By Yaakov Lappin
Once the international system begins to exit the Coronavirus global pandemic, the nature of American-Chinese relations may shift – and potentially dramatically so. The State of Israel will need to be prepared to adjust its policies accordingly.
In recent years, Israel has been engaged with China at the economic and geostrategic levels, and given contracts to Chinese state-owned companies for major port infrastructure projects.
Haifa's new private seaport, built next to the public port, is set to come under the management of the Shanghai International Port Group (SIPG) in the year 2021, for a period of 25 years.
In addition, China’s Pan Mediterranean Engineering Company (PMEC) is constructing Ashdod’s private port and is due to complete the project in 2021.
According to China’s Ministry of Transport, a total of 52 ports in 34 countries are managed or were constructed by Chinese companies.
Long before the onset of the pandemic, economic and strategic rivalry between Beijing and Washington have risen steadily.
That has led the U.S. to express dissatisfaction over the Haifa port contract, a site that the U.S. Navy docks at for regular visits.
In addition, Israel's Ministry of Communications has in recent months been consulting with the defense establishment over who should be given a tender for 5G cellular phone networks, in light of a global U.S. campaign to keep Chinese telecoms giant Huawei from getting access to such projects in allied countries. Concerns over espionage, the desire to protect data infrastructure, and the understanding that there is no real dividing line in China between the government and private sector companies has driven this campaign.
Now, as relations between the U.S. and China are likely to grow more strained, Israel will need to have plans in place to respond to potential developments.
The plans should be based on the core objective of preserving Israel's top and most vital alliance. U.S. – Israeli relations span critical cooperation in the spheres of military, intelligence, defense acquisitions, diplomacy, and economic cooperation. The alliance has only deepened in recent years. Even when bitter arguments broke out between Washington and Jerusalem, defense cooperation has thrived. Not only does the alliance boost Israeli security, deterrence, and capabilities massively; it also serves American strategic and security interests in multiple and valuable areas.
In any situation in which a clash arises between the need to preserve the alliance with America and relations with China, Jerusalem should put its American ally first. Even if that means a change in Israel's policy of granting international tenders.
Looking ahead, U.S. – Chinese relations might play out in line with three broad scenarios.
In the first, relations quickly rebound after the world moves past the pandemic. Under this scenario, Beijing and Washington could go back to the relations that were in place beforehand. The January 2020 trade deal agreed upon by the Trump Administration and the CCP's General Secretary, Xi Jinping, would be implemented, and the world's two largest economies would continue to be interdependent. The two governments would seek to cooperate diplomatically, keeping tensions between them down to a manageable level.
In a second scenario, the fallout from the pandemic would see a 'decoupling' of the two countries, and the creation of two new major economic-technological spheres that would divide the world: A U.S-led Western sphere and a Chinese-led Eastern sphere. Under this scenario, the U.S. and other Western countries would resolve to end their dependence on Chinese manufacturing and technology, and begin a major process of returning production lines to home countries, or moving them to other countries within the U.S.-led sphere.
Under this scenario, it would be difficult to envisage continued significant Israeli – Chinese economic engagement, as the U.S. would expect its allies to follow its lead.
Under a third and more extreme scenario, economic and technological decoupling would be accompanied by a rise in U.S. - Chinese military tensions, particularly in the flashpoint of the South China Sea.
The area has already seen a rise in war drills and tensions between the U.S. and Chinese navies. American Freedom of Navigation naval maneuvers are seen by China as illegitimate challenges.
The U.S. takes a dim view of China's claim of the entire South China region, where one third of international shipping passes through. China and several of its east Asian neighbors are locked in disputes over ownership of sections of the South China Sea, and China has built a series of artificial islands in the area, turning them into military and missile bases. The potential for unintended escalation is real.
In his book 'Destined for War: Can America and China Escape Thucydides's Trap?' Harvard political scientist Graham Allison cautions that China and the United States are heading toward a war neither wants.
"The reason is Thucydides’s Trap, a deadly pattern of structural stress that results when a rising power challenges a ruling one. This phenomenon is as old as history itself," Allison wrote in 2017. "Over the past 500 years, these conditions have occurred sixteen times. War broke out in twelve of them. Today, as an unstoppable China approaches an immovable America and both Xi Jinping and Donald Trump promise to make their countries 'great again,' the seventeenth case looks grim. Unless China is willing to scale back its ambitions or Washington can accept becoming number two in the Pacific, a trade conflict, cyberattack, or accident at sea could soon escalate into all-out war."
The combustible conditions that Allison describes look set to become significantly more explosive in the post Coronavirus world.
Many unknown quantities remain, such as who will be leading the U.S. next year, and what role Russia, the third military superpower in the world, will play (will it side with China to form an anti-American axis, or march down its own, third route?)
Either way, the return of great power rivalry was already on the cards before the pandemic broke out, and looks set to accelerate even more intensively now.
These tectonic shifts could shape the rest of the 21st century, and Israel will need to do whatever is necessary to preserve and deepen its alliance with the U.S. – an alliance that is critical to Israeli interests and its national security, and which must always come first.
Yaakov Lappin is an Israel-based military affairs correspondent and analyst. He provides insight and analysis for a number of media outlets, including Jane's Defense Weekly, a leading global military affairs magazine, and JNS.org, a news agency with wide distribution among Jewish communities in the U.S.