Red Sea rivalries: The Gulf, the Horn, and the new geopolitics of the Red Sea

good afternoon everyone and welcome to Brookings I'm Michael Hanlon with the foreign policy program and we are sponsoring this event with our Africa Security Initiative as well as with my friends Zach Burton who is at the Brookings Doha Center joint operation but we have scholarship and expertise from really throughout the country and Europe as well and just delighted to have you here for this forum on the Red Sea and the geopolitics and surrounding key strategic and diplomatic and economic issues about this very important body of water that for a long time has not been thought of as an area of major power competition or rivalry or activity even though the Suez Canal of course is at one end of it and it's been important to the world economy and global military operations for a very long time but as we see a number of countries in in that region of the world become more powerful more interested in projecting their influence more competitive in some cases with each other we started to see the Red Sea become really a much more full chrome of this competition but also cooperation and I'm just going to say a brief word here of additional introduction about the subject and then the panelists and then pass the baton to Zach who will frame the conversation he's much more of an expert on the topic just back from Djibouti a visiting fellow in our Doha Center in Qatar a distinguished author who wrote a great book on the Sudan peace process process he was personally involved in and so he will really frame today's conversation and then we'll work through the next few panelists and and then have a better discussion up here before going to you so let me just say again one more word on the region and then a word on each of the panelists before handing over to Zac when I think in this region it's not what I claimed a lot of expertise about but if you think about the the key neighbors you have two of Africa's three most populous countries either along the Red Sea or right next to it and that's of course Egypt and Ethiopia each with a population of plus or minus 100 million Ethiopia of course doesn't quite touch the red sea because Eritrea does and that's contiguous space and then we move down to Djibouti and Somalia but we also have Sudan adjacent to the Red Sea so if we think about Africa we have probably close to 300 million people living in countries that are immediately proximate to this important body of water a large fraction frankly of the entire continents population and some of its most important actors but then of course we also have the Arabian Peninsula with Yemen and Saudi Arabia being the key countries along the Red Sea other parties interested as well however and certainly the Eastern Arabian Peninsula states like the UAE and Qatar also quite interested in projecting influence and not that far away and then Turkey and again zach is gonna frame the overall geography but when I look at the map I'm struck by just how many important countries are now in a position to reach out and touch the red sea for better or worse in one way or another and it's sort of a first in the sense that again this has been a body of water where big ships and superpowers have transited for a long time but not where the regional actors have necessarily had quite the capacity that they have today in many cases at least that's the way it looks to me Zach's gonna clean up my mess and frame it much more intelligently in just a minute next to him Alex Rondo's is the special representative of the European Union to the Horn of Africa we're honored to have him with us today he has held that position for eight years also he has a long lineage in Africa having been born there Greek citizen a Greek ambassador but educated in in Africa and also in England and worked with Catholic Relief Services for a long time but then also created the first inter Orthodox faith charity and humanitarian relief agency which now operates in a number of countries ranging from Russia to some of the places we're talking about today and so very privileged to have him to his left is Karen young from the American Enterprise Institute and since I'm cherry-picking the most fun facts out of each bio just to give you a sense and you can of course see their more detailed BIOS elsewhere on a panel with a lot of global you know trotters and a lot of people who've been all over the world Karen may win the prize for being the woman of five continents as I counted in terms of where she has done her studies her various kinds of field research she was a Fulbright Scholar for example in South America she's also studied and in the broader Middle East region in UAE and wrote a 2014 book on the UAE now she's just next door here at the American Enterprise Institute and finally rush dough she rush began his academic career brilliantly in an institution that Zack and I have also had the privilege to be part of at Princeton unfortunately he's fallen off the straight and narrow a bit since then getting after his undergraduate at Princeton he went to Harvard for his PhD and he's now affiliated in part with Yale so these are blemishes on an otherwise sterling and very promising career but but fortunately we're trying to get him back to the straight and narrow because we also have a claim on him this year at Brookings and and perhaps beyond he's a postdoc here with us in the foreign policy program so thank you for being here thank you for listening to my long rambling introduction but now zach is gonna put things in much more cogent terms my friend over to you I think you've covered it pretty well thanks everyone for being here sharing an interest in this kind of new region when I find particularly fascinating and have followed for a number of years since I was in the last administration and really has become as you know a very hot issue over the last couple of years and this is really in many ways about to in some ways distinct regions fast becoming one right so there is real history across both shores of the Red Sea but the level of the surge in political and economic and strategic engagement that we've seen in really in recent years is really unprecedented right so on one side or together so you have these different forms of government different cultures different kinds of diplomacy that are really crashing together astride this body of water by the way which happens to be one of the most valuable shipping routes and the world in the world and a major strategic joke point well we'll talk about all of these issues so I am really excited about this issue about the opportunities but also concerned about the risks right and in many ways one of the central themes of this story is Middle Eastern rivalries playing out now on a much bigger chessboard we've seen this in several adjacent regions but not least in the Horn of Africa it's also interesting for a second region and that is many of you whether you're in governments or foreign ministries or Internet chill institutions will have confronted the same institutional gap that I and others have right we have folks that watch Africa and we have folks folks that watch the Gulf in the Middle East and they're not historically very good at talking to one another right and so this has been an exercise in trying to straddle this issue figuratively Trevor can we put up the map real quick so just to give a sense of the map that Michael outlined this is a product we did in recent months there's been all sorts of rumors and talk about the proliferation really of commercial ports and military bases on the red sea right and in many ways this is the sort of most tangible manifestation of this conversation all right is this mad dash for real estate particularly on the African side of the coast so we tried to frame each of these issues here outlining the countries involved the stakeholders the terms of whether it's a port or a military base its current status and some relevant points of analysis just to try and distill this all in one place so you can find that on our website and hopefully it's a useful tool to you I'm gonna ask Trevor to take it down now just so we're not all so I'll briefly as Michael said frame the issue in three tiers very simply and that will kind of offer us entry points first is what's happening in the Horn of Africa which by the way on its own is really remarkable extraordinary changes after years of stasis in many parts of the region I'll mention two in particular Ethiopia many of you know a new prime minister came to power and the changes that are happening right there now are really really unprecedented in some ways the lid has been lifted off Ethiopia after many years and there's both incredible opportunity a lot of buzz about the new prime minister and his introducing liberalizing reforms and appointed more women to the cabinet and and really opening up Ethiopia very exciting but also incredibly incredibly fragile right and so what happens in Ethiopia is we've already seen around the region spills over and impacts Eritrea it impacts Somalia at impact Djibouti and it impacts the rest of the region including the second country I'll mention which is Sudan right so Sudan sort of figures in this conversation as part of the greater Horn and in the last ten days if you've been painting the news it suddenly is going to figure for better or worse in a much bigger way in this wider conversation so the first tier is sort of these transitions remarkable political economic transitions and potential for opening up across the Horn of Africa the second part of a conversation or the second tier is the goal are the Gulf states and this wider red sea and this is really the fat part of our conversation if your will so I mentioned these unprecedented levels of interest from gulps Gulf states with really deep pocket deep pockets and big appetites and this presents I think real opportunities for political and economic integration with the Horn of Africa but it also as I mentioned possesses risks and I think the question really for the African states on the western shores of the Red Sea is can they harness these relationships can they harness what are right now quite asymmetric relationships and do so in a way that benefits them without either surrendering their sovereignty or getting drawn into the Gulf crisis right which is which has really been exported to the region the third tier Michael alluded to is this larger question of great power competition for those of us that worked in the Horn of Africa and tried to get greater attention on the region for many years suddenly there is a great deal of attention and this is in large part deals with the question of China and China's arrival in Djibouti this tiny city-state at the southern gate of the Red Sea really it's one natural resource is its geographic location the Chinese have arrived there in economic terms but also most notably with its first ever overseas military base and that base sits just down the road from the only US base in Africa and so many of you have seen over the last year and a half this spiked some concern in Washington and so as Michael said I'm just back from Jammu and trying to separate the fact from the fiction right what what is what is cause for concern there and what opportunities are there and I think in many ways we'll talk about this but Djibouti is this is a test case right it's a test case for the Chinese and it's a test case for us what can we learn here and what kind of precedent will that set as China continues to rise around the globe so those are the three tiers and we'll jump in at each levels and ultimately invite you to do as well fantastic sac thank you by the way I should mention there are about eight chairs up here which have signs let's say they're reserved but they're not at least not anymore I will hereby declare them free and available so please feel free if you wish also now if I could begin Alex with you and maybe starting with the immediate proximate States the first tier or first circle in the framework that Zacks outlined in an area that you've been working hard at now for eight years in your current job and even longer throughout your career how would you just describe the dynamics that are at play and the the promise versus the peril of where we are at this strategic moment well thank you first of all thank you very much for having me with you about three or four years ago it became apparent to me and my colleagues that there was the environment around the Horn of Africa was shifting we were seeing new players come in and Jack's just described them primarily it was the spillover of differences within the Gulf competing for it for the region and the way it looked to us was that for the first time in many many years if ever recent history Saudi Arabia the Emirates others were beginning to pay attention to the Western flat their western flank in a way that they hadn't really before and the sense is that they were now becoming operational in terms of investment securing ports and the like with the outbreak of the Yemen conflict this became a more militarized or securitized presence which has all sorts of implications for the governments of of the eastern coast of Africa so that began to wake us up and I started trying to raise the alarm among my not the alarm but just get people to wake up and pay attention and so I'm very glad we're at the stage where this has now become more open discussion it needs to be otherwise I think silence and denial opens the great risk is misunderstanding and miscalculation we have a proliferation of new players it's a multiplication but they're also they're accelerating there's a dynamic here at work now if you look at it from the point of view of the countries in the Horn of Africa and Zach's just alluded to the fact where we are going through a transformation in this region which people must be very careful not to look at it in a short-term transactional and transient way in effect what we all need to wake up to and understand is that there is an entirely new generation in this region but many other parts of Africa that's become is coming of political age this is no longer a development project where we say how do we employ certain youth they are acquiring a political voice and expressing it in different ways and if we don't understand that we will not understand this new if you will tidal wave that's gathering in the politics of Africa and certainly of the Horn of Africa in Sudan today you only have to look at who is on the streets youth educated youth in vast numbers and women but that's something special to Sudan but we should take note if the Opia we saw last year again people mobilized and liberated so what we have is first of all what we have to manage is what I would call it a collision between the the expectations the new demographic expectations of youth with the combination of miss governance or the failed delivery of governments to their people this new generation is based he's saying what do I belong to and secondly are beginning to define what they want to belong to that is absolutely fundamental if we don't understand that it's a political issue it's not just about finding some jobs because they're defining therefore more fundamental point is and which to me is very exciting as you're seeing a new generation which is sort of showing that Africa can be its own agent in change okay it may be messy it may be unpredictable but there's something happening and for those of us of my generation it is just a thrill to see that happening there's something new occurring that means that we have governments who are some what we're talking about as transitions here deep transformations now if we use an analogy my take on what's happened in Ethiopian isn't emerging now in Sudan this is the 1989 moment for not only this part of Africa but I think a much wider area we might want to look back and ask ourselves what were some risks then we happily let shock therapy occur with Russia what did it give us what is the conclusion now for a place like Ethiopia 100 million people who come from a very pretty centralized system how do they transform how do you manage this are we alive to the challenge are we equal to it and are we confusing a rather blithe support for a democratization process when in fact people right now want to see dividends immediately the youth are on the streets with expectations it is that is the real context that that's occurring and will have a chance perhaps to go in more depth in it now those who have interests and are coming in to the region to me this has all the attributes of the Scramble for Africa of almost two what started almost 200 years ago it is about competing interests which are both security and Commerce but the method is surprisingly similar it is about identifying where one places one's entrepot x' if you look at the west coast of africa it's littered with old castles and forts they are these ports the new equivalent it is about acquiring local proxies it is about local leaders either striving for survival or looking for money trying to find someone to sponsor them that is the recipe for a bit of a mess the only minor consolation is that historically at least we Europeans are not involved in that but we are becoming rather sleepy spectators and that's a problem too but that's the context of what as I see it on the ground and we need to be very very attentive and that is why for instance the European Union about six months ago it's all its leaders when they gathered actually came out with the policy formal policy calling for the creation of something like a forum which allows the two sides of the Red Sea to be talking with each other create the mechanisms which at the least at the very least prevent misunderstanding or even conflict that's the heart of what led us do that and what we see now fantastic framing if I could just follow up with one question before going to Karen Karen we know he's gonna talk to some extent I think about competitive dynamics involving the Gulf states in this part of the world and you alluded to the way in which perhaps some of these countries in Africa watch each other the youth movements the demands for political reform we see some dynamics but in what other ways do you describe the African countries as acting as a cohesive or perhaps a non cohesive community in other words in other words are the interesting dynamics the various outside players with any one African state like Djibouti are there interesting dynamics between Sudan and Egypt between Sudan and Ethiopia we know about Ethiopia and Eritrea has passed it are those kinds of dynamics within the African states important for this story as well yeah there Michael historically speaking I think we're at a moment where these countries of the region have a choice and it's a race against time either they gather themselves and become a coherent unit to be able to navigate the relationship with the world outside them or they will be picked apart and I've been on record even talking about that with the heads of states of the region that's the one now what is really occurring at the moment has been the the quite dramatic change of policy on the part of the Ethiopians with Eritrea this was the frozen conflict of the Horn of Africa and it's become somewhat less frozen now let's watch and see how it unfolds but that's key and because of that now you've had Somalia Ethiopia and Eritrea signing agreements Djibouti will I hope won't eventually get involved in that but Zac's just been there he can tell us more about it so what we have is the beginnings of something that resembles the small horn as some of us call it the original small horn they seem to be very keen to make that work and and good for them if they do but this region there's a web of relations which runs much deeper so it cannot be too exclusive and the latest changes in Sudan suggests that Sudan might sort of be able to fit in assuming it goes in the direction that it looks like at the moment fantastic thank you very much Karen over to you please help us understand how and when and and up to the president the different Gulf states that have a strong interest in the red sea with a particular eye on the UAE but others as well have started to see this particular area that is not their immediate neighborhood but still pretty darn close and we all know from the graphic that they're getting more and more active over to you please and thanks for joining us thank you for inviting I really like the way that we've started to frame the conversation and to kind of talk onto what Alex has said there's definitely transformation going on across the wider region right we think about the MENA region and what's going on in the Horn and so it's maybe it's useful to think of these as like concentric circles all rotating like gears and so to think about the you know the kind of change that creates cascade effects toward a domino effects between regions is really important but I think it's also important to contextualize that there have been good ties and and important ties between the Gulf and and the Horn for a long time and we see this in terms of priorities of food security of the Gulf we see it in people-to-people ties and you know using Dubai especially as a financial hub for commercial operations in the Horn earlier you know anti-piracy efforts which were you know multilateral and with the West and really a kind of a training phase for the for the UAE and other other states to to create expeditionary forces and to involve themselves in training operations with with local militaries in the Horn so that's that's been going on for a bit but this new phase I think has some some pretty interesting dynamics and even if you think about earlier port facilities like you know how Djibouti begins and how Aden begins with DP world that's not the statecraft that we see now those were commercial operations which weren't necessarily very successful ones right and so the the drive of what I see is especially UAE economic statecraft towards the region is very much I think a smart combining of a development and security Nexus that's not my phone I don't know whose it is and so the priority of seeing this region as as central to both economic and security needs makes a lot of sense and it makes sense because you know you mentioned the Zack the term choke points so both the vowel Amanda and the strait of hormuz our major choke points for international trade it's not just about oil right so most of the oil that comes from the Gulf Coast eastward but what goes around the Arabian Peninsula is about 20% of the world's maritime trade and rice about 20% of the world's maritime trade and wheat about 30% of the world's maritime trade and fertilizers so again the food security priority the the need to be you know part and connected to global trade flows I think the Gulf states and the UAE understand very well that that's their future and so military basing comes later and with the kind of first training with the piracy and now you know larger training efforts and of course then 2015 Yemen but these things have been building in you know in gears that have been turning and widening in in scope I also want to mention what I think has motivated this switch or this ignition of a more interventionist foreign policy from the Gulf states from Qatar UAE and Saudi Arabia in particular but they share some things in common and so the first driver of this more interventionist foreign policy is really what I call the magic decade and the magic decade was 2003 to 2014 this enormous generation of revenue from oil and gas exports and so this allows these states to have the capacity the economic capacity to put themselves on the map in different ways in a wider widening sphere of influence and the widening sphere of influence is rationalized more and more after 2011 and the Arab uprisings across the region after 2013 more importantly after UAE gets more involved in the Saudi Arabia and Qatar in 2011 to 2013 in Egypt and then of course in late 2014 the beginning of the the war in Yemen and the Saudi intervention in March 2015 which the Marauders joined this creates the security threat of really feeling the pressure and of as they see as the UAE in the Saudi sea as the threat of Iran in into the peninsula in justifies this expansionist view so I think we have to see it as this combination of the development security Nexus knowing that if you're in a region that is growing and that is prospering you are safer and knowing also that the way you protect yourself is to broaden that sphere to make economic partnerships but the sense of threat comes from this this rising and a threat of sense of attack from Iran and also this sense of disengagement from the US and so all of these things start to build in 2011 intensify after 2013 get even more critical after 2015 so it's no surprise here we are now that there is this strategic imperative to be more present physically to be more engaged economically to devote more financial resources I mean the three billion dollar UAE injection into Ethiopia is just one example of the the widening use of these kinds of tools and that's just one aspect it's really a big circle the way Emirates Airlines thinks about it is you know the billions of people within a five hour flight of Dubai and that's that's that sphere of influence thank you and Zack wants to add one point but before I come to him I wanted to ask one more question about about the Gulf states in the Red Sea region that builds on what you said but I just want to understand to what extent are they fundamentally competing with each other you talked about the importance of this region for them as a group we know there are a lot of rival risk dynamics within the GCC to put it mildly but we also know that this plays out differently in different parts of the world my good friend Jeff Feltman has taught me a lot about how these play out in Libya and there are you know different dynamics in every single country are the relationships in the Red Sea primarily competitive or are they just all more interested than they used to be and not necessarily rival risk with each other I think their different styles I think the Emiratis style of engagement is different than the Saudi style is different from the country style and the Turkish style as well they have different strengths is it competitive absolutely and you could see the Emirati especially taking up real estate a term that zach also used in Barbara and the sasso is an attempt to just hold ground and in Somalia we see this tension between Qatar Turkey on one side and the UAE on the other really really intensify to the point where it's it's destabilizing to the federal government and you know plays out in in domestic politics severely what's what's the future of that I think it it will continue there is there is just no no shortage or into this sense of a national importance to to be more present to reserve space so that someone else doesn't enter it but also I mean it's it's national interest so you know you can you can say oh it's it's it's just about the GCC dispute no I don't think so I think these are national security and economic priorities they are competitive and the fact that you know the UAE and Saudi Arabia are not speaking to their neighbor only intensifies it but it's not it's not the the root of that behavior great thanks Zach over to you before going to rush ever if you're if you're in there I can do we put that map up once more I just want to make one more point maybe not just on the on the motivations I mean I agree with Karen said I I do think that we've talked about the Yemen crisis in 2015 and how that has informed this in some way I don't want us to underestimate how much the Gulf crisis and how much that competition has colored their engagement in the Horn of Africa over the last couple years and in many ways this has been unwelcome by a lot of the African states right so this has been hugely polarizing in Somalia it's caused real problems in Djibouti the Ethiopians to their credit so far have been able to try to balance both sides right so very recently you saw Prime Minister Robbie make a trip to the Gulf and he made a point to visiting both Doha and Abu Dhabi on the same day right so asserting their national interest but some of these states went to the Horn of Africa just as they went to other regions in the wake of the 2017 GCC crisis and put real pressure on African states to fall in line and sides and and that's caused some real tension and thirdly if you remember from the map Karen has alluded to this but it's no secret that the most assertive actor in the Gulf so far has been the UAE and if you look at the entire African coast you see their interest in ports in Egypt in Jeddah down the entire African coast us Somaliland Puntland Mogadishu but also also I want to note that the there's another element here and that is control of the entire south coast of Yemen right so the ports aren't necessarily operating there but these are there are historical ports here and the Emiratis have made this a priority so if you look at this map again none of these ports in and of themselves are necessarily game changers right but I think the view from Abu Dhabi is you piece together this constellation and you get to their primary goal which is shaping the future of maritime trade in the western Indian Ocean right and so Dubai ports world and the and the Emirates have made port operation and port development one of their central industries and they've proven a comparative advantage in this but andrush will talk to this they see Chinese trade volume coming right they see trade volume coming they see it entry and Djibouti into the fast-growing African market and if you take one more look at the map you'll see that Dubai port is is not on that route right it's out of the way and so I think Dubai ports world and the Emiratis right now are making an attempt to insert themselves in the belt and Road initiative to insert themselves in this the future of maritime trade rather than be simply replaced in the space of five or ten years and I that for me is one of the most important driving factors of us so very quickly if I could ask each Karen and and Zach before I go to rush rush is gonna talk I'm sure about the broader Chinese and u.s. dimension which is as we know around the world becoming not just economic but military and strategic it's a very complex competition even in the context of a relationship that's multi-faceted but when I hear you to talk about the rivalries with the Gulf states they have with each other it sounds like it's mostly economic that it's not primarily ideological or strategic or military am I wrong or is this primarily an economic competition shaping the future of trade in the Indian Ocean or are there elements that could be interpreted as military or coercive or ideological in some broader sense if you see what I'm getting I know there's a lot to say but just a quick answer to what extent do I have that partly right to what extent do I have that mostly wrong both okay I think all of those elements are I mean I think there's an economic component but in many ways at least since 2017 it is really accelerated as a result of the crisis and that is about economics it is also about ideology right and so there is real or perceived as a view that Qatar and by extension its its partner in Turkey have an interest or have ties to the Muslim Brotherhood and and for the Emiratis and the Saudis and the Emiratis in particular that's a no-go right and so the you know the the elements that shaped the Gulf crisis in its beginning as I mentioned have just been exported to this region so I do think it's a competition that's happening on multiple levels and you know I think there's blame on both sides right there are newcomers to this and there are folks that have been there before just one point on Turkey turkey figures in almost all of these conversations and yet you know this is an issue lamented by many of its diplomats because they would argue that they've been in the region longer and their engagement has been more nuanced right it's it's not about individual relationships or the the immediate financial reaches resources that can bring to bear Somalia is a case in point they've been there for longer so in some ways I think their entry points have been different turkey did come sooner but I do think Turkey has now despite its increasing focus at home has come to realize the soft power value of its of its assets and its relationships in the region and each side in each of these states and these relationships is these is rushing to snatch up territory as Karen mentioned so the other side can't get it and and really reinforce these client relationships and sometimes as I mentioned that's been there is opportunity there but it's also proven disabled isn't I guess Alex that might have been I don't come to you in a second but you were talking about it how these countries could be picked off if they don't work together is that sort of the concept that you were alluding to yes yes I mean that's what I mean when if you followed the old scramble it's the same MO again absolutely and there'll be a lot of people waiting to either be picked off um you know and there'll be others happily at work trying to kind of penetrate and establish influence I take that as a given I think one point if I may just quickly on the ideological aspect of this look we need to understand that this region is going through I'm talking about the Horn of Africa profound shift in it if you will in terms of the religious culture the two most successful proselytism zwi have seen in many many decades if longer at the of the expansion of the Wahabis on the one hand certainly in Africa I mean it's it's quite phenomenal if you just look at it as proselytism and on the other side hand in Africa is the rise of Pentecost Pentecostalism so one needs to look ahead and ask oneself where will they meet okay and part of it is in this region and given that in Eastern Africa the tradition has been and you know Muslims and experts I will apologize if I use you know terminology to loosely but Eastern Africa was really the place as much of western Africa the home of this of the Sufi ideology that there was a coexistence and in Eastern Africa where we have large Christian and large Muslim populations what we're seeing is the emergence of a more exclusivist definition of religious identity which is beginning to Norway the trust that allowed communities to coexist and this is potentially something Ethiopia has to look at it's played out a bit some countries like Kenya obviously not in Somalia that's a different issue but there are some fault lines there and so there is an ideological dimension and those from outside and I'd say specifically Saudi Arabia which has you know made very clear wants to redefine its own the way in which it faith is practiced within Saudi Arabia all I can say now I've told them in the past that message has not reached East Africa thank you okay thank you Karen how would you describe the nature of the competition yeah I'll just add that the politics of intervention get really messy when they become intervention in the domestic politics of the recipient States and so certainly there's a preference from the UAE in Saudi Arabia for secular authoritarian capitalism however you want to envision that but there it's also transactional and they're willing to work with all kinds of groups as we've seen in Yemen and I think we've seen in the horn as well so the the cascade effects are are difficult at the same time I think you know this is very experimental right so the vulnerability of the recipient States of you know of financial intervention of these new bases and ports it's just unwritten yeah so we really don't know but yeah I mean the the Qatari Turkish approach has been more through Islamic charities they've grown deep roots and Somalia in that way they should the Turks have shown themselves to be very effective in kind of administration so you get alternate models of the delivery of services alternate models of the delivery of you know cash injections but you know the preference for partner can be you know can be fluid thank you excellent and please be preparing your questions because I'm going to go to rush but because we've already had so much conversation I'm gonna go to you pretty soon but rush please bring us now into the third circle and the third tier of players and with a specific emphasis on the country that you know so well I should say rush does a lot of his research reading documents in Mandarin to understand Chinese thinking on this and other big strategic choices facing the PRC so Flores over to you I thanks so much and thanks so much everyone for spending part of your day with us today let me just start by saying that there's a clear there's a there's a growing notion in parts of China that the red sea is a strategic theater it's not just true in the government that's also true in you could argue the world of film there was a movie that came out last year in 2018 called Operation Red Sea and the premise of the movie was that an anti-piracy Chinese task force was in the Red Sea some Chinese citizens were taken hostage and the Chinese had to basically save them and in the process of saving them they encountered a nuclear proliferation ring they stopped that as well and then victorious they sailed back to China and on the way there they encountered a naval task force from the United States and they threatened them in the movie cuts the black so we don't exactly know what happens next we're gonna show it after if you want booby watch party after um so that just goes to show that there is a consciousness increasingly in China about two things number one different theatres in the world but number two also that China has overseas interests and those interests matter and that leave me to a kind of a second point which is that as we think about China's global ambitions we should understand that they think about global liabilities opportunities as well but also liabilities and what are those liabilities well a hundred million Chinese citizens go abroad for tourism every single year according to statistics from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs something like 1 to 2 million Chinese citizens currently live in Africa and about half a million in the Middle East 3 I think 30,000 Chinese businesses are registered around the world and that's just the human dimension we get to the economic dimension it's a slightly more interesting well perhaps a different story the economic dimension is that of course China is reliant heavily on oil and commodity flows from this part of the world all of which go through the Indian Ocean all the way to China which makes these waterways extremely important to China and of course as a result of that importance China has kind of had to adjust its military and naval strategy that leads to Third Point we're seeing a China dies increasingly going global in its military profile and that's not exactly a new phenomenon if you go back about 10 years 11 years now China dispatch the first anti-piracy task force to the Red Sea in that area right that was the first time 2008 since then it's done at more than 30 times and each time there's a number of vessels they've learned a lot more about how to do it they stop in different places for resupply and they've actually gained a lot of experience it's a learning effort in part and I'd say it's a learning effort because piracy is not a huge problem for Chinese vessels I mean 1/2 of 1% of vessels encounter some kind of piracy problem in that area and yet China has a significant presence there the second component to this is that China has sort of changed its view its naval doctrine you could argue they're kind of military writing about its global profile it's talked increasingly about the importance of a Bluewater Navy so in 2012 it talked about its whitepaper defense white paper talked about the importance of a navy that can travel to distant blue waters in 2015 it kind of double down on that it sort of made it even more clear that China need to be what do they call to maritime great power and so that language has been repeated by senior leaders as well including by the current leader President Xi Jinping so what does all of this tell us it tells us that as China given its interests given its liabilities expands outwards it's going to need support to do that properly and that brings us to Djibouti because Djibouti is in many ways a test case for what a global PLA People's Liberation Army could look like now China has promised for many many years that it would never have an overseas base that was kind of one of these bedrock Chinese principles and yet it nonetheless opened what it calls not a base but a logistics or support facility in Djibouti right it's an interesting kind of rhetorical sleight of hand and the reason they did that and Zac and talk more about this since he was just there in my view and view of some of the writings that I've read is basically they want to learn they know that in the future they're gonna need a global presence and this is a great opportunity to understand how to do it and one of the most complicated parts of this picture is having the ability to station your military on the sovereign soil of another country it's extremely challenging there's all kinds of legal issues diplomatic issues operational issues and China is learning now to navigate them and by some accounts as that can tell us a bit more if learning so I'll kind of I'll leave it there and I'll just add one small thing which is kind of builds on on Alex's point this part of the world has historically mattered quite a bit for Eurasia for control of Eurasia for control of India even if you think if you go back 500 years to the Portuguese then the Dutch the French the British all of them had some kind of presence in this area and it was important to have that presence to project power further the Portuguese began in many ways on western India and the eastern coast of Africa and so the idea that the places that mattered then also matter now isn't just some kind of rhetorical sleight of hand it's actually real because there's certain geographic realities there and there are choke points there's they're certainly important ways to control vast quantities of water there's there's all kinds of reasons geographically why these areas matter and so I think that's why we're gonna see China become a much more active player in the region going forward and I think I'll leave it there for now that's great but I have a follow-up which is to try to read Chinese minds and thinking and answer an unanswerable question which is nonetheless I'm gonna pose to you which is to what extent does China see its increasing role in this region as fundamentally competitive with and rival rival risks with the United States and to what extent does it have in mind a more collaborative sort of you know gulf of aden counter-piracy mission broadly defined approach where they're just now doing more their fair share as a rising great power and they hope that it can be as cooperative and collaborative as possible I mean we all have our moments when we're trying to sing Kumbaya and hold hands so I'm sure they can tell a good story about the latter motivation but to what extent when you try to discern the driving impetus is it more rival risks and competitive or is it more collaborative it's a great question I'm not sure the answer is very easy to render because I don't know that they completely have it figured out either right now China in my view has had a grand strategy for going back to the end of the Cold War so starting in the early 1990s and that strategy was really focused much more on pushing the United States to some degree or minimizing some degree of American influence in Asia building China's own influence and sphere of influence you could argue within Asia but the global question is one that they're still be trying to figure out and there's a quite a bit of speculation within China on what their global strategy should be I think there are some aspects that they figured out but just to give you an example within China there's a system for funding research at universities and within that system the number one topic for quite a bit of time with maritime issues that was what got the most funding for about ten years but in the last few years and especially with the change in the political situation in the United States we've seen that China's much more focused on global governance questions or global questions and those are now the top funded issue so that just goes to show there's a lot of thinking and China about what's the way forward is and that's part of reason why it's not entirely clear just how rival risk their perspective is Baljit if I could just go a little further why do they pick Djibouti I mean why we've heard why Djibouti matters from a strategic perspective I've talked a little bit about why it's always mattered historically but there's also a kind of political rationale China has thought that it needs a presence in this part of world for a long time again it imports something like 60% to two-thirds of its oil a lot of that flows through this part of the world 40% of its trade goes through the Suez Canal and recognizes that there's liabilities there if you at the United States or India or others decide they want to interdict Chinese shipping that's a possibility it's not easy to do but it's when the Chinese have thought about for a long time and so they feel like they need to be there and in some ways Djibouti is maybe one of the less provocative places to be if you're going to be in the region maybe Zac we'll talk a little more about this and the reason I say that is because there's already so many countries operating in Djibouti there's is obviously the United States but there's also France and of course there's Japan not to mention others as well so when China there was a tap in the ring doesn't build a base a build a support facility perhaps it's more justifiable less controversial as a way of kind of exerting presence it's definitely provocative but maybe it's the least provocative provocative options that's one way to look at it so I think that China definitely sees strategic competition as part of the reason it's there to kind of more firmly answer the question it's not all about anti piracy in fact anti-piracy I think has never really been the goal of China's Indian Ocean presence and red sea presence I think it's really about preparing itself for a world in the future where it's able to better secure its equities there but given the possibility that in the future of this conflict the United States or India might act you know in a negative way for China's interests given the resource flows across the region fantastic thank you so I want to give anybody who's got a quick thought they want to offer at this juncture of the conversation the opportune and then we'll go to the audience for their questions does anybody want to react to where we are at this juncture I'll just briefly Adam Russia and I were talking about this earlier I mean part of the reason I went to Djibouti was to dig into this question of his is this a rivalry what's what's fact and what's fiction as some of you will surely know this became very hot about a year ago and Capitol Hill basically Dubai ports world was operating the port in Djibouti for quite some time after some accusations whatever you think happened there were accusations at that port was being underdeveloped in order to keep Jeb lolly ports in Dubai the sort of main game in town right so the the Emiratis there's a falling out and they leave town and and the Chinese the the concern is that the Chinese in addition to their military base will be able to take greater control of of djibouti's ports right and the rationale for this is the issue of a debt trap right people looked at Sri Lanka they looked at elsewhere and they were concerned that Djibouti had out had taken out too much debt to build a railway T Theo Pia to build this new port to build some other infrastructure and and the concern was that there'd be a national security interest that are only the America's only US base in all of Africa is there and that if the Chinese assumed control of this port that would present a serious threat to us in terms of freedom have access and movement so I do think these are issues to watch after digging into this for a week I don't think there is any need for outsize paranoia or hysteria I mean the debt question is is an open one I think that you bushings are in a better place than it's sometimes reported in the media and I visited all three of djibouti's ports including the port in question that got so much attention on a Capitol Hill and despite fears that it had already been taken over and asserted control by the Chinese of that 700 employees there wasn't a single Chinese employee on site thank you excellent we look forward to your questions I think I'll take about three at a time and I'll ask panelists to each think about responding to maybe one or two out of each block of questions that we get and we'll begin up here in the in the second row we'll take two in the can ro1 in the third that would be round number one thanks very much I'm Barbara Slavin from the Atlantic Council very nice to see you Alex yeah been a while um question is about Iran it popped up here and there is Iran really active in the Red Sea is this just something that the Emiratis and the Saudis sort of stir up to to excuse their own interventionist behavior and don't most of the supplies to the Hootie's go through Oman and not not through the Red Sea thanks great thank you neshama and on rick Ehrenreich State Department INR Africa good presentation the Iran bit was interesting as well I'm it's a shanira take on that the other thing is is you made some good observations Zack and Karen Young on Turkey but it was really striking to me how late in the conversation I late in the conversation turkey came up when I sort of look at Turkey particularly the way and gate engages in the horn it seems that the major conflict is turkey versus UAE with the others playing supporting roles is that reasonable or is that not Thanks thank you I'm just behind you please hi how are you my name is Jeff Williams I'm soon in Georgetown first of all thanks so much putting this event on this is really fantastic um my question was we've had we heard discussion about the different styles or or how the GCC members are getting involved in Yemen in the red sea we also heard about how UAE is trying to integrate their presence in Yemen into like a broader trade network I wanted to ask if you guys could explore a little bit more differences within UAE and Saudi reasons for why they're getting in the and in involved in Yemen the Red Sea rather than just how like a competition within them are those priorities different how are they different is there potential for competition and the medium to long term Thanks before we come to the panel is there a question anybody had for rush I wouldn't want to leave out the China dimension so go here in the fourth row and then come back to everybody I have a question for you about the Chinese growing participation and peacekeeping operations across Africa because this is also something that the Chinese have been going doing as a way of learning so if you can comment in that Thanks great so when we start with you rush and then we'll just work down the down the girl Thanks that's right there has been a China China's a top contributor contributor of course to UN peacekeeping operations you know one of the questions is why and where do they go certainly there seems to be some degree of thinking about where they deploy peacekeepers that's based on strategic considerations so South Sudan is probably one example of that they're Chinese peacekeepers not just in Africa but also in the Middle East I think there's about a thousand and Lebanon for example so they're certainly they certainly get around and certainly get around important places but by and large I think of China's peacekeeping role less as a kind of beneficence less a kind of a generous generosity and also less about strategy or strategic deployments and more about learning just like I think about the base in in Djibouti is kind of about learning there's a lot of writing that the Chinese did about the importance of peacekeeping operations and there's there's newspapers and other kinds of material produced by the Chinese military recounting what they learned on these operations and often it gives a military that's not really been able to fight a war in a long time a chance to practice military operations abroad to practice some degree of expeditionary capabilities and so I think of peacekeeping operations really in that in that capacity for China hopefully that helps answer your questions and I think you know when just one last play at is they'd often talk in my view you know you know when there when there's a conference with African states you know they'll often mention the peacekeeping roles they have there is a kind of example of how they're contributing to the public good in Africa super thank you Karen thanks so many good questions Barbara yours is a good one we didn't talk too much about Iran and the ability of the UAE in Saudi Arabia to really convince Sudan and Eritrea to switch sides so to speak in 2014-2015 so that was sort of a precursor to a lot of the action that are presents that we see now on the the notion of what kinds of weapons or missiles or support flows through the Red Sea corridor to who these support and Yemen I don't you know I I don't have good intelligence information too but I'll share that with me I don't know but it certainly is a fear but I think your suggestion is probably correct that the more likely route is overland but I'm not privy to that kind of intelligence the turkey question is a good one as well I think it's it's really interesting we see this also playing out in Sudan the so walkin lease in late 2017 to the Turks and Sudanese politics I you know I'm no expert in but certainly one would wonder now with the you know change in government you know how these relationships long 99-year leases and new promises of financial support from Saudi Arabia in particular will influence Sudanese sharing of that space between Iran and and Saudi Arabia so I think that's an open question new question about the UAE in in the way I just I think of the UAE strategy towards the horn is very much that there's a learning curve in effect as well it's experimental there's also the nature of us UAE foreign policy making in that it can be a game turn on a dime right and we saw this in in Somalia in particular when there was a dispute the UAE you know there's an aircraft that landed and the Mogadishu Airport there was 10 million dollars in cash that was seized and a dispute ensued between the central government and Somalia and the UAE and quickly the training operation stopped there was a you a hospital that basically and within 24 hours ceased operations that's not the kind of institutional capacity and decision-making that we would see present of course in u.s. foreign policy you have long term commitments you have agencies which have relationships and financial commitment staffing commitments that can't turn on and off in that way so this is I think a vulnerability for recipient states of this kind of aid and and and and support what did the UAE learn from that experience well they're back in Somalia right there trying to re-engage and so the preference for this very transactional and I'm mad at you know take my ball and leave kind of behavior is not a long-term there's not a long-term sustainable way to engage the preference for personalistic relationships we have seen very clearly is a vulnerability because in these states these are more there are lots of players there's you know lots of lots of faces and it's not just top to talk so this complicates those efforts considerably Thank You mr. ambassador yeah I think two or three observations I can't really speak to Iran except on we've got to watch Yemen really carefully when you sit on the African side we're seeing a spike in all sorts of traffic coming out of Yemen which is either controlled or uncontrolled the beginning to pour across the Gulf of Aden Isis elements of so shifting down there's weapons increasingly sophisticated weapons in Somalia we're discovering a level of you know technological sophistication in the bomb-making and the type of weapon being used by Shabaab which can only suggests that there is training and knowledge being brought in this is not indigenously designed so where is this coming from and I don't I'm not saying it's Iran but the the passage by which the this sort of trafficking occurs is well known so I think that's one turkey UAE and those you know I I can only look at it as I watch from the point of view of the horn Karin just made an illusion let me put it to you this way if I maybe sort of climb into the vernacular you know we do institutions others tend to do something more personal in very fluid times let's put it this way we are we offer good nutrition and others are offering cocaine okay right and it's kind of difficult named sexy to get caught up in nutrition when you can get a high alright let's put in very simple human political terms you know and kind of let me leave it there that's the issue okay and that's what we've got to deal with that's my worry here and that's why I'm very worried that if we're all taking on the lackadaisical approach to this region and don't get really invested now there may be a problem down further down the road it's much bigger and much more costly because we're the ones who are going to have to foot the bill for the humanitarian crises that arrive because everyone in Africa says you know you'll always pick up that bill and we will because we're good people and our taxpayers are willing to be generous on this but you know for those of us who do policy I think it's time to raise a bit of an alarm here and say let's wake up buckle up speed up scale up rather than somehow think this is a little corner of the world where you know stuff happens but you know it doesn't involve us it will in a major way for the very reason that character as pointed out you know on China yes there there and I think you know I'd defer very much to what rush thank you Zack well first I think I think cocaine and nutrition gave us the best chance of competing with the Moller report news today so let's see I'll jump on on Rick's question about Turkey something I'm likewise interested in and and while a lot of analysis and research has been done about the Gulf states in particular as I mentioned the Turks a figure in these conversations almost as frequently and so I went to Ankara recently for 10 days to try and dig into this and and it was just just a in advance of the local elections there which took place a few weeks ago and I mention that because I think that's a big part of this story is the domestic piece and trying to unpack sort of air diwan's brand of populism we're increasingly in recent years the line between domestic and foreign policy has been erased right and in this you have the Egyptians Karen mentioned this the Turkish and and some degree Qatar II investment in sawaki an island in in Sudan on the Red Sea coast which immediately flew up put up red flags in Egypt in Saudi Arabia in the Emirates as well and concern about an eel Ottoman agenda right is is this in the wake of the Arab Spring everyone was pushing this agenda is he trying to move into our backyard right and there's a great deal of fear of this at sawaki and I'm not convinced it's terribly well-founded if if you know anything about so walk an island it's pretty hard to put up a military base there I think the Turkish economy would suggest they're not really in a position to do this right now and so walk in like some of turkey's other investments in the region i think is more about soft power right and and trying to leverage what they can in terms of and it does there's no shortage of neo ottoman rhetoric right coming out of air to one's mouth but i think it's important to put that into in a domestic context and understand that that language while it looks provocative on the outside in some ways is as much about domestic politics at a time of really shifting Turkish identity I'll leave it there good so let's go it around to start on this side of the room and the woman in about the sixth row here good please then we'll come up here to the second row after that thank you so much for this presentation my question is how is the u.s. reacting to these relationships in the Horn of Africa and could you identify yourself yet tonight embassy firms are you an associate thank you thank you come up here please thank you very much and welcome back Naga I'm recently retired as a foreign service officer I have worked in Ethiopia and beauty and Eritrea so my question is two-part what is the general public sentiments to this great competition that's going on and are they also included in the Red Sea forum in any shape or form great thank you and we will stay up here for this question Andrea Baron from taps the torture ablution and survivors support coalition so I have two questions first how does Eritrea fit into this discussion about red sea rivalries and then my friend Jakob from Eritrea would like to know from Rushd can you say something about the role of China in the Eritrean mining industry so this time we'll just take the reverse order if we couldn't start with Zak oh no I wasn't right okay well then we'll start again well I think it actually might be wise to try with Zak because I'm not as knowledgeable about China's just specific investments in every tree in mining but exactly you know since you're just in the region you may know a little more about yeah I can start I don't know the answer to that question so that's one sorry on the question on ethiopia eritrea have how is this seen yeah great question so I think the entry point for this is is is the rapprochement between Ethiopia and Eritrea and I will echo Alex's point that this is only just beginning right and you will have seen in the media that there are very often it said that the Emiratis and the Saudis quote brokered this deal in Ethiopia and Eritrea I have a slightly different view all right I think the role that they played was absolutely necessary I think they provided an international forum I think they provided some additional credibility I think they've greased that deal but I would our you that that that initial rapprochement between Ethiopia Eritrea was was driven entirely by domestic politics right and I think because of the style of engagement from Gulf states in the horn and and the kind of diplomacy I think it would be a stretch to say that there they were involved enough in domestic politics to really make such a play so that's one part I think the question is meticulous right because Abby is very popular in some constituencies and and and seen with great skepticism in others and Karen mentioned that they did take a pretty sizable cash injection part of that has been delivered part of that as forthcoming but it was watched very very closely by the general population and it's ah be we'll know that any Ethiopia leader of Ethiopia would have a very hard time if he's seen as a client of any foreign state particularly one just across the water given all sorts of regional complexities and given Ethiopian history so I think he's walked very very carefully so far to date first he was sort of reestablishing and regenerated the relationship with both the Saudis and the Emiratis and as I mentioned more it more recently with with with the Qataris no with the Qataris and now there's even talk that erawan has suggested that he would like to make a visit to Turkey as well so particularly in Ethiopia it's it's each watch very very closely harder to say about Eritrea great thank you Alex yeah I think I agree with with sac I think what's happening now and it's very important to appreciate the fact that now that you have a much more open media there's a lot more information now flowing around within within Ethiopia so what we have is a population that is becoming fairly quickly educated perhaps wrongly on certain subjects depends on what's out there but there's much more information around so it's actually difficult to judge where the sentiment really lies on a specific issue except to know that these issues now are discussed much more openly or rather they're not being driven by a single source meaning the government so I think that's that would be the broader point to make so it's very fluid and uncertain you you are specifically about the role of was a Ethiopia in these arrangements on the Red Sea yeah the way this seems to be playing out is that the the discussion focuses on bringing together the littoral States Ethiopia has interestingly reminded people that it is merely 60 miles from the Red Sea which can be read in a number of ways but it's a way of just saying where the elephant in the room understandably so if your Ethiopia and remember that a probably 70 percent of Ethiopia Strava trade goes through Djibouti so there's a huge stake then it would be wise for all those who are designing these red sea arrangements to remember that fact that's a reality and you know you never want to drive a country to a mug one with its realities when it feels driven to do so so I think that's the point so if you is not officially part of it but I think people understand that it and other countries who were either landlocked were just the hinterland need to need to be addressed and their interests need to be addressed and that's something that's unfolding as we speak there are all sorts of discussions at the very least we're at the stage where people are talking about how one creates some kind of structure my my only observation there is that when we're talking about straits and seas like this and we've heard very clearly how global is the significance of of this maritime route there are many people who have a stake and it would be it would be wise for those who are thinking this through to make sure everyone's brought into it otherwise others outside will make their presence felt in different ways and I think that's just an almost mathematical reality so we need to move ahead and it's just encouraging at least that there are discussions such as this raising the issue I think that that's that's the main point um Eritrea's there's as a literal state and and is involved but but avoiding if you will multilateral entanglements it it is just making its views known on certain things and so be it every country has its own particular approach to these issues or other their leaders have specific approaches or some there was a question about the United States I suppose it's not really for me to give advice to the United States so let me give advice well taken no no probably use it no no on the principle working on the old principle that everyone has a right to my opinion let me offer my opinion to Europe as a part of what I'd like to still think is some share some transatlantic interests we I I mentioned earlier I am very very concerned there are huge stakes in this wider region it is worrying to me that there does not yet seem to be a sufficient strategic focus but with a wider aperture of the lens geographical one an allusion was made to the fact that you know you have an Africa Department you have Middle East Apartments you know there are an awful lot of silos out of which people operate and I certainly I can say that from Europe's point of view and that's a very practical issue because you know bureaucracies had their own vested interest so that's from a policy point of view but I do think that um as I look at the developments and their unfolding that there is ample room for to be taken that are either on a whim in a moment of panic or a moment of uncertainty that can have a whole series of unintended consequences I know that in the Horn of Africa there is a sort of a ricochet effect if you imagine a billiard table and someone throws a ball things just start moving you can't take Somalia in isolation or Somaliland in isolation or Djibouti in isolation let alone Sudan or Ethiopia which is like this dam which has to hold together because if it bursts the whole discussion we're having changes now that is where we need to hurry up frankly get much more serious and much more focused on a lot of the issues that have already been raised in order to help shape things because our interests are never to be are involved because of what's being even discussed here from the United States point of view the geography may be further than it is from Europe but nevertheless there are vital interests and it and its effects my concern is that when we talk red sea we're really talking about the Indian Ocean the bubble Munda bred sea Suez Canal in the eastern Mediterranean that's really the geography we're dealing with and the politics that have to be addressed that's a big game it's a global game as rush outlined earlier and I'm still worried we're a bit behind the curve I'm just encouraged at least this discussion is occurring because it wasn't even being entertained a year or more ago super thank you Karen over to you please let me just give the the flip side of that argument which is you know we can be critical and I myself was critical of the experimental nature of some of these interventions by the Gulf states in the region but I think what we're seeing is a broader shift in development finance and engagement which is very much more South South and orientation and that's not necessarily a bad thing so the u.s. role we haven't been in Sudan the last week not that I know of we certainly didn't show up with 400 million dollars like the Saudis did so I mean credit to them for being first movers Fort aching an interest in their backyard and for making finance available we as the US government and I do not work for the US government doesn't have that capacity to move that quickly to be that agile and so there is there is some benefit to that long term consequences long term planning of course quite different in in method but maybe those are those are areas for cooperation great thank you Russia well I actually have nothing else to add on most questions married just quickly sure I did Karen's as prompt to thought here's the issue I'm looking about this region it is very very fragile things are just the sand is just shifting here's my concern when you're going through a transition of the scale which is occurring I look at Sudan or Ethiopia and the like the question is how do you help stabilize a transition so that the landing is a soft one my worry is that normally what would be occurring is the international community in the donor community would immediately get together and we'd create contact groups or whatever you want to call them in order to say where are our interests do we share them what do we do just to deal with the short term my worry is that if we sit back and say well you know in three years time God willing everything will be fine a bit of budget support from the World Bank great it's the next two years how do we protect and immunize a transition that is already underway we've got millions of people on the streets with high expectations who may then get disappointed that to me is is the real issue and if we if we get that disappointment it starts expressing itself in different ways it doesn't matter where the Saudi Arabia is put in four hundred million now that's going to be a drop in the ocean in its effect so are we that's when I talk about it have we work enough do we really understand what's going on in this region and how how we can just protect something good that is going on and bring everyone on hopefully in a way where we can kind of trust each other as we move ahead and get involved so now I want to do a lightning round we have 10 minutes left when I take three or four questions only one per person please because it's lightning round rules and then 60 second 60 seconds per responded from the panel to wrap things up on probably just one question each so we'll we'll start here in the third row and work our way back a little bit thank you my name is Kayla Thank You panelists is a great presentation my question is that your politics of the rates she has been changing dramatically in the past few years so what's the interest and influence of Gulf nations and superpowers like years and China the East African countries like a return at you booty and so on bar but really quickly Alex I detect in your last comment that the US government is not playing the role it used to in terms of mobilizing nations contact groups donor conferences and so on is that the case that the US has dropped the ball in Africa as it hasn't so many other places thanks gentlemen here in the front row and then we'll work back just for yes I hide erm akiza with Al Bulava Jordanian publication my question is to rush where do you see China standing in the long run regarding the rivalry between GCC and Turkey thank you and then finally all the way back since I've neglected the back part of the Romanova also do a quick one here in the fifth after the afterwards hi Dan Katz Wilson Center just wondering how the northern part of the Red Sea fits into all these rivalries and competition israel-egypt particularly with Chinese investment and then this last one my name is Yasiin I'm from Somalia a mission office my question is as you know Somali land protected it's 850 kilometers of the Red Sea from pirates and now it's fighting with the wildlife traffickers recently we capture 20 cheetah and lion and two lion cubs and Saudi Arabia and the egad both from establish Alliance on the Red Sea so my land rechecked that Impala tested without Somaliland how will the Red Sea farm all work thank you thank you and we'll start with rush the 60 seconds per person please 60 to 90 seconds okay well there were two big questions on China so let me take them both the first one was about what the role of China will be in the sort of rivalries that are that we've discussed many of them today I would say that China will continue to assiduously try to avoid taking sides and you don't have to take my word for it you can take their words for when Xi Jinping went to the China Arab Cooperation forum he specifically said the China's policy is no proxies you know basically contrasting it with the United States saying that you know when when the Unites States takes eyes and disputes we don't and we're going to be pragmatic so I think that's gonna continue to be the case at least for the foreseeable future although at some point I could change the other question I think was about if I remember correctly to what degree China's involved in so the northern part of the Red Sea so I know that China has done a lot of investment in Egypt specifically there was some discussion about China building sort of a alternative capital complex for Egypt ended up being the case that Egypt couldn't afford it but I would argue that the belton road infrastructure program very much applies not just to the parts of that we've discussed today not just the parts of the Middle East not just around Dubai and but also parts of Egypt as well we should definitely watch because military exchanges the relationship between the militaries especially but also economic investment egypt has really increased in the last few years right thank you Karen I don't think I have anything to add that was quick I may think of one for you before we're done we'll see okay Alex over to you please yeah Barbara lovely to see you after so many years the difficult one so look the point is there's a ball in the air there's more than one ball up and yeah now our others going to juggle it and we're gonna watch who lets it drop or do we start seeing whether we need to help in this and get engaged and it's not just a United States issue I do think there's the only appeal I make more generally as those of us like for my son the European Union the United States we need to engage everyone in something in which we're experienced in doing not to do it competitively but try to get everyone around the table to see where's the common ground so that we don't just we minimize damage but maximize where are the opportunities and there are there's some very interesting discussions actually occurring right now on building towards a whole new kind of approach to investment in the Horn of Africa building on what our being has asked for in Ethiopia which is more integration and and there's a serious discussion our beginning with the funds from the Gulf well Bank ourselves that's one but to do that some politics has to be got right as well within the region as well as outside thank you second I'm gonna jump on Barbara's question as well in terms of the u.s. yes I've spent the last six or eight months on each side of the Red Sea and on on both Shores the word is absent so you may not be surprised by that but you know it's not just a matter of this administration though right I mentioned those sort of bureaucratic scenes previously you know given the number of items on the agenda of an Assistant Secretary of State for Near East I can tell you that the the Horn of Africa doesn't make the list right in that yeah right and I don't have a I'm not religious about how this how this happens this could be a novel way it could be that I think there are other ideas right I've talked to the assistant secretaries for Near East and Africa and I think for starters they could go together on a on a tour around both regions to show actually we're interested we care about this issue and I think there's some fairly low hanging fruit in terms of minimizing the damaging impacts of this and and filling that space in the near term and I think I'm with Alex I think there's a larger role to play more broadly I'm gonna close on this issue that it's Alex and earlier this idea of a Red Sea form right there there are various efforts underway that are just seeds that are germinating now and we're all learning we're all trying to take examples from other models elsewhere in the world whether it's the Baltic Sea States or ASEAN or or what to try and give this the best chance of success Alex has made efforts on this Payton who is here from us IP and others we're working on various ideas they held a meeting on this recently the Saudis you will have seen recently convened a meeting on this as well but in each of these efforts or most of these efforts so far we've seen reticence we've seen divisions about who should be at the table Alex mentioned the question of Ethiopia I think there's some important sort of frames to think about in this and again the idea of a red sea forum is in my mind not necessarily an organization but a venue where these states can come talk because the the rules of this game are I have not yet been written to talk about maritime security to talk about irregular migration to talk about food security to talk about the refugees from Yemen come in West across the Red Sea and the area irregular migrants from Ethiopia going east across the Red Sea so there are a whole host of issues one I think it's very important that this idea which I support and remains an aspirational idea but I think is a good one one this should not be misappropriated as a strategic or security block either as part of the GCC crisis or more broadly visa vie around second and this is to Alex this point I think there should be some hard thinking about whether or not this need not include states that are only 60 miles away as as Alex mentioned what happens in Ethiopia will determine what happens in the Horn more broadly so I think there needs to be a role for those states potentially for some of the states we've mentioned Gulf states who may have legitimate interests and legitimate opportunity to help with new kinds of development aid and other things to be a part of this conversation and lastly that there may be some kind of mechanism may be not a seat at the first table but a mechanism to engage outside powers this third tier we mentioned the US China the EU and others the reality is that the whole world has interests in narrow-body of water and and that's not going away so I think there are some obstacles to this right now but I think I really support the ongoing efforts to try and forge a Red Sea for them and hopefully sea to come to fruition in time fantastic thank you all for being here please join thanks for watching be sure to LIKE and subscribe for more videos from Brookings [Music]

Channel: Brookings Institution

Views: 43,928

Keywords: Brookings Institution, Red Sea, Gulf states, Horn of Africa, Bab al Mandab, China, Middle East, Djibouti, U.S., U.S. army bases, Michael E. O’Hanlon, Zach Vertin, Karen Young, Alex Rondos, Rush Doshi

Id: uDADZxk8Xd8

Length: 86min 42sec (5202 seconds)

Published: Fri Apr 19 2019