By Dr. Fred H. Lawson

The writer is Visiting Professor of National Security Affairs at the Naval Postgraduate School in Monterey, California.

CALIFORNIA

Oman tends to get overshadowed by more assertive member-states of the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC), most notably Saudi Arabia, Qatar, and the United Arab Emirates (UAE). Yet policy-makers in Beijing have cultivated close ties to Muscat, and have steadily broadened the scope of relations between the two countries. The People's Republic of China (PRC) started to import large quantities of oil from Oman during the late 1970s, and sharply increased its purchases during the 1990s. By 2013, two-thirds of Oman's total oil and gas exports went to the PRC, and the Chinese market has accounted for an even higher percentage of Omani foreign sales in recent years.

Yet hydrocarbons no longer constitute the most crucial component of Oman-PRC relations. When warships of the People's Liberation Army Navy (PLAN) deployed to the Gulf of Aden at the end of 2008, as part of the multilateral campaign to suppress piracy in the northwestern corner of the Indian Ocean, the Omani port of Salalah became the expeditionary force's primary logistical facility. Salalah proved to be ideally situated as PLAN units carried out joint exercises in the fall of 2014, first with the Islamic Republic of Iran and then with Tanzania. Furthermore, the PLAN faced no competition for access to Salalah, unlike Djibouti, where France, Italy, Japan and the United States all built up a sizable military presence.

Prospects for closer collaboration between Oman and the PRC brightened during 2015-16. Saudi Arabia's intervention in the civil war in Yemen threatened to disrupt shipping in the Red Sea and the Gulf of Aden, at the same time that Iran accorded India a greater role in the development of the port at Chahbahar. These developments posed a direct challenge to China's maritime trade, as well as its efforts to develop the Pakistani port of Gwadar. By refusing to join the Saudi-led offensive in Yemen, while facilitating Chinese operations at both Salalah and the northern Omani port of Suhar, the authorities in Muscat reassured Beijing that it could count on Oman as a partner in the effort to promote stability in the Indian Ocean region. This impression was confirmed when Oman became a founding member of the PRC-sponsored Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank.

Cooperation between Muscat and Beijing quickly focused on projects in East Africa, where Oman enjoys long-standing economic and cultural ties. Oman's sovereign wealth fund, the General State Reserve Fund, joined the PRC's China Merchants' Holding International in an ambitious scheme to upgrade the Tanzanian port of Bagamoyo. The harbor is expected to serve as the entry point to the booming interior markets of Kenya, Uganda, Ethiopia and Rwanda -- which are linked to the coast by PRC-built railways. Oman then pledged USD 50 million to construct a network of fuel storage tanks in Tanzania, Kenya and Mozambique.

In May 2016, investors based in the PRC's heavily Muslim Ningxia Hui Autonomous Region agreed to finance a massive industrial zone at the Omani port of Duqm, situated midway between Muscat and Salalah. The project includes an oil refinery, a distribution center for construction materials, a methanol plant, a solar energy equipment factory, an automobile assembly factory and a cement plant, along with light manufacturing, a hospital and a tourist complex. The ambitious venture caught the eye of the Saudi government, which has added a fish processing plant and inland highway.

More important, Chinese activity at Duqm attracted the attention of India, whose Prime Minister Narendra Modi paid an official visit to Muscat in February 2018. Modi discussed a variety of security matters with Sultan Qabus bin Sa'id, and capped two days of talks by signing a bilateral Memorandum of Understanding that permits Indian warships to call at Duqm to take on supplies and make repairs.

Notable aspects of Chinese grand strategy can be seen in Beijing's partnership with Oman. The PRC's deepening involvement in the Indian Ocean has taken a decidedly military cast, but is only tangentially military in nature. PLAN operations promote such commonly accepted principles as ensuring the safety of maritime commerce and protecting civilians caught up in civil war. Furthermore, the Chinese government supports the expansion of infrastructure that can integrate the countries of the Arabian peninsula and East Africa more firmly into the global economy. Such policies show a predisposition to act in a comprehensive fashion and think beyond the present moment. Policy-makers in Washington carried out similarly far-sighted initiatives in the years immediately after the Second World War.

Unlike the late 1940s, however, the PRC today confronts powerful adversaries that take steps to block Chinese initiatives. Given its geographical location, it is not surprising that India has reacted first and most decisively to China's growing military and economic involvement in Oman. Strategic competition between Beijing and New Delhi was evident as early as the 1990s, and by the time that the PLAN arrived in the Gulf of Aden, India and Oman were routinely carrying out joint naval exercises.

Nevertheless, PRC-India rivalry intensified only after Beijing embarked on a combination of military operations and economic projects that gives China the potential to shape the future structure of the regional political economy. It is doubtful that Beijing intends to jeopardize the security interests of New Delhi. Nevertheless, India has responded in a way that is likely to make future confrontations considerably more perilous.

* Opinions expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect the editorial policy of Anadolu Agency.