America Turns East, China Turns West

The Chinese are slowly, but steadily, taking up security-related activities in the Middle East. They have dispatched peacekeeping forces to Lebanon and have made unprecedented naval port visits in the Persian Gulf, for example. The Chinese are modernizing and building-up their naval forces, which the Obama administration narrowly sees in terms of the political-military competition in Asia. But the Chinese undoubtedly want “blue water” naval power projection to reach from Asia into the Middle East to secure sea-lanes of communication. The Chinese are heavily reliant on Iranian and Arab Gulf oil to fuel their growing industrial base, as well as their military power. The Chinese are very vulnerable to American naval supremacy, which today could readily sever China’s sea links to the Gulf. But the Chinese naval build-up in the years ahead will make that an increasingly more difficult strategic proposition.