What an entity can do when two of its friends are at the each other’s throats? A question that props up often in business and international relations. For firms it is a matter of business strategy. For a country it is elevated form of business strategy thrusting into geoeconomics.
China faced this unenviable situation as regards to her mutual relationship with Iran and Saudi Arabia. The opposite of what Sun Tzu says regarding handling of enemies was spotlighted in the power halls within China. That is, “find ways to separate the enemy from its allies”. Here the Chinese wisdom dictated that China must bring the two allies fighting each other to friendship.
Unsurprisingly, China did lot of preparatory work in consultation with both Iran & KSA individually and secretly. The subject matter under discussion was in the realm of minuses of adversity and pluses of accord and affection. There were few notable elements in each of the segment. KSA enforcing puritan Sunni philosophy and Iran being trail blazer in Shiite political Islam. More than their own internal antagonistic dimension both these countries had several captives externally. Iran had the Shiite Crescent incorporating Iraq, Syria and Lebanon away from the KSA border. Yemen & Palestinian Hamaz are much closer to Saudi fence.
Each had its own powerful military & political clout. More than that in geoeconomics both were giants. KSA being the largest & powerful oil exporter. Despite all those sanctions imposed by the West, Iran continued to be a major player in petroleum and refined products thereof. Although KSA is not known to have large quantum of natural gas, Iran along with Qatar is sharing largest natural gas reserve in South Pars. Unexploited gas reserves tend to be much higher on the Iranian side though.
Iran has upped her ante vis-à-vis KSA in the area of technology. In addition to military prowess Iran is a superpower when it comes to drones. The effect of this upon KSA was very telling as Iran supplied drones made short work of oil infrastructure in KSA. As enjoying the second largest Science Technology, Engineering & Mathematics (STEM) graduates per capita after USA, Iran has muscular strength to the envy of KSA.
The bottom line for China is that she did not want to be identified as marked friend of one country against the other. She did not want to be pushed to the point of “with us or against us” binary George Bush promulgated in the wake of 9/11 attack on his soil.
Pitchforking the pluses of an accord between Iran & KSA appeared in Chinese power centre as the most appropriate geoeconomics measure. Chinese business strategy wanted her to be on the right side of history by bringing about a peaceful settlement between the warring sides. When the accord was initialled in April this year in Beijing it was a quantum shift not only in the mutual relationship of the erstwhile opponents but brought a rare brand of peace that alluded both for the most part of the 20th Century.
Cheers!
Muthu Ashraff Rajulu
Business Strategist
Mobile: + 94 777 265677
E-mail: cosmicgems@gmail.com
Blog: Business Strategist
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