The U.S. is asking China to help clean up the mess that Israel and the U.S. have made:
The US has asked China to urge Tehran to rein in Iran-backed Houthi rebels attacking commercial ships in the Red Sea, but has seen little sign of help from Beijing, according to American officials.
The Chinese government has no incentive to bail out the U.S., but the idea that Beijing could somehow lean on Iran to make the Houthis stop what they’re doing exaggerates both Chinese influence over Iran and Iranian control over the Houthis. The U.S. is asking for something that China couldn’t deliver even if it wanted to try. The fact that the administration would consider turning to China for help rather than pressing for an end to the war in Gaza is another indication of how determined Biden is to continue backing the war without conditions.
It is laughable that the same administration that has been obsessed with containing Chinese power thinks that the Chinese government would lift a finger to assist them on this.
The U.S. can’t try to kneecap the Chinese technology sector with export controls and repeatedly poke them in the eye over Taiwan and then expect them to do Washington a big favor. Why would China risk straining its relations with Iran by putting pressure on them to do anything at Washington’s behest?
The administration’s assumption that China has a major interest in resolving the U.S./U.K. conflict with the Houthis is flawed. The disruption in the Red Sea may be undesirable for China, but the direct threat to their shipping is minimal. The Houthis have said publicly that they aren’t going to target Russian and Chinese ships.
The cost of continued disruption may be a price that Beijing is willing to pay if it means that the U.S. keeps discrediting itself and bogging itself down in pointless Middle Eastern wars. While the U.S. wastes its resources attacking Yemen and destroys its reputation supporting Israel’s many war crimes, the Chinese government doesn’t have to do anything to reap the political benefits from Biden’s ruinous foreign policy.
The Biden administration still can’t grasp that they have blundered badly by attacking Yemen, and so they go looking for far-fetched, unworkable “solutions” to the problem that they have made worse. They refuse to acknowledge the real cause of current regional instability in the war in Gaza, and they refuse to put any pressure on Israel. The U.S. will keep ineffectively trying to manage the consequences of the original error of providing unconditional backing for the war rather than changing course, and the problems for the U.S. in the region will continue to multiply.
The solution is staring the administration in the face, but the president is too proud and blinded by ideology to recognize it. The U.S. must insist on a ceasefire and a lifting of the siege. That is what it should have done months ago, and it stands the best chance of defusing tensions elsewhere in the region. Instead of trying to build some diplomatic Rube Goldberg machine to get other states to clean up after our government’s failures, the U.S. should use its considerable leverage with its client and put a stop to the slaughter.