Support such as this explains why it was that even in the days immediately after the Khashoggi murder, the Saudi Foreign Minister Adel al-Jubeir felt able to declare that relations between Riyadh and Washington were “ironclad.” The US, he said, was “rational [and] realistic” when it came to what really matters in the world. In this region, that means the big picture of Iran—and its “vision of darkness.”17
Getting on the wrong side of the world’s largest oil producer, on the other hand, has consequences. Critical comments made by a German politician about Saudi Arabia earlier in 2018 had already led to the immediate exclusion of German businesses from tenders in the kingdom—a blow for companies like Daimler, Siemens, Deutsche Bank and Bayer.18 When Chancellor Angela Merkel and Foreign Minister Heiko Maas criticised the Saudis after the Khashoggi murder, the Saudis took further action which included withdrawing financing for four corvettes that were to be built by ThyssenKrupp marine systems for the Egyptian navy with a value of over €2bn.19
This was mirrored by the reaction to comments made in Canada about human rights in Saudi, whereupon the Saudi Ministry of Education immediately froze training programs, stopped awarding scholarships and ordered students to stop their studies in Canada and apply for a plane ticket home within a month. According to estimates, that would result in a loss to the Canadian education system of almost $1bn a year. Professors losing their jobs in Ontario or British Columbia is directly connected, in other words, to the rise of ambitions, aspirations and prickliness of those in another part of the world.20
* * *
*
While the US celebrate the closeness of the relationship with Saudi Arabia and are willing to overlook the flaws of their partners, it is worth noting that they are not the only ones to do the running to win and retain good favour with the ruling elite in the kingdom. Russia, for example, signed a major deal to sell state-of-the-art military hardware to Saudi Arabia at the end of 2017. The multibillion-dollar agreement involved the sale of Russia’s much-feared S-400 air defence system, but also Kornet-EM anti-tank guided missile systems, an unguided thermobaric rocket system, automatic grenade launchers and Kalashnikov AK-103 assault rifles.21 As President Putin told listeners to his annual “question and answer” session on Russian TV and radio, there was no better showcase for Russian weapons than the battlefield—as “no amount of military exercise could compare with the use of force in combat conditions.” Being involved on the ground in Syria, therefore, provided a “priceless” opportunity to test new weaponry and prove them to potential buyers.22
Washington’s assumption that Saudi Arabia’s antipathy to Iran and its substantial purchases of American weapons means that it will only look to the US is also put into context by high-level discussions between Moscow and Riyadh about a long-term alliance that could result in higher prices—and therefore better outcomes—for both oil-rich countries if output is controlled carefully. “We are working,” said Mohammad bin Salman, to find a “ten- to twenty-year agreement” with Moscow. Discussions were well advanced, he added. “We have agreement on the big picture but not on the detail.”23 Not yet, that is.
* * *
*
Betting on Saudi when the latter has common interests with Russia is only part of the risk that the US is taking. It also has to contend with Moscow chipping away elsewhere. Turkey, for example, was once a cornerstone of NATO’s Cold War strategy, thanks to its position relative to Russia, the Middle East and Central Asia. Erdoğan has been assiduously courted and steered away from the US and Europe. That has partly been done through cooperation in Syria and through the improvement of commercial ties.24 But it has also involved offering Turkey its advanced S-400 anti-aircraft missile system—to the delight of a defiant President Erdoğan. “Nobody has the right to discuss the Turkish republic’s independence principles,” he said, or any “decisions about its defence industry.”25
This set off alarm bells in the US, where General Joseph Dunford, chair of the Joint Chiefs, was forced to release a statement to deal with “a media report that was incorrect.” Despite speculation to the contrary, he said, Turkey had “not bought the S-400 air defence system from Russia. That would be a concern, were they to do that; but they have not done that.” The importance of this statement can be seen from the fact that it was picked up by Chinese news agencies.26
Five months later, Turkey agreed to buy the S-400 system in a deal worth a reported $2.5bn—posing questions about Turkish membership of NATO, and indeed about NATO itself.27 Mike Pompeo, the US secretary of state, tried to impress the implications on his Turkish counterpart, Mevlüt Çavuşoğlu. The fact that a measure was introduced in the US Senate just a few hours earlier to block the sale of a fleet of Lockheed Martin’s F-35 joint strike fighters did not help calm the waters. Attempts to put pressure on Turkey would not be tolerated, Çavuşoğlu said.28 This was music to Russian ears: the Turks, said the Kremlin, would be more than welcome to buy Su-57 fighter jets instead.29
Likewise, with the US issuing sanctions against senior Turkish government ministers and threatening further punitive measures over the detention of an American pastor, Beijing has been quick to offer to improve ties and deliver “fruitful results” from increased cooperation with Ankara.30 This was articulated clearly in a meeting between Presidents Xi and Erdoğan at the BRICS meeting in July 2018, where both resolved to improve relations and to “take care of each other’s core interests.” Perhaps not surprisingly, the Chinese leader noted that China and Turkey were “natural partners in the joint construction of the Belt and Road [project].”31
Such is Erdoğan’s enthusiasm for closer relations with China that he not only has talked of “a new era” being “heralded in in our region” thanks to the “New Silk Road” but included the Marmaray rail tunnel under the Bosporus as one of the most important infrastructure projects that are part of the initiative in Beijing, even though it has been funded by a consortium from Japan, the EU and Turkey.32
They are also natural partners because “the raging dispute between Ankara and Washington shows no sign of easing.” A lengthy editorial in China’s Global Times set out how the timing was right for China and Turkey to explore “new opportunities to deepen cooperation.” It was important to prepare the ground, said the article, because the perception of Turkey in China is poor and many are indifferent to the “hand of friendship” that is now being extended. Support for the US during the Korean War and inconsistent purchasing of the HQ-9 missile gave the impression that the Turks were “playing tricks with China.” What was “most unacceptable,” however, was support for separatists in Xinjiang and “irresponsible remarks on the ethnic policy” of this region. China offered a potential for a new partnership at a time when Turkey’s already strained economy had been put under further pressure by US policies.33 Problems in Ankara have opened the door for Beijing.
There is more at stake than the sale of hardware, more significant implications than simply the fact that there is competition that can strike to take advantage of opportunities as and when they present themselves. For in the rivalry and jostling for position that is now being played out along the Silk Roads between the eastern Mediterranean and the Pacific, as well as in Africa and elsewhere, decisions have to be taken. As a result of the Countering America’s Adversaries Through Sanctions Act, US arms sales are prohibited to any nation that buys Russian weapons. This means that if Saudi Arabia, Turkey and others can be persuaded by Moscow to switch allegiances, then they fall decisively out of Washington’s orbit.
It is a major problem, conceded then US Secretary of Defense James Mattis. The United States is in the process of paralysing itself, he told Congress. “In the dynamics of today,” he said, “issues can shift countries very, very quickly.” It was bad enough that the US was boxed in by its own rules. The fact that “every day Russia is in a position basically to checkmate us with what they’re doing” made it even worse. “
It’s urgent,” he said.34
Russia may have limited economic capabilities at its disposal, but it has the diplomatic nous and political savvy to recognise the world is changing—and to adapt to it. That is one reason for the way that President Putin has taken the initiative to play a role in Syrian peace talks, where Russia, alongside Iran and Turkey, present themselves as stabilising forces—in contrast to the United States. The US-led interventions in Iraq and Afghanistan resulted in nothing but “destructions and [the] expansion of extremism,” said the Iranian foreign minister, Mohammed Zarif.35 Airstrikes by US, French and British forces were violations of international law, stated Sergei Lavrov, Russia’s foreign minister.36 The West, he added, behave as though they still “decide all the affairs in our world. Fortunately,” he said, “their time has passed.”37 This is part of a wider pattern of Moscow trying to present itself as a reliable and calming force, as well as an independent international arbiter.38
The presentation of Russia, Turkey and Iran as pacific and seeking to find peaceful ways to reach settlements comes as a surprise to those who have followed the annexation of Crimea, the presence of Russian troops in Ukraine, the attempted assassination of a former intelligence officer in the UK and claims by the British MP Bob Seely that Russia is using “active measures practised by the KGB during the Cold War” to undermine the stability of the British political system.39 A report by the House of Commons Foreign Affairs Committee in the early summer of 2018 not only found that the “use of London as a base for the corrupt assets of Kremlin-connected individuals” was so important that it “has implications for our national security,” but that “combating it should be a major UK foreign policy priority.”40
Then there are the persistent and ongoing attempts to interfere with elections in the US and elsewhere. The Russians were making “continued efforts to subvert democratic processes,” noted Jim Mattis, who added that Putin had “tried again to muck around” during the mid-terms of 2018. “We’ll do whatever is necessary,” he added, to defend the democratic process against those seeking to undermine the United States and democracy itself.41
Turkey is hardly static either in its aims and actions. Nostalgia for the Ottoman Empire has given way to ideas about how to restore Turkey to its glorious past, a time when cities from Sarajevo to Damascus, Benghazi to Erzurum lay within a multicultural, multi-ethnic state whose successes have been overshadowed by more recent history.42 “The republic of Turkey,” said President Erdoğan in a speech in 2017, is “a continuation of the Ottomans”—even if the borders have changed.43 As the wild popularity of soap operas set in the Ottoman Empire show, rekindling the past is very much part of the present-day story of Turkey’s role in the world.44 So too is military intervention in Syria and Iraq, an increasingly muscular position adopted in relations with neighbouring Greece—and its defiant choice of words to Washington. “We are not tied from our stomachs [by an umbilical cord] to the US” ran front-page headlines in five pro-government newspapers on the same day—a clear sign that pressure from Washington has annoyed Ankara.45
And then there is Iran, whose adventures in Iraq and Syria and whose support for Houthi rebels in Yemen, alongside assistance to Hamas and Hezbollah in the Middle East, are not necessarily the most obvious credentials for a country wishing to describe itself as one that is keen to protect the international order. Tehran’s claims to work within parameters that look above all for negotiated settlements and avoid the use of force except as a last resort, while committing troops to military action in other states and also being involved in proxy wars, underline how important it is to focus on actions rather than words.
* * *
*
It is revealing, nevertheless, that China, Russia, Turkey and Iran are attuned to the fact that the world is changing. It is striking too to note how many states in Asia have not just understood this but have been actively trying to work out how to prepare for the future. Almost all have developed blueprints setting out the opportunities and challenges in the short and medium term, along with analysis of how best to cope with these.
The Belt and Road Initiative falls into this category. But so too does Saudi Arabia’s Vision 2030 plan, the Eurasian Economic Union of Russia, Belarus, Kazakhstan, Armenia and Kyrgyzstan, the Bright Road initiative of Kazakhstan, the Two Corridors, One Economic Circle initiative of Vietnam, the Middle Corridor initiative of Turkey, the Development Road initiative of Mongolia and the development plans of Laos, Cambodia and Myanmar. Then there is the array of plans developed by India, such as the Act the East policy, the Trilateral Highway project, the Go West strategy and the Neighbourhood First plan.46
Conspicuously absent from this list is the European Union. Although President Xi included Britain’s Northern Powerhouse project as an example of how states around the world are seeking to boost connections via investments in infrastructure, the reality is rather different.47 Announced just a few months after the Belt and Road was launched, Northern Powerhouse progress has been more modest. While China’s strategy has captured the imagination and committed hundreds of billions of dollars to the roads, railways, ports and energy plants, many of which are now up and running, the Northern Powerhouse’s main achievement so far has been the opening of the new southern entrance at Leeds railway station.48
Compared with the Silk Roads and Asia, Europe is not so much moving at a different speed as in a different direction. Where the story in Asia is about increasing connections, improving collaboration and deepening cooperation, in Europe the story is about separation, the re-erection of barriers and “taking back control.” Brexit provides a good example of this, but so do rising anti-EU movements in Italy, Germany, Poland, Hungary and elsewhere—and the support by hundreds of thousands of people for independence in Scotland and Catalonia.
These pressures lead to a sadness in some parts for a world that seems to be melting away in front of our eyes. “The European Union,” said the Archbishop of Canterbury in the summer of 2018, “has brought peace, prosperity, compassion for the poor and weak, purpose for the aspirational and hope for all its people.” It has been, he said, “the greatest dream realised for human beings since the fall of the Western Roman Empire”—a comment that betrays not only profound Eurocentrism but a lack of historical perspective, both about world history and also about the EU itself.49 Nevertheless, it is symptomatic of the melancholy that accompanies the setting of the sun in a part of the world that has enjoyed the benefits of centuries basking in its warm rays.
* * *
*
Europe’s stuttering offers opportunities to others. China, for example, has been quick to recognise that economic investments create political advantages. Many expected a robust stance to be adopted by the EU over the dispute in the South China Sea, especially following remarks by Donald Tusk, president of the European Council, at a G7 meeting in Japan, shortly before the ruling of the Permanent Court of Arbitration was released, about the need not only to “defend the common values that we share” but also of taking “a clear and tough stance” over China’s maritime claims.50
In fact, China worked hard behind the scenes to ensure that the EU did not do so, using its ties with Greece, Hungary and Croatia to ensure that the statement released by Brussels did not “support” or “welcome” the decision of the tribunal, but merely “acknowledged it.”51 This was testimony to the efforts that China has put into cultivating new friends not only in Asia and Africa but in Europe too, where the 16+1 Initiative provides a forum for discussion between Beijing and eleven EU members in Central and Eastern Europe (including the Baltic States, Bulgaria, Croatia, Hungary and Poland)—as well as five Balkan states (Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Montenegro, Macedonia and Serbia).
The countries that are part of this initiative are turning towards China because of the potential for Chinese investment, but also, as the Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán said in October 2016, because “the
world economy’s centre of gravity is shifting from west to east; while there is still some denial of this in the western world, that denial does not seem to be reasonable.” The world is changing, he said, with the global economy’s “centre of gravity shifting from the Atlantic region to the Pacific region. This is not my opinion—this is a fact.”52
For others, though, the turn to the East is also about the paralysis of Europe and the EU. Europe “is withdrawing—or rather not keeping its promise about making the Balkans part of the European Union,” said the prime minister of the former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia, Gjorge Ivanov. The EU’s failure served as a call to others “to come and fill in that space.” That opened the door to China—and also to Russia. What a shame, said Ivanov, that the EU seems to have forgotten important lessons from history.53
While such mournful pleas mask the significant attention and resources that the EU and indeed the US have paid to the Balkans, the fact that multiple attempts to influence elections, to pressure senior clergy and even to overthrow local governments seem to lead back to Moscow tells its own story about the competition for hearts, minds and wallets in this region.54 Likewise, the fact that Johannes Hahn, the EU Commissioner for European Neighbourhood and Enlargement, has warned about China’s growing interest in the Balkans speaks volumes about the fact that the world is becoming more complicated.55
Some recognise that not having a plan of action can have consequences. “If we do not succeed for example in developing a single strategy towards China,” said Sigmar Gabriel, the German foreign minister in 2017, then China will succeed in dividing Europe.56 This drew a stinging response from the Chinese Foreign Ministry. “We are shocked by these statements,” said a spokeswoman, before adding, “we hope that he can clarify what he means by ‘one Europe’ and whether there is a consensus on ‘one Europe’ among EU members”—which captured perfectly the divisions within Europe about the lack of a common direction of travel.57
The New Silk Roads Page 17