The US, not China, is threatening the rules-based world order

Marco Carnelos

27 August 2024

https://www.middleeasteye.net/opinion/us-china-threatening-rules-based-world-order

American foreign policy failures have inflicted untold misery worldwide for decades, while Beijing is now achieving tangible results

Conventional wisdom decrees that the 21st century's most important geopolitical battle will be between the United States and China.

In this context, the western mainstream narrative portrays the US as committed to safeguarding and enforcing the so-called rules-based world order, which Washington created and has presided over since its victory in the Second World War.

This rules-based order should correspond with the international law codified in many covenants since the birth of the United Nations almost 80 years ago. It does not.

At best, this rules-based order reflects a US/western interpretation of selected aspects of international law. At worst, international law has been twisted to suit the West's specific interests.

In both cases, the purpose is to serve the West's geopolitical interests and justify its hegemony. Of course, blinded by hubris, western powers believe that because these “rules” allegedly fit their interests, they also serve the interests of all humankind. They are wrong.

That same western mainstream narrative portrays China as the main threat to this rules-based order, attributing to the Asian nation both the will and the capability to challenge and modify this order.

That the US and its allies have come to such conclusions demonstrates the catastrophic cognitive dissonance characterising western leaders’ analysis and decision-making.

Diplomatic failures

It is extraordinary that western chancelleries attribute such subversive intentions to Communist China, which - contrary to the US - has not deployed its army abroad for nearly half a century (the last instance being in 1979, against Vietnam).

Unlike the US, China has never interfered in or organised a coup against any other country. Unlike the US, it has never adopted unilateral sanctions against any country except those legally authorised by the UN Security Council. Also, unlike the US, it owns only one military base abroad (in Djibouti), and its navy - again, contrary to the US - mainly patrols the South China Sea, which constitutes the country’s most important supply line

China's main territorial claim concerns an island in the Pacific Ocean close to its coast (Taiwan), which, since 1972, through three joint US-China communiques, Washington has unequivocally recognised as part of mainland China. To eliminate any ambiguity, the US doubled down by facilitating Taiwan's expulsion from the UN to give its seat to Communist China.

If such extremely restrained and responsible behaviour qualifies China as a threat to the rules-based order, how should the behaviour of the US and its closest allies (particularly Israel) be viewed?

Another interesting metric for assessing whether the US or China poses the greatest threat to the rules-based world order is their respective behaviour in the most troublesome region of the planet: the Middle East.

Since the end of the Second World War, the US has claimed an exclusive role in allegedly promoting peace and stability in the region. It has been called "Pax Americana", though, in recent times, it has been anything but peaceful.

US diplomacy once boasted significant successes, from shuttle diplomacy after the 1973 Yom Kippur War and the 1978 Camp David Accords, which secured peace between Israel and Egypt, to the 1994 peace deal between Israel and Jordan.

However, over the last three decades, the US' magic touch in the region has almost systematically failed.

China and the Middle East

These failures encompass everything from the collapse of an Israeli-Palestinian deal in 2000 and the "war on terror" across the broader Middle East (including Afghanistan in 2001 and a renewed invasion of Iraq in 2003) to an ignominious withdrawal from Kabul two decades later and the delivery of Iraq to pro-Iran militias after 2011.

They also include the “Assad must go” policy in Syria in 2011, followed by the country's readmission to the Arab League and the reopening of Arab and western embassies in Damascus, along with an intelligent nuclear deal with Iran in 2015, followed by the Trump administration's ignominious withdrawal from the same deal three years later.

In addition, the US' failures encompass the biased Abraham Accords, which only served Israel’s interests, and an ironclad and blind support for Israel in its murderous assault on Gaza, which has led to accusations at the International Court of Justice (ICJ) and the International Criminal Court (ICC) for genocide and crimes against humanity.

And then, there is China, a latecomer to the Middle East.

Unlike the US, China has no military bases in the region and not a single soldier has been deployed, except for a few hundred who have been engaged in the UN-mandated Unifil mission patrolling and surveying the critical border between Israel and Lebanon.

For decades, China’s main concern in the Middle East has been developing economic and trade relations with the countries in the region, and it has been successful on both counts. China boasts strategic economic agreements with Egypt, Iran and all the members of the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC), as well as good relations with Israel.

More recently, China’s diplomatic efforts have accomplished two major successes.

In 2023, it brokered a rapprochement between Iran and Saudi Arabia, two of the most important players in the region, pursuing a very different political path from the one favoured by the US, which seeks to isolate Iran to trigger regime change in Tehran.

Earlier this year, China brokered another important understanding by successfully promoting reconciliation talks among the different Palestinian factions, especially between Fatah and Hamas.

Honest broker

This diplomatic achievement should not be underestimated because the decades-old divisions among Palestinians have been a significant obstacle to a successful peace process.

Israel has been claiming for years that it has no credible partner for negotiations. Of course, since the 1980s, Israel has actively fomented divisions among the different Palestinian factions, precisely so it could maintain the narrative that it lacks a partner for peace talks and thereby continue its annexation of the occupied territories.

If the Palestinian factions respect and fulfil the understandings reached in Beijing, this could be a crucial first step towards a more credible peace process in the future.

n other words, while the US has been providing iron-clad support to Israel's genocide by sending vast amounts of weapons, shielding Israel’s crimes at the UN Security Council and trying - so far unsuccessfully - to broker a ceasefire in Gaza and secure the release of Israeli hostages, China has laid the first necessary stone for a more credible and durable peace process.

By drawing the right lessons from history and considering the long list of US failures in promoting an Israeli-Palestinian deal, China could legitimately claim that its role as a mediator between Israel and Palestine stands a greater chance of success.

One thing is certain: Beijing - again, contrary to Washington - would be an honest broker.

A Chinese success here could significantly bolster the rules-based order, but the right one - one that respects international law and international humanitarian law. The current rules-based order, as often claimed by the US and its allies, is nothing more than a semantic trick aimed at concealing western hypocrisy and double standards.

China is not challenging the Global West’s rules-based order. It is simply joining the Global Rest in demanding respect for international law, its consistent application to all states without double standards and the putting aside, finally, of misleading western terminology.

The views expressed in this article belong to the author and do not necessarily reflect the editorial policy of Middle East Eye.

Marco Carnelos is a former Italian diplomat. He has been assigned to Somalia, Australia and the United Nations. He served in the foreign policy staff of three Italian prime ministers between 1995 and 2011. More recently he has been Middle East peace process coordinator special envoy for Syria for the Italian government and, until November 2017, Italy's ambassador to Iraq.