China’s geopolitical and geoeconomic interests have acquired a global dimension and are no longer limited to its extended neighbourhood. That Beijing now has effective politico-economic and security options based on its power-projection ability further afield from the mainland than previous scenarios had projected, has been brought home by its emergence as a heavy hitter in yet another strategic theatre of consequence, the Eastern Mediterranean.
In a recent interview to the US-based National Bureau of Asian Research (NBR), Jens Bastian of the German Institute for International and Security Affairs (SWP) underlined that China’s infrastructure outreach and lending arrangements in the region through its Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), its “vaccine diplomacy” in Turkey, Cyprus, Egypt, and Lebanon, and its disaster relief efforts in the aftermath of the 6 February earthquake in Turkey, are evidence of its determination to be seen as a “responsible” great power. Of course, it takes two hands to clap.
The willingness of successive administrations in Greece over the past 10 years to actively seek Chinese investment is one example of the aforementioned adage; deepening Sino-Turkish ties as Ankara looks to Eurasia rather than the West to achieve its strategic objectives is another. Now, with President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s re-election, the China-Turkey relationship is likely to intensify and the alignment of the BRI with Turkey’s ‘Middle Corridor Initiative’ seems a fait accompli. Indeed, argues Bastian, Chinese investments in and acquisitions of ports in Greece, Turkey, Egypt, Israel, Bulgaria, and possibly in Lebanon (Beirut), as well as lending for railway infrastructure modernisation in the Eastern Mediterranean and Southeast Europe, provides Beijing with distinct advantages.
First, it establishes a portfolio of ports and connects these with railway and highway infrastructure as entry points into the European Union. Secondly, multi-modal transport corridors in the region ensure China has routing alternatives as Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and Western sanctions on the former have hit transport operations along the ‘Northern Corridor’ or the transit countries ~ Poland, Belarus, and Russia. There is, frankly, little to gain from complaining about China doggedly pursuing its national interest. If anything, there is cause for introspection in Washington and Brussels because Beijing’s expanding footprint in the Eastern Mediterranean could not have been possible with support from the states in the region, nearly all of which were broadly classified as pro-West till even a decade ago.
The EU is now scrambling to present its ‘Global Gateway Strategy’ (which was announced a full eight years after the BRI kicked off) as an alternative to Beijing’s huge infrastructure funding initiative. The USA is also beginning to make efforts to re-engage with longignored countries in the region such as Greece, Croatia, and Slovenia, not to mention putting in place a carrot-and-stick policy to deal with Turkey and the nations of the Western Balkans. But it may all prove, on current form, to be too little too late.