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EXCLUSIVE INTERVIEW
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The Vital Triangle: China, the United States, and the Middle East
A Conversation with Jon Alterman

Note: With yesterday's announcement that Chinese President Hu Jintao will visit Saudi Arabia next week it seemed appropriate to provide you with another look at the SUSRIS exclusive interview with Jon Alterman of CSIS from October that addressed the "Vital Triangle" of interests among Saudi Arabia, China and the United States. We also invite you to visit the SUSRIS Special Section with information about his book "The Vital Triangle" and links to selected chapter excerpts. Click here for the Special Section.

A SUSRIS Reprint from October 13, 2008

Editor's Note:

We last caught up with CSIS Middle East Program Director Jon Alterman in May on the sidelines of the Arab-US Economic Forum in Washington where he took time to talk about U.S.-Saudi relations and a host of issues of interest to SUSRIS readers. [Link below] We were pleased to have a chance to get an update the other day on his recent work, a book, written with John Garver, examining the multi-dimensional relationships among China, the United States, and the Middle East.

Today we present for your consideration our conversation with Jon Alterman which will be followed later this week with excerpts from “The Vital Triangle: China, the United States, and the Middle East.” You will also find a collection of articles, interviews and special reports on the developing Saudi-Sino relationship in the pages of SUSRIS through the links below. Among them we suggest, "The Arabs Take a Chinese Wife: Sino-Arab Relations in the Decade to Come" by Ambassador Chas Freeman and "The New Silk Road" by Afshin Molavi. [Links below]

Jon B. Alterman, Director Middle East Program, CSIS The Vital Triangle: China, the United States, and the Middle East
A Conversation with Jon Alterman

SUSRIS: What led you and Professor Garver to take the multi-dimensional view of developments among the United States, China and the Middle East in your book “The Vital Triangle?”

Dr. Jon Alterman: It was hard to see a set of relationships that played as significant a role for the future for the Middle East, and what I found was that people had examined it in mostly anecdotal ways. No one seemed to address it fully -- to investigate the Chinese side, the American side, and the Middle Eastern side. So there seemed to be an opportunity and there are few people who are as good on Chinese foreign policy as John Garver. So we worked together and tried to dig in to it.

SUSRIS: The book’s introduction leads with the April 2006 visit of China’s President Hu to Riyadh on the heels of his Washington state visit and you describe the Saudi stop as having “piqued interest” in the United States. What was the significance of that state visit – the timing and the destination, Saudi Arabia – to telling your story?

Alterman: We had started the project long before President Hu’s visit, but I think that trip and the visit of King Abdullah to China three months earlier underlined the importance of our focus. There was no way there wouldn’t be a deeper relationship between Saudi Arabia and China given the growth in energy consumption in China, at the same time it’s beginning to flatten in the West. The question in all of this is how purposeful is it all? And what are the effects of this growing Sino-Saudi relationship on Saudi Arabia’s other relationships in the world? That is what we sought to uncover.

SUSRIS: How should Americans view Saudi Arabia’s expansion of ties with non-traditional partners like China?

Alterman: People should be cognizant of it. One of the interesting things we found was how wary the Chinese seemed to be of replacing the United States in the Middle East. Most of the efforts to increase the Chinese role seem to come not from China, but from the Middle East. It’s from countries that look for relationships to balance against the United States or from countries that look to diversify their relationships outside the region.

These growing ties between the Middle East and China certainly affect the U.S. position in the region but my sense is there is a deep unease in China about getting too exposed in the Middle East. There is a willingness to accept a larger American role to the extent that it doesn’t threaten Chinese national security. Chinese see overexposure in the Middle East as a threat to national security as much as or even more than U.S. dominance could threaten international security.

SUSRIS: In “The Vital Triangle” you put forward the view that common purpose was very important and that if any one of the three sides of the triangle is unhappy it has the ability to make the other two share their unhappiness. Can you expand on that especially given the complexity of the bilateral relationship between Saudi Arabia and the United States that Washington is already managing? What would sharing unhappiness look like?

Alterman: Well if the United States and Saudi Arabia tried to shut China out, I think you’d see China building stronger relationships with other countries in the region like Iran and others. If the U.S. and China were ganging up on the Middle East, trying to force change in the Middle East, I think you’d see the Middle East playing that game, trying to divide the two. And if China and one of the Middle Eastern countries, or a group of Middle Eastern countries tried to shut out the United States, the United States could destabilize that triangle as well.

It seems to me that because you have this interdependence, this shared interest in stability and security, that you can actually use the Chinese factor to develop more security, to bring more partners in, to contribute to mutual prosperity and a mutual happiness. Certainly the alternative of one side trying to undermine another isn’t attractive to any of the sides.

SUSRIS: What’s happening on the ground regarding the Chinese and Saudi Arabian side of the triangle?

Alterman: First I think we have to get the scale right. That is the Chinese-Saudi trade and Chinese-Saudi investment levels remain relatively small, certainly for China. Their entire investment in the Middle East is less than 2% of their total foreign direct investment. America remains overwhelmingly the destination for students from Saudi Arabia, the source of labor migration back and forth. The United States is without question the dominant economic and security power vis a vis Saudi Arabia.

Where China is coming in is on the margins. Saudi Arabia is building refineries in China that can refine sour crude that otherwise has a hard time finding buyers on the world market. Saudi Arabia has lots of sour crude. The Chinese need lots of oil. They’re building refineries together that will help create a market for Saudi crude in China.

Aluminum smelting -- a lot of the excess aluminum is going to China, which needs aluminum, and it makes sense to do it in a place where you have energy to smelt the aluminum. So you’re having that happen in Saudi Arabia. Petrochemicals -- one of the markets for Gulf petrochemicals is China. So what you’re seeing as Gulf countries are investing in industrial production -- and at home it tends to be energy and capital intensive -- one of the main markets is China.

As China look’s for investors, they’re finding there’s a keen desire for Gulf capital to go to China. In terms of the overall Chinese economy, that Gulf investment remains relatively modest. From the Gulf perspective they think about their relations with the entire world. There’s no question the Gulf is looking more and more eastward, not only to China but to Malaysia and other places. You’re seeing much less of a naturally reflexive look to the United States. You’re seeing a desire to have the U.S. relationship nested within a whole web of relationships. The U.S. relationship is still the most important, but it is no longer as unique in all ways as it was just ten years ago.

SUSRIS: When you talked about the ideological competition, and how it’s easy for China to look good and the United States to look bad in the region, I was reminded of a recent public opinion poll -- by Doctor Shibley Telhami, Sadat Chair at the University of Maryland -- which showed the United States was considered unfavorably or very unfavorably by over 80% of those surveyed in Egypt, Jordan, Lebanon, Morocco, Saudi Arabia and UAE. Is China in a position to take advantage of America’s challenges with public opinion and move forward the non-economic aspects of policy in the region?

Alterman: First, it’s important to note governments continue to rely on the United States and are going to continue to rely on the United States, for a whole range of things. China has been reluctant to even begin to challenge the United States on most fronts, on security and economics in the Middle East.

There’s no question that China, and to a lesser degree France, is seen as the “no vote” for the United States. They’re popular for that. They don’t seem to be challenging religion. They’re not waging a war on Islam the way many people in the Arab world and in the Muslim world see the United States doing. They are not part of a cultural juggernaut that threatens traditional life in the eyes of the people in the region.

I think there are many ways in which the United States is seen as a driver of unwelcome change while countries that profess to have no ambitions to promote change are seen as somehow defending populations against change. I think that’s a game you can play for a while, but ultimately change brings more change. Chinese low cost producers are pushing low cost producers in the region out of business. The Chinese traders are pushing local traders out of business. There is a way in which even a country that seems to have no ambitions to change the Middle East will have an effect and eventually promote change in the Middle East. That’s the nature of exchange. Each side affects the other. I think China is in a position of benefiting from being seen simply as a no vote on a referendum on the United States, and over time the Chinese uniqueness is going to diminish, and I think over time the anger at the United States will diminish.

SUSRIS: What was your read of attitudes among Saudis about the shifting field of play vis a vis the United States and China given the business foundations that were built by Americans and Saudis? Are they pleased to have new options or are they concerned about the slip in American market share in the Kingdom?

Alterman: You know, on the one hand, there’s just a business driven desire to diversify. They understand China is, without question, a growing market. They hear talk in the United States about ending dependence on Middle East oil, which upsets Middle Eastern producers who wonder about the future of the relationship. China is much quieter, although people in China, Chinese strategists, certainly talk an awful lot about ending dependence on Middle Eastern oil. But realistically they’re not so sure how they can do that.

Minister of Petroleum and Mineral Resources Ali Al-Naimi, third from left, and Saudi Aramco President and CEO Abdallah S. Jum’ah, second from left, with ExxonMobil and Sinopec officials at the inauguration ceremony in Beijing on Friday. (AN photo) There are also some ways in which the American-Saudi relationship is bound up in emotion. Americans want to have an emotional relationship. Saudis with experience in the United States have an emotional relationship. There’s a way in which the relationship with China is a pure business relationship. It’s unsentimental. It’s based on financial principles. There’s a certain attractiveness in not getting emotionally involved for many Saudis who feel that they’ve been burned by the United States. The idea of a country that doesn’t profess a desire to change Saudi society is attractive. If it is not an alternative, it is at least a supplement to the long standing U.S. relationship.

SUSRIS: What was the most striking aspect of your research that reinforced your views going in or altered your perspective on this triangle?

Alterman: I was most struck by the fear in China of getting too reliant on the Middle East and getting too involved in the Middle East. There certainly are Chinese Middle East experts and they’re tied to the region. They generally have much less experience in the Middle East than most American experts, but they’re committed to building a relationship with the Middle East.

However, when you talk to Chinese strategic thinkers, they are more vehement about the dangers of exposure to the Middle East, the dangers emanating from the Middle East, than virtually anyone I’ve heard in the United States. It gave me an appreciation for the vulnerability of China and how they see that vulnerability.

They see their energy demand going up and no real way to secure it. That suggests there is an opening for the United States to work with both China and the Middle Eastern states to promote shared interests. It’s striking because there is such a keen interest on both the Chinese and the Middle Eastern side of making it so. The idea that we have to compete with China is a notion a lot of people have at the outset. When you examine it and understand the keen sense of Chinese vulnerability combined with the security vulnerability that you always hear about when you talk to people in the Middle East there really are a tremendous number of alternatives to build these relationships. They could be developed in a way that builds stability and security for all parties concerned.

SUSRIS: The Chinese vulnerability, is it economic, political, military, or ideological, or all of the above?

Alterman: You know, there are several layers. One is that China continues to sharply increase its energy use as its economy grows. And that creates a need for not only oil but all sorts of other hydrocarbons, many of which they have to import. China currently gets about half of its oil from the Middle East. All the strategic thinkers I’ve talked to are concerned about reducing that but nobody was sure how.

There’s also a sense that they don’t understand how people can be religiously motivated, let alone be religious radicals. That creates a barrier of sorts for reaching an understanding on how the Middle East functions.

On security, there’s concern in China about the inability to keep the region from tipping into instability and chaos because they just don’t have the force projection capacity. But they also worry about their ability to protect their sea lanes of communication through which the oil from the region comes. A number of people told me about how all the oil is basically protected by the U.S. Navy, that a lot of it goes through the Strait of Malacca, which the U.S. could cut off.

There’s a sense that China remains dependent not only the Middle East for the oil but also dependent on the United States economically and in terms of defense, because the U.S. can create instability in the Middle East and there is nothing China can do about it. The U.S. can cut off Chinese oil, and there is nothing China can do about it. Consequently, China’s ability to protect it’s own economic and security needs, especially when it comes to energy, is wholly reliant on the United States.

SUSRIS: Let’s take a quick look at the Chinese-Iranian relationship. Is China playing the Iran card with the United States and Gulf Arabs or is Iran just one more field to play on?

Alterman: The Chinese, in a perfect world for the Chinese, would like to have relationships with everyone. In a perfect world for the Chinese they would like to have a relationship with Israel and a relationship with Iran. They get different things from different people. You can play that game more successfully as a smaller power than a larger one. They certainly have crossed wires at times when it comes to the Israelis saying knock it off with the Iranians and I presume that the Iranians are telling them knock it off with the Israelis. But I don’t see them determined to favor Iran or move more toward Iran.

It seems to me their goal is to have Iran as one of many countries with which they have rather normal relations. The more Iran seems to be tipping towards confrontation, I think China subtly moves in the direction of working with the western powers to contain Iran. The more the western powers seem to be tipping towards confrontation with Iran, the more China seems to nudge toward the Iranians. Their goal is to not change anything. Their goal is to keep the energy flowing -- to maintain ties with everyone. In some cases they will buy assets at bargain prices because the rest of the world won’t deal with one country or another.

SUSRIS: What should American business people, government leaders and the general public understand about the developments in this new triangle?

Alterman: There’s the underlying logic of the fact that the western markets are maturing, if not contracting, and that Asian markets are growing. It’s hard to imagine the Middle East isn’t going to have a more balanced relationship looking eastward as well as westward over the coming decades.

It seems to me the challenge is how to build the relationships, build structures that as the Middle East begins to balance their relationships more, that the east is brought in to help in securing the region as well. There’s an awful lot of freeloading going on. There’s an awful lot of taking advantage of the security provided by the United States and allied powers.

It seems to me the real challenge is not in preventing the Middle East, and Saudi Arabia in particular, from having a more balanced set of relationships but instead insuring that that more balanced set of relationships contributes to greater security rather than undermines it.

SUSRIS: Jon Alterman, thanks for your insight on your new book with John Garver and best of luck with “The Vital Triangle

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About Jon Alterman

Jon B. Alterman, Director Middle East Program, CSIS Jon Alterman is director and senior fellow of the CSIS Middle East Program. Prior to joining CSIS, he served as a member of the Policy Planning Staff at the U.S. Department of State and as a special assistant to the assistant secretary of state for Near Eastern affairs. He served as an expert adviser to the Iraq Study Group (also known as the Baker-Hamilton Commission) and is a professorial lecturer at the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies.

Before entering government, he was a scholar at the U.S. Institute of Peace and at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy. From 1993 to 1997, Alterman was an award-winning teacher at Harvard University, where he received his Ph.D. in history. He also worked as a legislative aide to Senator Daniel P. Moynihan (D-NY), responsible for foreign policy and defense. Alterman has lectured in more than 20 countries on subjects related to the Middle East and U.S. policy toward the region.

He is the author or coauthor of three books on the Middle East and the editor of a fourth. In addition to his academic work, he is a frequent commentator in print, on radio, and on television. His opinion pieces have appeared in the Washington Post, Los Angeles Times, Wall Street Journal, Financial Times, Asharq al-Awsat, and other major publications. He is a member of the editorial boards of the Middle East Journal and Transnational Broadcasting Studies and is a former International Affairs Fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations.

CSIS Profile - Jon B. Alterman

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