Beijing shrugs at US call for help protecting Red Sea shipping

The Chinese government appears to be brushing off Secretary of State Antony Blinken’s call for Beijing to assist an international coalition in protecting commercial shipping in the Red Sea from Yemen’s Iran-backed Houthi militias, Politico reports.

Beijing signalled that it has no interest in joining the Pentagon’s Operation Prosperity Guardian, a multinational force including Canada, the United Kingdom and Bahrain, in providing security for cargo ships under threat of Houthi attack.

“We believe relevant parties, especially major countries with influence, need to play a constructive and responsible role in keeping the shipping lanes safe in the Red Sea,” Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Wang Wenbin said on Thursday in an indirect reference to US military and diplomatic heft in the region.

Wang’s reference to “major countries with influence” reflects Beijing’s recognition that the US and its allies and partners can muster, at speed, far greater naval power necessary for a seaborne shipping protection campaign than Beijing currently can. Wang didn’t address whether Beijing would use its close relationship with Iran, which provides arms and funding to the Houthis, to seek an end to those attacks.

The Houthi attacks will continue “whether a naval alliance is established or not,” Houthi spokesperson Mohammed Abdulsalam said on Tuesday, per Reuters. Up to 15 per cent of global trade traverses the Red Sea and the Houthi attacks have prompted cargo vessel rerouting “adding weeks to the delivery of key goods and materials, including oil and gas,” US Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin told reporters on Tuesday.

David Satterfield, President Joe Biden’s Special Envoy for Middle East Humanitarian Issues, said in October that that gap between rhetoric and action reflects Beijing’s sensitivity “to being compelled on any international issue to take a stand which could indicate, even obliquely, that China is supportive of ‘international interventions’ or applications of international law.”