Basic

China’s government turned down an American request to join an international naval armada to protect cargo ships in the Red Sea after the waterway came under attack from Yemen’s Houthi rebel forces, Deputy Secretary of State Kurt Campbell revealed recently, as Beijing sought to cut its own deal with the Iran-backed rebels to protect its own shipping interests.

After the Biden administration appeals to join, China turned down a role in the naval coalition based on an internal assessment that the Hamas-Israeli war in Gaza and the shipping attacks were a significant setback for the U.S. global image, a Western diplomatic source said. Beijing calculated that its participation would benefit Washington — its major strategic rival — and therefore declined to take part.

Mr. Campbell, in remarks last week to the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, said Beijing sought to devise a system to communicate directly with Houthi officials to avoid attacking Chinese ships and instead for the rebels to attack U.S. and allied shipping, an approach he called “profoundly unhelpful.” The effort failed after the Houthis attacked a Chinese ship.

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Chinese Embassy spokesman Liu Pengyu declined to comment on Mr. Campbell’s remarks regarding China’s failure to join the naval coalition in the Red Sea.

“China will continue to play a constructive role and contribute to the early restoration of peace and tranquillity in the Red Sea,” Mr. Liu said.

The Houthis have said they were attacking international vessels off Yemen’s coast in solidarity with Palestinians in Gaza battling Israeli forces in the wake of the Oct. 7, 2023, terror attack on Israel.

Mr. Campbell revealed that immediately after the Iran-backed Houthis began attacks and hijacking of shipping in the Red Sea, “we approached Chinese interlocutors to work with us or some element of the international community on trying to protect this shipping,” including both Chinese-flagged ships and other ships that were carrying Chinese-made goods.

The Chinese were asked to use a squadron of naval ships based in Djibouti for the escort and security operations, Mr. Campbell said.

The Djibouti base is located across the Bab al-Mandeb Strait from Yemen. The idea was for China to repeat its participation in anti-piracy missions in the region from 2008 to 2016, the deputy secretary said.

“We thought that there was a real chance that China would say yes, because the shipping that was affected had so much to do with China’s lifeblood,” Mr. Campbell said. “After sort of studying it for a while, we realized that what the Chinese, … rather than joining with any kind of international naval consortium, would be to instead take actions to communicate directly with the Houthis about, ‘Look, these are our ships. These aren’t our ships. Target different ships.’

“Now that’s just profoundly unhelpful and suggests an approach to the global commons that we have real concerns over,” Mr. Campbell said.

The Western diplomatic source said the Houthi attacks, which began in November, were much more effective and sophisticated than initially estimated and are increasing in number. The attacks led the U.S. to set up the coalition of nations to counter the attacks that disrupted shipping from 65 nations through the Red Sea, including 28 that rerouted ships to avoid the attacks.

The proposed naval armada would escort ships and conduct defensive operations against what were missile attacks and hijackings.

In December, “Operation Prosperity Guardian” was launched as a multinational initiative to protect shipping in the Red Sea. A total of 20 nations are taking part, including warships from the U.S., Bahrain, Britain, Canada, France, Italy, the Netherlands, Norway and Seychelles. Several other countries have kept their role secret.

Attacking China

China’s hopes of cutting its own deal were quickly dashed.

In March, the rebels fired five missiles at the Chinese-owned oil tanker MV Huang Pu, which was damaged and caught fire but continued on its course.

The attack occurred despite the Houthis having previously stated they would not attack Chinese ships. China immediately contacted the Houthis to inform them that they had attacked the wrong ship.

Another difficulty in countering the Red Sea shipping attacks is that Iran, laboring under U.S. sanctions, sells 90% of its oil exports to China. The energy ties give Beijing diplomatic influence over Iran, the key sponsor and weapons supplier for the Houthis in Yemen’s long-running civil war.