China Unlikely To Replace US, Russia In Gulf Region After Iran-Saudi Arabia Peace Deal

China's success in brokering a deal between Iran and Saudi Arabia to normalize relations does not mean it will replace the United States and Russia as an important foreign actor in the Gulf region, experts told Sputnik

MOSCOW (UrduPoint News / Sputnik - 15th March, 2023) China's success in brokering a deal between Iran and Saudi Arabia to normalize relations does not mean it will replace the United States and Russia as an important foreign actor in the Gulf region, experts told Sputnik.

Last week, Tehran and Riyadh signed an agreement mediated by Beijing to resume relations, as well as open embassies and representative offices within two months. The joint statement was signed after days of talks between the head of Iran's Supreme National Security Council and his Saudi counterpart in the Chinese capital. The foreign ministers of the two countries intend to meet to discuss the agreement's implementation.

Both Russia and the US welcomed the steps taken by the two Gulf countries to mend their relations and resume dialogue, with President Joe Biden's White House making it clear, however, that Washington has no intention of stepping back from its role in the Middle East in the wake of Beijing's diplomatic coup.

Diplomatic relations between Tehran and Riyadh were severed in 2016 after an attack on Saudi diplomatic missions in Iran by protesters against the kingdom's execution of prominent Shiite theologian Nimr al-Nimr, but in recent months the two sides have expressed a desire to resolve differences. In an interview with The Atlantic released in September, Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman said that relations with Iran should be built as with a neighboring country.

"The deal has many benefits for both states, especially because they both are currently facing many problems domestically and regionally. As such, this deal helps advance the interests of both states without any major downside to either side," Kanishkan Sathasivam, a professor in the Political Science department at Salem State University, said.

Gareth Jenkins, a non-resident senior research fellow with the Joint Center Silk Road Studies Program and Turkey Center at the Institute for Security and Development Policy in Stockholm, noted that Iran and Saudi Arabia had engaged in talks in the past and thus the recent announcement is not out of left field, although the role of Beijing in that process was indeed surprising.

"The announcement of plans to restore full diplomatic relations between Iran and Saudi Arabia seems to be part of a broader attempt by Riyadh to improve relations with its rivals for influence in the Middle East. For example, it has also tried to repair relations with - and pumped money into - Turkey," Jenkins said, adding that "Mohammed bin Salman seems to be trying to build a network of working ties with other countries in the region rather than trying to confront them."

At the same time, some experts consider that it was precisely Beijing's influence that pushed Tehran and Riyadh toward the normalization of ties.

"I think it must be China's pressure on the sides to score a diplomatic goal against the US. And the sides have been in this sphere of influence game for four decades now and must have been exhausted from spending billions on their proxies. Give diplomacy another chance, they must have thought," Birol Baskan, a non-resident scholar at the Washington-based Middle East Institute, suggested.

In the same vein, Alan Cafruny, a professor of international affairs with the Department of Government at Hamilton College, observed that recently the US has exercised a number of aggressive policies against China accompanied by increasingly bellicose rhetoric regarding Taiwan.

"This initiative in a region dominated by US power ever since the end of World War II thus represents a major new development in Chinese foreign policy and a fundamental transformation of international relations," Cafruny said.

The experts were in general optimistic about the deal to potentially pave the way for Iran to improve its standing in the neighborhood, with Sathasivam noting that other countries in the region are taking Saudi Arabia's stance on Iran seriously.

"We now know that Iraq and Oman actually helped facilitate Saudi-Iranian meetings over the past two years leading up to this deal. Qatar and Oman already have relations with Iran. The other three, (the) UAE, Bahrain and Kuwait, each (of them) has some serious bilateral problems with Iran. But if it is true that this deal includes a secret provision that Iran will stop meddling in the internal affairs of Arab states, that will go a long way to help ease the concerns of those states," Sathasivam explained.

Jenkins, however, warned that while the deal had increased the chances of improved relations between the United Arab Emirates and Iran, the Gulf countries were still concerned about Tehran's nuclear program and the risk of its obtaining nuclear weapons.

As China celebrates its diplomatic success, the question remains whether it can further increase its influence in the region and what it would mean for the US and Russia.

"I don't think there is any doubt that China would like to become a key player in the Middle East. It has been very active in areas such as the Horn of Africa but it still hasn't made similar inroads into the Middle East. It is likely to face opposition from both Washington and Moscow, both of whom are still very active in the Middle East. It would take China some time, and a considerable commitment of resources, before it would be able to match the US and Russia," Jenkins said.

Cafruny, for his part, thinks that, even though China will not replace the US or Russia in the region, it has already become a key player there by using economic means. The expert compared this approach with the one practiced by the US, which, as Cafruny put it, involves "coercion and attempted regime changes."

"China imports large quantities of oil from all countries in the region. Chinese firms have recently signed deals with Iraq. In addition, China is becoming a key investor throughout the region," Cafruny stated.

Meanwhile, Baskan doubts that Beijing would be willing to be involved in the region's security like the US and is also skeptical that Washington would be ready to dismantle its military bases in the region and have itself replaced by China.

"In the intensifying geopolitical rivalry between the two, it does not make sense that the US so easily leave this energy-rich region. China has begun to challenge the US on the economic and diplomatic fronts though, the fronts that the US does not pay much attention to. In the broader Middle East, China has even more to do to challenge both the US and Russia. Again I am not sure whether it has any intention," he said.

Another angle is offered by Sathasivam, who drew attention to Saudi Arabia's apparent desire to increase its influence in the region by balancing its relationships with the US, China and the European Union and thus not having to rely on any single outside power.

"The future geopolitical situation in the Middle East is going to be one where the US is no longer the dominant power, but where the US will still be a significant player, though one that will have to share the stage with China, Russia, and the EU," Sathasivam concluded, adding that regional powers "will also seek ways to expand their own standing and influence, so that they can have a greater impact on regional issues relative to the outside actors."

With Riyadh pursuing a strategy of multilateral engagement, the US will have to be more careful with one of its main allies in the region, especially now.

"The US will now adopt a softly-softly approach to the desert kingdom, having seen that bullying and threats - the usual Team Biden modus operandi - does not work with Prince MBS (Mohammed bin Salman)." Srdja Trifkovic, the foreign affairs editor for paleoconservative magazine Chronicles, opined.