Communist China’s apparent efforts to broker peace in the Middle East are part of a larger campaign to undermine global U.S. influence, according to one expert.
The regime’s role in brokering a diplomatic detente between Iran and Saudi Arabia in March was just as much an attempt to gain an advantage over the United States as it was to stabilize the region, said Alex Vatenka, founding Director of the Iran Program at the Middle East Institute think tank.
“So far, what China has done is act as a sort of venue and score a diplomatic point against the United States,” Vatenka said during an April 4 talk with the Jamestown Foundation, a D.C.-based think tank.
“The Chinese just came in and were able to create the venue. And I’m sure this was deliberate for both Iran and the Saudis.”
Vatenka said that the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), which rules China as a single-party state, was working to undermine the United States’ international influence by trying to convince other nations it is a destabilizing influence, and that the Chinese regime’s authoritarian model for peace was preferable for the international system.
Read more: US ‘Needs to Be Worried’ About China’s Model in the Middle East: Expert
