Is US belief that UAE may ‘host PLA base’ an overestimation of China’s Middle East influence?
SOUTH CHINA MORNING POST
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The Americans are overreacting since photos of the leaked document do not show “anything substantively different or new in the Middle East”, said Guy Burton, a professor of international relations at the Brussels School of Governance.
Most of the ports the US suspects could be used for military purposes by the PLA are commercial, rather than dedicated naval bases, he added.
"The concerns cited in the leaked intelligence reports “make more sense” if seen as catering to US military planning for worst-case scenarios, Burton said.
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While the two countries share common goals on countering terrorist threats, regional stability and Iran, “it’s not a codified mutual defence commitment with explicit obligations”, said Burton, the author of several books about the region, including China and Middle East Conflicts.
“It’s a partnership, not an alliance, which gives the two sides a degree of latitude, even freedom,” he said.
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But Brussels-based academic Burton questioned such apprehensions that China wanted to replace the US as the leading geopolitical actor in the Middle East, something Beijing has repeatedly denied.
“Given the state of the region and the difficulties that the conflicts and rivalries there present, why would they [China] want to entangle themselves within it? Moreover, why do that when they can see the US tied up already?” he asked. “It sometimes seems to me that some of these China confrontationists in Washington lack imagination and assume that everyone is like themselves.”
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