The ceasefire in the Middle East is a rare cause for celebration in that war-torn region. Hamas has released all of the living hostages it captured on Oct. 7, 2023, regular combat operations have ceased, and Israel has drawn closer to its Arab neighbors. Israel, with crucial support from the United States, has achieved all of this despite concerted efforts from the forces of darkness to prevent it.
Hamas, of course, is a longtime client of Iran, which in turn is a client of China. Two years ago, when Hamas invaded Israel — killing 1,200, kidnapping 251, and brutalizing countless others — it was driven by a genocidal impulse. China, itself guilty of carrying out a genocide in Xinjiang, was quick to take Hamas’s side in the conflict, at least implicitly. Beijing never condemned the Oct. 7 attacks and never called out Hamas by name. It called for all parties to cease fighting because it wanted Hamas to survive. It turned to antisemitic and pro-Palestinian messaging in an attempt to weaken the Abraham accords and to cleave America’s Arab allies away from Washington.
It might seem counterintuitive for China to despair of Israeli victory. After all, Beijing well recognizes the instability that terrorism can cause. But that instability is exactly why Beijing took the side of evil in the Middle East. Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) is an agent of disorder, as are his pals in Moscow, Tehran, and Pyongyang. He believes the postwar international order — with norms favoring unhindered economic flows, the peaceful settlement of disputes, and liberal conceptions of freedom of the seas — no longer suit China’s purposes.
China aims to be a regional, if not a global, hegemon. To achieve that end, it believes it must tear down the presiding order. Xi thinks that China can excel, and most effectively dominate, in a world in which might makes right, democracies are under pressure, and mercantilism is the name of the game.
To bring about that world, Beijing acts both directly and indirectly. Its direct efforts are plain to see in its behavior toward Taiwan and in the South China Sea, in its transnational repression, in its economic exploitation of weaker partners, in its efforts to entrench political corruption overseas, in its undersea cable-cutting in Europe, and in its political warfare campaigns in democratic societies. Indirectly, Beijing cozies up to the world’s worst regimes, underwrites wars of aggression in which it has no direct stake, and throws its moral weight (such as it is) behind the likes of Hamas.
In the wake of the Oct. 7 attack, China envisioned a Middle East in which American influence was diluted, Israel was isolated, and Iran could run wild — a state of affairs that would have further undermined the rules and norms from which the world has amply benefited since World War II.
But China failed. In spite of its best efforts to sow discord and to ensure that a regimented band of rapists and murderers would prosper, Beijing achieved none of its aims. Hamas lives but is a shell of its former self. Iran has not only been chastened but defanged. American power and influence are further entrenched in the Middle East and Israel is poised for more normal — if not formal — relations with a host of countries in the Muslim world.
China’s threats to the international system are significant. It is doing real damage. But events of the past two years demonstrate that order can be successfully defended, preserved, and even improved. With the effective application of American and allied power — military force, economic leverage, and diplomatic muscle — the forces of disorder can be defeated.
Michael Mazza is senior director for research at the Institute for Indo-Pacific Security (formerly the Project 2049 Institute) and a senior non-resident fellow at the Global Taiwan Institute.
KMT Chairwoman Cheng Li-wun’s (鄭麗文) recent visit to Beijing and her upcoming visit to Washington will serve as a high-level test of her diplomatic mettle. In Beijing, Cheng was received with symbolic gestures, a warm reception, and high-level access. In Washington, she will receive far less pomp and far sharper questions about the KMT’s vision for the future of Taiwan. Her challenge will be to persuade Washington that the KMT’s engagement with China can coexist with strong deterrence. Cheng’s April 7-12 visit to mainland China coincided with an intense period of conflict in Iran. Despite the strategic significance of Cheng’s trip,
The closure of the Strait of Hormuz has sent the vast Asian chemicals industry into a tailspin. Deprived of the likes of Qatari natural gas and Saudi Arabian oil, the region’s fertilizer and plastics plants are slowing production or even shutting down. Everywhere except China, that is. In petrochemicals, China is unique. As well as a traditional industry that uses oil and gas as feedstock, it has parallel output that relies on its abundant domestic coal. Unsurprisingly, India and other regional powers want to copy and paste the Chinese method. This would not be easy — or climate friendly. The
US President Donald Trump recently repeated his claim that “Taiwan stole America’s chip industry,” reigniting public debate on the issue. As a former Taiwanese minister of economic affairs and an entrepreneur deeply involved in semiconductor supply chain development, I feel a responsibility to clarify this misunderstanding. From the perspective of global industrial evolution and the economic principle of comparative advantage, such a statement appears overly simplistic and risks obscuring the essence of the issue. The rise of Taiwan’s semiconductor industry was not built on “replacing America,” but rather emerged as a result of countries pursuing different development paths within the
Indonesian President Prabowo Subianto says he knows how to fix the problems facing Indonesia. Yet his economic mismanagement and authoritarian tendencies are steering the nation toward a familiar mix of currency instability and political chaos. The world’s fourth-most populous nation risks reversing the hard-won democratic and business reforms that came after the Asian Financial Crisis in 1997. At that time, the rupiah collapsed and the political upheaval that followed forced former president Haji Mohamed Suharto from power. Prabowo’s administration is ignoring similar warning signs. That disconnect was apparent in a national address on Wednesday, when Prabowo projected the swagger that has
RSS