Wednesday January 10, 2007

Column:

Confucius said: If you know, to recognize that you know, If you don't know, to realize that you don't know: That is knowledge.

China is the key to solving most of the problems in the Middle East. Everyone seems to know that to be true, everyone that is, except the United States.

China is the only true check to the United States in world politics. Everyone is willing to accept that to be true, everyone that is, except the United States.

Open your eyes America.

Right now, the best way to diffuse the situation in Iran is for the United States to step aside allowing for China to step in and make a move. The Chinese love the United States as much as the United States loves China, but this is not about mutual admiration. This is about self-interest. And as much as the Chinese enjoy seeing Iran defy the United States, eventually, when the time is right, the Chinese will set down the law to the Iranians and Iran will listen.

In the meantime, Middle East leaders are courting China. Ali Larijani, the head of Iran's nuclear development program who also happens to be the head of Iran's national security, has just returned from a very successful trip to China. Israeli prime minister Ehud Olmert is in the midst of an extended trip to China and he has already extended invitations to Chinese President Jiang Zemin and Chinese Prime Minister Wen Jiabao to be the guests of his country.

China is important. They have a permanent seat on the UN Security Council. That means they have an automatic veto over all resolutions put before the Council. That's impressive, but it is not the biggest reason for China's importance. The better reason is that China is big. China is the most populated nation in the world. And the most populated nation in the world is the largest consumer of energy in the world and the largest consumer of energy in the world is the largest purchasers of energy. But the most important reason, the biggest reason, is that the Chinese have no natural energy sources.

China is oil starved. China has no energy and must import it all. And now China is buying up shipping lines and oil pipelines and ports all around the world. If it has to do with energy traffic, China is interested. Anything to help control at least a portion of China's energy needs. Iran understands this and so does Israel. Iran knows that China needs Iranian oil. It needs about $100 billion of oil from Iran this coming year alone.

Certainly, there are mutualities of interest between China and the United States. Expanding markets. A stable world. But China is not ready to play by the rules of the United States and the United States is not ready to give China the leeway it needs to take over in Iran.

Eventually, China will play along. Because China knows that Iran is just too unstable and that it is just too dangerous to put nukes in the hands of a country that is so irresponsible and unpredictable. For now China gets a perverse thrill out of seeing the United States squirm. China enjoys seeing the United States suffer economically and diplomatically, laughed at by the Iranians as hundreds of billions of United States dollars are dumped in an effort to make Iran comply.

And the United States is having fun at the expense of China. This past year when the premier of China visited the United States as a special guest of Yale University he was invited to the White House but he did not rate an official state dinner. That was a terrible insult to China. And when the premier held a press conference a woman, a human rights activist, stood up shouted out and disrupted the media event. And oops, when the White House band gathered to play the Chinese national anthem they played the national anthem of Taiwan instead. Publicly, those were called mistakes in diplomatic protocol. Really, they were jabs at China for not yet helping out the American cause in Iran.

In the end China will squelch Iran's free run. Iran is upsetting the rest of the Sunnis in the region, especially the oil barons and oil sheiks. Iranians are Shiites and they are Persians, the rest of the region is Arabs and most of the power in the region is help by Sunnis not Shiites. They are sworn enemies of each other. They make the United States and China look like friends who have had an argument.

Empowering Shiite Iran with nuclear energy, a weapon far more powerful than anything oil rich Sunni Saudi Arabia has, would fracture a very sensitive balance in the region. Sunni leaders would want nuclear power and nuclear weapons and that would all spiral into a Middle East nuclear race. That race would increase the cost of fuel. And that would make China very unhappy. And that is why China will one day - according to China's own time schedule - step in and work with the United States and help stop the Iranians.

Confucius (Lunya 6-22) also said: Respect the gods and the devils but keep them at a distance.