Aimless Rivalry

Jon Hoffman

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Fear in Washington over China’s expanding regional presence is quickly becoming a new rationale for an expansive US foreign policy in the Middle East. But China remains an opportunistic actor in the Middle East, 

driven by practical needs, not by aspirations to dominate the region. Beijing lacks the ability and desire to assume a dominant position in the Middle East, and its ability to jeopardize US regional interests is limited.

Centering US Middle East policy on competition with China is a recipe for disaster. It is an aimless rivalry divorced from concrete US interests. The United States has little to fear from China in the Middle East. 

By viewing every development in the Middle East through the framework of zero-sum competition with China, Washington is operating on faulty assumptions that will result in counterproductive policies. 

If navigated correctly, the return of multipolarity to the Middle East can be a net benefit for the United States, allowing Washington to disentangle itself from the region.

Great power competition is rapidly becoming the new justification for US involvement in the Middle East. Citing efforts by Moscow and Beijing to “challenge American power, influence, and interests,

Washington formally placed competition with Russia and China at the center of the National Security Strategy in 2017.1 Washington views great power competition—particularly with China—in strictly zero-sum terms, extending to a broad swath of issue areas and regional theaters. 

This approach encourages an already counterproductive foreign policy driven by an indefinite—and expansive—struggle to maintain American global primacy.