuclear program. Until recently, it therefore saw the referral of Iran to the Security Council as counterproductive. Second, Russia was reluctant to refer Iran to the Security Council because it had significant investments in Iran’s civil nuclear energy program. These investments involved an $800 million deal to build the Bushehr reactor and potentially millions more in the provision and reprocessing of nuclear fuel for these Russian-built reactors. China for its part was keen on maintaining relations with Iran on even keel in order to ensure a steady supply of oil for its booming economy. China’s willingness to refer Iran to the UN Security Council for the sake of largely American non-proliferation interest should be seen a major concession and bodes well for future Sino-American relations. While the issue of Iran’s referral caught the newspaper headlines, it just may be China’s willingness to compromise that is indicative of the most important changes to come.
One of the most significant geopolitical trends in the last decade has been China’s dramatic economic growth and concomitant demand for energy. In the beginning of the 1990s, for the first time in recent history, China became a net importer of oil.
This shift in the structure of the Chinese economy had some radical implications for the conduct of China’s foreign policy.
China has traditionally been a conservative and regional great power, keeping largely to its own. Domestic political and economic problems have tended to demand much of its attention. China has, intentionally or not, relatively little capability to project power abroad. China has few expeditionary forces, a small navy with no aircraft carriers, and a very limited nuclear deterrent. Some pundits claim that if China were to attempt to invade Taiwan, it would end up being a “million man swim.” This inward focus is also represented in its foreign policy. China is champion of state sovereignty. It abhors foreign interventions in what it sees as domestic affairs. China has been involved in few wars since World War II, despite its overwhelming size. It has not sought alliances, supported many foreign insurgents and revolutions, or engaged the world.
China’s emerging dependence on foreign oil has changed the geopolitical underpinnings of its foreign policy. China can no longer strive to achieve any form of autarchy or independence from the world. In order to maintain it prodigious growth, China will actively need to ensure continued access to oil abroad. Consequently, in the span of a decade, China has begun engaging oil producing nations outside of East Asia. Chinese officials began talking not only with the traditional suppliers in Gulf region, but also with oil rich and politically unsavory countries as Sudan, Iran, and Libya. This energy dependence could lead to major diplomatic frictions with the US. The US sees such Chinese entreaties as actively challenging its efforts to contain and undermine “rogue states.” The US will lose its leverage with such states if China can offer them all the technologies and markets they need. Furthermore, rogue states could use the capital provided by China to fund military and other weapons production activities. This demonstrates the crux of the problem: China’s future prosperity depends on ready supply of energy whereas America’s security depends on containing certain oil rich states: China’s prosperity versus America’s security. Such a dynamic will only worsen distrust between the world superpower and its next most likely challenger and exacerbate other irritants including the status of Taiwan, North Korea, and Chinese human rights.
It is within this framework that one needs to evaluate China’s decision to support the IAEA’s decision to sent Iran to the UN Security Council. In this case, China has decided to forgo its energy interests in Iran in order to help the US address its security concerns. This cooperative goodwill bodes well for the future of Sino-American relations. Indeed, China’s prosperity is increasingly becoming dependent on American security. A catastrophic attack on the US would have a major ripple effect on the world economy including China. Lastly, China has invested $242 in the US government’s debt and has an interest in assuring that the American economy, and consequently American security, stays on even keel.
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