China in anti-room of West Asian influence

BEIJING, Nov 27: China's global economic march is everywhere accompanied by predictions that rising diplomatic ambition will surely follow its cargo ships and plane loads of dark-suited businessmen - nowhere more so than in West Asia.

Bridge-building visits by Chinese leaders to the region, and by regional leaders to China, have stoked forecasts that Beijing aspires to join, even eclipse, Washington as a regional broker in the arc of states from Iran to Egypt.

But Beijing -- preoccupied with its Asian neighbours, anxious not to confront Washington directly, and without the military reach to leave a lasting impression far from home -- lacks the will and means to play more than a second string in the volatile politics of West Asia, China analysts told Reuters.

''China wants comprehensive relations with West Asia -- trade and economic ties -- as well as political relations,'' said Yin Gang, an expert on China-Arab relations at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, a government think-tank in Beijing.

''But the regional leaders and the United States all understand that China can't play a big role. It wants to get along with the West Asia, but can't really do more.'' OIL, EXPORTS AND PRESTIGE China does have strong reasons to expand its influence in the West Asia. The fast-growing Asian power needs the oil of Iran, Saudi Arabia and other dominant crude exporters.

The West Asia, including Iran, supplies China with about half of its crude imports. That figure will rise to about 70 percent by 2015, according to the International Energy Agency.

China's factories are bulging with cars, clothes and television sets that suit the incomes of poorer Middle Eastern countries. In the first nine months of 2006, Chinese exports to the Middle East reached 28.9 billion dollars, a 38.1 per cent jump from the same period in 2005, according to Chinese customs numbers.

And not least, Beijing is keen to earn respect as a great power and wants a role in settling international crises, of which the West Asia has plenty.

China's leaders have wooed regional leaders with soothing words and peacekeepers in Lebanon.

''China is ready to work with Saudi Arabia and other Arab countries to strengthen peace and development in the West Asia,'' Chinese President Hu Jintao said in Saudi Arabia in April.

Energy and trade considerations are forcing Beijing policy-makers to pay growing attention to the West Asia, said Guo Xiangang, a former Chinese diplomat in Tehran now based at the China Institute of International Studies in Beijing. ''The Chinese government has yet to make major adjustments in its West Asia policy, but there's a growing scholarly discussion about the role China could play there,'' he said.

ALARM BELLS Visits such as Hu's have raised alarm among some Washington policy-makers and analysts that China -- bearing trade deals and traditional goodwill -- aspires to challenge the United States, which is burdened with the Iraq war, unswerving support for Israel and other policies unwelcome among most Arabs.

But most analysts in China say the United States has nothing to be alarmed about.

''I'd even say that the US is moving closer to Europe and China on problems like Iraq and Iran,'' said Yin, the Beijing analyst.

China's diplomatic foothold in the West Asia remains relatively small. And it must contend with the influence of France, Britain and Russia, as well as the United States.

China has also cultivated strong ties with Israel, and restricts its aid to the Palestinians to relatively small amounts, said Yin.

''China also wants to reduce its dependence on West Asian oil, and that is precisely why we are now criticised for turning to Africa,'' he added.

China's biggest single crude oil import partner is now Angola, closely followed by Saudi Arabia. This month Beijing hosted a summit to court African leaders, but Western politicians and human rights groups have accused it of propping up brutal governments in Sudan and Zimbabwe.

China lacks the naval strength to steer its own course in the West Asia. Oil tankers travelling to China through the Gulf will continue to rely on the U.S. security umbrella, analysts said.

So eager for energy and trade but lacking strategic reach, China seems willing to wait, sometimes impatiently, in the ante-room of West Asian influence.

''They want to keep as low a profile as possible on the political front, so as not to get drawn into the internecine battles,'' said John Calabrese, who studies China's regional role at the Wst Asia Institute in Washington.

REUTERS