China sought personal deal to keep away from Houthi insurgent ship assaults, rejecting U.S. coalition, diplomat says

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 Palestinian-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.

The Chinese Embassy did not immediately respond to a request for comment. 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 October 7 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 United States 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 multi-national initiative to protect shipping in the Red Sea. A total of 20 nations are taking part, including warships from the United States, Bahrain, Canada, France, Italy, the Netherlands, Norway, Seychelles and Britain. 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.

Mr. Campbell said during his remarks last week that China under President Xi Jinping is seeking to remove the United States as a world leader and to assert Chinese global hegemony.

Chinese leaders have “always had some anxieties about American leadership, whether those involve a view that the United States sees, you know, the possibility of regime change in Beijing, that’s always been an animating concern, but for a variety of reasons, is a sense it’s China’s time to assert itself and to help move the United States off the global stage,” Mr. Campbell said.

China is targeting a U.S.-led “operating system” that Mr. Campbell said had created peace, security and prosperity for the Indo-Pacific region.

“I think some of the changes that President Xi and China want to make now would go at the very heart of that operating system in ways that are antithetical to our interests and the interests of our allies and partners,” he said.

Mr. Campbell said the Biden administration has not sought to contain or constrain China but instead is responding to assertive and aggressive efforts to undermine U.S. interests.

Those include turning away from the peaceful resolution of disputes, freedom of navigation, and the rule of law.

“There are going to be those who say, ‘Let’s go back to the 1990s. Let’s go back to engagement.’ I think in many respects, we’ve transcended that into a new period in which the dominant paradigm is competition,” he said.

New attacks

The crisis in the Red Sea shows no signs of abating.

U.S. aircraft and warships on Friday conducted attacks on over a dozen Houthi targets in Yemen, according to a statement from U.S. Central Command, which is in charge of military forces in the region. The U.S. attacks against Houthi offensive military capabilities sought to “protect freedom of navigation and make international waters safer and more secure for U.S., coalition, and merchant vessels,” the command said.

Houthi rebels last month conducted what the Pentagon called a complex series of attacks near Navy ships. The attacks involved both cruise missiles and drones. The arms were either shot down by U.S. defenses or failed to reach targets.

The Houthis also recently targeted Israel directly, launching a drone attack on Tel Aviv in July and a missile in September.

The attacks prompted an Israeli retaliatory bombing of targets in Yemen, including a major port controlled by the rebel forces.

A Defense Intelligence Agency report published in March said the Houthis are non-state actors that have used Iranian support to gradually expand their military capabilities since at least 2014.

“In early December 2023, the Houthis threatened to attack any ships that they believed were heading to Israeli ports, though many of their attacks both before and since have been against civilian ships with either tenuous or no known Israeli affiliations or port calls,” the report said.

The rebels also threatened to attack the international military coalition ships of Operation Prosperity Guardian.

“Despite seeking international legitimacy, Houthi actions have damaged regional security, impeded international humanitarian relief efforts, and put stress on global maritime trade,” DIA analysts wrote.

Container shipping through the Red Sea since February declined by about 90%, the report said.

Shipping routes around Africa add about 11,000 nautical miles, and one to two weeks of transit time, and approximately $1 million in fuel costs for each ship, the report said.