The American Century Ends in the Middle East

Beijing is replacing Washington as the player with the contacts and the power to broker deals between rivals in the region

- TOM O’CONNOR

CHINESE OFFICIAL COMMUNICATIONS OFTEN echo a phrase of President Xi Jinping's about "great changes unseen in a century." Increasingly that line seems less like propaganda and more like a simple statement of a vast transformation in the world order.

This overhaul, years in the making, is taking the clearest shape right now in the Middle East, a region where the U.S. has devoted many resources in the 21st century. In March, China helped arrange a peace deal between Iran and Saudi Arabia, taking the kind of broker role in the region long held by the U.S. Washington currently has no diplomatic ties with Tehran and relations with Riyadh have grown strained.

"We bluster, we threaten, we menace, we sanction, we send the Marines, we bomb," says Chas Freeman, a veteran U.S. diplomat, "but we don't ever use the arts of persuasion."

Freeman was principal interpreter for President Richard Nixon on his visit to China in 1972. The trip ultimately resulted in the U.S. recognizing the People's Republic over Taiwan and the opening of an embassy in Beijing, where Freeman served as deputy chief of mission. Now he tells Newsweek, Washington's "moment of diplomatic glory" is long over. "What has happened is that the American ability to coerce is declining," he says. "We seem to be approaching the world as though we still have an unchallenged authority that we imagined we did at the end of the Cold War."

Many nations are pursuing their own paths, sometimes called "strategic autonomy." The concept remains a hallmark of India's non-aligned foreign policy, even as it improves relations with the U.S. It is also gaining traction with once-close U.S. friends such as Saudi Arabia, and has appeared in comments by French President Emmanuel Macron following his April visit to Beijing.