The geopolitical calculus here seems a bit hard to follow.
Surely China suffers disproportionately from more difficult export traffic to the point that it should be incentivized to tell Iran to tell the Houthis to cut it out
What makes you think that China has much sway over Iran?
The world isn't divided into the countries that are under American hegemony and the countries that are under Chinese hegemony. It's more that there are the countries under American hegemony, the countries on mostly-friendly terms with the Americans but able to say no to them, and the small number of countries that are entirely cut off by the USA.
This last group tends to not want to just trade one hegemon for another, they try their best to become self-sufficient and able to say no to everyone. Iran is very much in that category: just because they're on friendlier terms with China than with the USA doesn't make them beholden to them.
China has a significant interest in disrupting western control and does so without provoking direct open war by funding Iran’s funding of destabilizing forces (Houthi, hezbollah, taliban, Isis, hamas).
Perhaps, but isn't the Suez Canal the only reasonable way to ship bulk goods between Europe and Asia? Doesn't China depend heavily on access to the European markets that these attacks disrupt? I would think that that would outweigh their other interests here.
Or the other way around. It might make China take requests from Iran very seriously. Depends on whether China needs the oil worse than Iran needs the money.
[Edit: I'm rate limited for my own good, so I'm replying to jimbokun here: Which do I think is more likely? I have no data. Particularly, I have no data about the elasticity of China's oil demand.]
Ok but just logically. What’s more important? 80% of your economy? Or more expensive energy? Whatever we believe about the latter, the former is existential.
Well, see, that was my question. Are there a plethora of alternatives for China? If they cut off Iran, where would they get the replacement oil from? Who has the capacity. Are they willing to sell to China? If so, at what price? If it's freely available, and at the same price, that answers my question. If it's only available at a higher price, then the question is, what does that higher price do to China's economy? And if it's not available at all, what does the absence do to China's economy?
You said "a plethora of alternatives". Are there, really? Can you (or someone) show that others are ready and willing to supply that much oil?
No matter what kind of interesting questions you want to pose, shutting down ~90% of tax revenue is worse than shutting down 10% of one source of energy. It’s frankly very silly to hypothesize otherwise.
You are correct, but a country like Iran doesn't have any trade partner other than China, so if China wants it can put enough pressure on them to stop. I.e., Iran will be forced to listen to China, not that it likes.
PRC shipping are mostly unaffected by Houthis, they get to go through cheaper red sea route on lower insurance rates (at least in Feb) which they get to charge more because they have dibs on faster routes. They're triple dipping. So far global exports doing fine, costs largely gets passed onto consumers. Bonus watching global police USN fail to contain Houthis while gathering intel on US interception and sipping on cheap RU/IR energy for producer competitive advantage. It makes sense for PRC not to do anything, not that they could. Best they can do is mind their own business and arbitrage situation to their advantage, which appears to be net positive currently. E: Extra bonus: there seems to be assumption of prolonged disruption = global shipping needs to make up for distance with more hulls = record more orders of new ships from ship yards, of which PRC has ~50% marketshare.
China has been reluctant to directly condemn the Houthis or publicly link them to Iran, but it has repeatedly voiced its disapproval, calling on all parties to respect the freedom of navigation and “stop attacking and disturbing civilian ships”.
In January, the Chinese media outlet Global Times reported that Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi had said, “China has been making active efforts to ease the tension in the Red Sea.”
Then a Reuters article claimed that China had communicated a vague but threatening statement to the Iranians: If Chinese vessels or economic interests were to be impacted by the Houthi attacks, it could harm Sino-Iranian business relations.
The Iranian Ministry of Foreign Affairs denied the report, but Islamic Republican, an official Iranian newspaper, published an article criticising the “selfish demand” of the Chinese, claiming that China showed a willingness to “help the Zionist regime” and advised it not to “extend your legs beyond your own carpet”. (In other words, stay out of it.)
The US keeps demanding China throw its weight behind getting the US and its allies out of the geopolitical quagmires we eagerly jumped into (and claimed we'd solve no problem, e.g. "Houthis FAFO"). It's getting pretty sad. Maybe the United States could use its leverage with Israel to enforce the UN Security Council resolution all members including the US and China voted for? Stop flooding our weapons into the illegal war destabilizing the region? But no.
Right now the goal is to divide the US into multiple regions to overstretch them. Europe (Ukraine, Russia) where Crimea just got struck using US weapons and harming civilians, Middle East (Yemen, Israel, Palestine, very likely Lebanon soon and if that happens...) And Asia (Taiwan, South China Sea) where we have had an increase in hostilities recently.
Whose goal? Is there some overarching cabal deciding that Russia is going to start a war, manipulating middle eastern politics, and making Chinese military plans?
The Crimean civilian injuries were due to Russia shooting down the missiles and knocking them off course, not using air sirens to warn civilians, not building shelters, and encouraging tourism in an active war zone.
Not sure if it's stupidity on Russia's part or deliberately using civilians as cover in temporality occupied Crimea but it's not the first time Russia has placed military hardware near public beaches:
Also if it wasn't obvious all the dominoes started to fall with Russia and for a country that didn't even have a shot at joining the EU. It is incredible how much US foreign policy has failed.
It makes a good case for, among other things, that once the US stops enforcing order on the seas, globally, that there’s going to be at best regional powers looking out for their own interests, only, and widespread piracy where even that is lacking.
Draught is one thing, but if pirates attacking commercial ships aren’t being smacked down that’s pretty alarming and doesn’t bode well.
I read that book and it get so much wrong. Its views on Russia for example have been completely flattened by the Ukraine invasion and response.
Russia has successfully switched to a war economy, US companies that pulled out are co-opted by Russian ones and doing business in a more or less normal manner. Sanctions have failed, and pushed Russia closer to China (not to mention North Korea).
When you view purely through the lens of demography, you can't extrapolate to global politics.
I remember I expected Europe to try the appeasement nonsense that only emboldened the precious century’s fascist expansion effort.
I was surprised and delighted to see any level of resistance, even if it’s only to enable Ukraine to hold the line.
I dunno, friend. No offense, but I’m going to go with the professional geopolitical strategist’s take over yours -especially where I perceive subsequent reality validating his ideas- unless you’ve got comparable creds of your own or more substance to your refution of his ideas.
The problem with Zeihan's predictions is that they are predicated on the assumption that America is retreating from entanglements around the globe. I'm not sure how anybody watching what's happening in Gaza and Ukraine could credibly make that statement.
You’re looking at it through the “money-only” (for lack of a better word) perspective when it comes to China’s geopolitical decisions, which in my view is entirely wrong. Don’t get me wrong, I see your view as understandable, because I assume you’re writing this from a Western country and it is known that the West has long put money above everything else, but that way of looking at things completely misses China. The same discussion can be applied almost identically to how Russia views its geopolitical interests.
The article is paywalled, so I don’t know if they elaborate more on this; I’m just responding to your comment.
I’m pretty sure these countries aren’t beloved allies of each other, right? China presumably could politely ask Iran, who’d have to weigh their priorities, and the Houthis might just keep launching rockets anyway, they aren’t exactly a branch of Iran’s military or anything.
I’m sure Iran has sort of “priced in” the cost of doing this sort of stuff via proxy instead of directly, and part of that cost is that the proxies don’t always target exactly what you want.
Surely China suffers disproportionately from more difficult export traffic to the point that it should be incentivized to tell Iran to tell the Houthis to cut it out