NYC Junta

Reading this story in the business section of the NY Times about Saudi oil production and Chinese consumption, I was struck by a few things. I think it’s interesting to follow the diplomacy that Saudi Arabia is engaged in to put pressure on China to support increased sanctions on Iran. Saudi Arabia is promising China increased production to make up for any short-falls that might arise as a result of such sanctions. The message is that the Chinese would suffer from the instability of a nuclear Iran, and that is a message that the Chinese might listen to. It’s obviously true that appeals about nuclear proliferation are at best an ancillary concern for China, which doesn’t want to see proliferation increase but also doesn’t see it as a direct threat to its interests (and it is a direct threat to its main geo-political rival, the US, which China balances as a positive). But this quote is the one that caught my eye the most: “The Saudis are particularly concerned about the shape of the global market where all the growth comes from the east and all the security comes from the west,” by Jon B. Alterman, a Middle East expert. The Chinese are content to coast on a US-dominated security platform where the US is the guarantor of global stability. China doesn’t see the world at all in terms of globalization, but rather only in terms of its narrowly defined parochial interests. The challenge of balancing a decline in US power with a rise in Chinese power will be fraught as this equation frays in the future.