Opinion - Why government incentives won't boost the birth rate
The White House is reportedly putting together a menu of policies designed to reverse the decades-long decline in U.S. births.
This is hardly news, given all of the public comments administration officials have made about low fertility. It puts the U.S. on track with a growing swath of pronatalist governments around the world who are frustrated that their version of an ideal population eludes them, year after year. The new policies could end up providing some welcome financial support for families, but there's a near certainty that they won't result in the birth rates the administration desires.
That's because there's a truth proven time and again, which policymakers have largely failed to accept: governments are not the driving force behind individual decisions over whether or how many children to have. They've always played at most a supporting role, even when fertility rates were high, and their ability to raise the rates in a low-fertility world is limited.
The stubborn belief that an 'ideal' population is possible with just the right mix of policies is doing more than simply frustrating policymakers — it's putting reproductive rights at risk, lowering fertility rates, and wasting time and money better spent adjusting to the new reality of an aging world.
Powerful people hyperfixating on births is nothing new. In post-World World II Asia, for example, leaders looking to rebuild their war-torn countries believed the key to a better future was a population ideal in size, age structure and ethnic composition. Worried about too many mouths to feed, they put all their efforts into policies that would turn down fertility rates — work they're scrambling to undo today.
But countries that didn't enact such policies also saw birth rates fall, meaning that, to a great extent, these declines were inevitable as contraception and abortion became ubiquitous, education improved, and preferences about family size shifted. Governments may have sped things up, but they weren't the puppet masters of population.
And one thing is certain: coercion wasn't necessary. Take the natural experiment of mainland China versus Taiwan.
Sure, China's One-Child Policy played a role in lowering births. But neighboring Taiwan, with no such coercive policy, saw even more dramatic declines, becoming one of the few countries in the world to see a fertility rate below one child per woman, an unprecedented level in Western contexts. In fact, China was the last country in the region to see fertility fall below replacement level. Chinese individuals and couples began to limit their own family sizes before the One Child Policy and have continued to do so since it was discontinued, much to the government's chagrin. It turns out that cultural and economic factors have a strong influence over marriage and birth trends.
Governments are facing that head on as they now try to raise birth rates through policy. I was recently on a radio show where one LA caller said she and her partner would want $50,000 from the government to start a family. Most countries don't come close to that. Hungary's policies are more lucrative than most, but the fertility rate there is still lower than that in the U.S., and Hungarian births this year are already down compared to last year.
Does all this mean the government should just be on standby? Absolutely not — there's a tremendous role for government in setting the normative and policy environment conducive for population changes. That's why getting governments to address these issues in a constructive way matters.
When leaders are convinced that lower fertility rates are in the country's best interest, for example, they can initiate or accelerate progress by making family planning available, expanding education, and improving economic opportunities, particularly for women. When they're convinced otherwise, they can shut all of these positive measures down.
Just look at Tanzania, where former president John Magufuli, convinced that the country needed more babies to be prosperous, urged people to stop using birth control. Today, Tanzania has one of the highest fertility rates in the world, at 4.8 children per woman on average, and its rapid population growth is creating tremendous strains.
Or look at the opposite end of the spectrum, South Korea, where leaders mandated parental leave as an antidote to the tremendous inequality in care work between women and men, which they believe is part of what's driving the country's record-low births. The problem was they couldn't make people use it. As a result, only 22 percent of mothers and 5 percent of fathers take leave after a birth. Norms clearly matter.
Governments shouldn't expect full control over population, but they need not throw the baby out with the bathwater. Leaders should consider a range of policy options to help women, couples and families achieve their reproductive goals, including access to high-quality family planning services as well as assisted reproductive technology. Helping families have adequate resources is still a good thing. While cash bonuses, for example, aren't enough to seal the deal for young and fertile couples, extra cash can help households make it from one paycheck to the next, and give parents more resources to invest in the one or two children they do have.
Governments are not the only actors who can help here. There's clearly a role for the private sector in making working environments conducive for parenting and for civil society, too, in creating supportive communities for all ages to flourish.
Getting bureaucrats to have realistic expectations about their role in the bedroom is crucial, as we are at a pivotal moment where obsession with turning the dial on population puts contraceptive access and reproductive rights at risk. This era of population alarm is a direct echo of the overpopulation panic of the 1960s and '70s. That one too often resulted in a curtailing of individual rights to meet population targets through forced sterilizations and other coercive means. It's true that births went up in U.S. counties where abortion was most restricted, but there is a steep price to pay in higher maternal mortality and poverty.
Elites in low-fertility societies who are panicked about the economic effects of population aging have been pursuing a strategy of asking women to birth more, work more and care more — policies so contradictory that the approach is doomed to fail and leave women even worse off. Pushing women into the workforce, particularly mothers, without attendant structures to help them with care responsibilities just trades one problem for another.
Women shouldn't have to choose between working, caregiving and reproductive autonomy, but that's exactly what will happen until policymakers start focusing on resilience instead of population targets.
Jennifer D. Sciubba, Ph.D., is president and CEO of the Population Reference Bureau in Washington, D.C., and the author of '8 Billion and Counting: How Sex, Death, and Migration Shape Our World.' She discusses low fertility and its implications in her 2023 TED Talk, 'The Truth About Human Population Decline,' and on 'The Ezra Klein Show'in March 2024. Sciubba is the author of the forthcoming book, 'Toxic Demography: Ideology and the Politics of Population.'
Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Time Magazine
2 hours ago
- Time Magazine
The Man Who Wants to Save NATO
NATO Secretary-General Mark Rutte keeps a variety of mementos in his office. There is a sprawling photograph of the North Sea from the vantage point of his hometown in the Netherlands, a kanji gift from Japan's Minister of Defense, and a framed floral embroidery that reads 'In Unity is Strength' in Cyrillic with the stitched flags of NATO, Ukraine, and the E.U. But the room's largest ornamental feature is the blue-and-white map of the world that looms above his conference desk. 'In the past, I was responsible for this,' the former Dutch Prime Minister says, pointing to his tiny home country in the northwestern corner of Europe. He extends his arms out to encircle the entire Western defense alliance that is home to 1 billion people. 'And now ...' he says, with a wry laugh. It's a glimpse of the storms roiling beneath the optimism of the preternaturally cheerful Rutte. We are in the steel and glass NATO HQ on the outskirts of Brussels, completed eight years ago at a cost of $1.3 billion, its interlocking buildings meant to evoke fingers clasped together in unity. But on this balmy May afternoon, five weeks before a critical summit with the mercurial U.S. President Donald Trump and dozens of other leaders, the question of unity hangs over the alliance. 'It is really a pivotal moment,' Rutte says, after we sit down in his office, some six short months after he became Secretary-General in October. 'Pivotal' may be an understatement. Trump has repeatedly said, most recently in March, that he's 'not going to defend' NATO allies that don't spend enough on their militaries, a threat to the mutual defense commitment at the heart of the alliance. Europeans, awakened to the danger of American inconstancy, are scrambling to spend trillions more on defense in coming years. All the while, Russia's assault on Ukraine grows deadlier by the month, and intelligence from the Baltic states, Denmark, and Germany suggests Moscow could rebuild its armed forces and attack NATO members Estonia, Latvia, or Lithuania within a few years. Rutte, 58, brings an idiosyncratic mix of experience and personality to the job of saving the alliance. An amateur concert pianist and part-time high school social-studies teacher, the center-right politician was the longest-serving Dutch Prime Minister in history. In that role, he developed a talent for working with people from across the political spectrum in the Netherlands, Europe, and the U.S. He even gained a reputation as something of a Trump whisperer. Rutte has used those skills while shuttling between European capitals and Washington, D.C., to push for a new defense-spending target of 5% of GDP for NATO members. The goal, set by the Trump Administration, is a stretch: about a quarter of the allies last year failed to reach the current target of 2%. Lurking behind the numbers are hard questions about what European and Canadian allies are capable of on the battlefield. For decades, NATO has depended on the U.S. for mobile land forces, air defense, long-range weapons systems, and the biggest security shield of all—the nuclear 'umbrella' over the continent. '[NATO] doesn't work without the nuclear umbrella and all the strategic leadership and strategic force capabilities that the U.S. brings,' says General Gordon B. Davis Jr. (ret.), a senior fellow at the Center for European Policy Analysis and former top NATO official. The position of Secretary-General is mainly a diplomatic one, with no direct military authority. But Rutte, a workaholic bachelor with no photos of loved ones in his office, seems to be marshaling member states to meet the moment. His most immediate task is ensuring allies rally around the spending push during the June 24–25 NATO summit in his hometown of the Hague, and in that he is optimistic. 'I'm really pretty confident that it will be a splash,' Rutte says. 'I see Europeans stepping up.' And after that? In its first half century, NATO preserved democracy in postwar Europe, helped defeat the Soviet Union, and served as a synonym for 'the West.' Once Rutte finishes sorting out the books, there awaits the challenge of making sure the alliance remains united and durable for the years to come. Rutte has trained his eyes on the spending target ever since Trump first floated it in January. He is keeping up the push in the weeks before the summit. Two days after his TIME interview, Rutte strolls up to a black Mercedes, arm extended, to greet Czech President Petr Pavel as he steps out of the vehicle, brown leather bag in hand. 'Welcome back,' Rutte smiles, guiding the stoic Pavel, a retired army general and former chairman of the NATO Military Committee, toward the headquarters building. The two men sit down for a closed-door meeting, and afterward, Pavel is direct about his nation's spending commitment. 'If the discussion in the Hague leads us to a general agreement that we need to spend up to 5%, Czech Republic is ready to support it,' he says at the closing press conference. Others are less forthcoming. A couple of hours after Pavel's positive comments, Rutte greets a beaming Dutch Prime Minister Dick Schoof elsewhere in the building with a hug and launches into talks. At the press conference that caps his visit, Schoof is evasive when asked if the Dutch will agree to the 5% goal. 'We will discuss intensively in the Cabinet and the parliament probably as well on what we are going to do.' The Netherlands agreed to the target on June 13. Getting Europe to pay up may be the most important step in preventing the transactional Trump from undermining the alliance, but managing him requires its own skills. Rutte has repeatedly said that the Trump Administration is ' absolutely right ' in making more demands of the alliance, and that tone has played well in Washington. 'It's great to be with a friend of mine,' Trump said at their last meeting in the Oval Office in March. 'Every report I've gotten is 'What a great job he did,' and I'm not at all surprised.' Rutte's approach also seems to be yielding tangible results. Trump had reportedly threatened to skip the NATO summit, but the White House confirmed on June 3 that he will attend. The spending push is not just about addressing Trump's complaints that the allies aren't paying their fair share for defense. 'This is about practical stuff,' Rutte says. 'We know that on the Canadian and European side we lack air-defense systems, we lack long-range missiles, we lack logistics systems, maneuverable land formations.' Increased European capability would free America up to focus more on China. 'The [U.S.] defense budget is continually under pressure. We have real readiness issues after many years of deployment,' says Rachel Ellehuus, a former adviser to the U.S. NATO mission. 'The U.S. is facing its own pressures and really needs allies to step up.' No matter how quickly they do, few think America's NATO allies could stand up to a direct Russian threat without the U.S. Which means all of Rutte's efforts on the budget and capabilities fronts would be for naught if Trump simply decided not to come to the defense of alliance members, should the worst come to pass. There's reason to worry it might. Russian sabotage against U.S. and European targets tripled from 2023 to 2024, according to a Center for Strategic and International Studies report. The head of Germany's intelligence has even warned that sabotage could trigger Article 5, NATO's mutual-defense clause. So could a Russian attempt to seize land in former Soviet republics where Russian-speaking minorities are numerous. All of which adds urgency to the cheery Netherlander holding the reins. War and tragedy have loomed over Rutte's life. His father Izaak, a trader who spent much of his life in Indonesia, then a Dutch colony, survived the Tjideng Japanese labor camp. His wife Petronella did not, and Izaak married her sister Mieke. They would live in the country until the 1950s. Rutte was born in the Hague in 1967, the youngest of seven children from his father's two marriages; some siblings are decades older. One brother died from AIDS in the 1980s, an event he once said 'drastically' changed his worldview. 'I realized that I will only live once. There is no dress rehearsal, there is only one performance,' Rutte said. 'That is where my enormous drive comes from.' Rutte showed an early interest in politics. He joined the youth branch of the center-right People's Party for Freedom and Democracy (VVD) at 16. Although his ambition was to be a concert pianist, he chose to pursue a degree in Dutch history at Leiden University instead. Rutte calls the piano his 'great hobby' but is careful not to play past 9 p.m. because of neighbors living on six sides. 'Then you get calls, 'Our children are trying to sleep. And by the way, it was not as good as you thought,'' he laughs. Rutte rose up the VVD's ranks, becoming national chairman of its youth branch while a student at Leiden. He graduated in 1992 and held a series of human-resources jobs at Unilever before taking office as a member of parliament in 2003. Rutte won the VVD leadership position in 2006, and in the 2010 elections led the party to become the largest in parliament for the first time ever. Soon after, he became Prime Minister, proving himself to be a master coalition builder. Rutte's first government was a coalition with the more right-leaning Christian Democrats (CDA) but was propped up by the far-right Party for Freedom (PVV), led by the anti-Muslim firebrand Geert Wilders. His second, third, and final Cabinets included a mix of social democrats, centrists, and conservatives. He is 'a very capable politician who is able to bring people together even when they have very different views,' says Simon Otjes, a senior assistant professor at Leiden University. Rutte has also been dogged by scandal. His third Cabinet resigned in January 2021 following a parliamentary report that found that as many as 10,000 families were forced to repay thousands of euros after they had been wrongly accused of welfare fraud. Another parliamentary report in February 2023 found the Dutch government had for years ignored the risks of drilling gas in Groningen, which had caused man-made earthquakes that damaged homes and affected thousands of lives. Rutte apologized for both scandals. Throughout various controversies, Rutte had a habit of stating he had ' no active memory ' of thornier details. 'He had a more flexible relationship with the truth,' Otjes says. The end came in July 2023 when he resigned over a migration fight. But even as his political career waned, the next February he secured a critical endorsement from the U.S. for the top NATO job. The Biden Administration considered other candidates, including the more hawkish Kaja Kallas, then Prime Minister of Estonia. But 'President Biden had liked him,' recalls Sean Savett, the former White House National Security Council spokesperson, and Biden and his advisers concluded that Kallas was 'less likely to be able to win over support from some of the Western European allies.' Those who know Rutte well expected the job would be a big lifestyle shift for him. He had spent years going to the same hairdresser, visiting the same cafés, and eating the same meals at the same restaurants in the Hague. 'He sometimes drives his closest friends crazy, because of all these habits,' says Sierk Nawijn, a special adviser to NATO who has worked with Rutte for a decade. Rutte has also kept the same modest apartment in the Hague that he bought with his best friend in his youth. He later shared it with that friend's mother for 20 years until she passed away in 2012 while Rutte was Prime Minister. Rutte still gets back to the Hague whenever work permits—perhaps in part because of the routines that help keep him grounded. Those include teaching a high school social-studies class on Fridays at the Johan de Witt group of schools. 'I love doing it,' Rutte says. 'It gives you so much energy.' The downing of MH17 over Ukraine's Donbas region, by Russian-backed forces in July 2014, may have provided the most formative experience to the future NATO Secretary-General. The attack claimed 298 lives, 196 of them Dutch. Rutte says that 'all illusions' he may have had about Vladimir Putin were 'gone' after it took six nights of calls for the Russian President to agree to help families retrieve the remains of loved ones. 'And then after that he never, ever, ever was able to accept that the Russians probably made a mistake,' a still visibly shaken Rutte says. 'It has to do with basic decency.' The tragedy of Ukraine has stayed with Rutte ever since. He became one of the most frequent wartime visitors to the country and made his first trip as Secretary-General there on Oct. 3, just two days after taking up the NATO post, meeting Volodymyr Zelensky in Kyiv. In April he visited Odesa, a city the Ukrainian President has avoided taking world leaders to since last March when a Russian ballistic missile struck within hundreds of meters of Greek Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis. When asked why he was willing to take the risk of traveling there, he says it was 'just to make the point that it is not only Kyiv which is under threat.' Rutte now helps coordinate outside security assistance to Ukraine, a new responsibility given to NATO by the Biden Administration in an attempt to Trump-proof aid. European and Canadian NATO allies have so far this year given more than the estimated $20 billion the U.S. provided in 2024. A German military officer involved in providing support to Ukraine told Reuters that, if necessary, Europe can sustain Ukrainian resistance alone. But the war in Ukraine has also underscored the limits of Rutte's power. Almost a year ago, NATO members agreed to an 'irreversible path' for Ukraine to join the alliance. Rutte finds himself in the middle. On the one hand, he says the deal with Kyiv is 'still standing,' but he adds, to the disappointment of Ukrainian officials, that it 'doesn't mean that membership is part of a peace deal.' That's another delicate issue. Rutte has publicly backed the peace talks that grew out of Trump's view of himself as a dealmaker, and have at times raised alarm among others in NATO. The 'Trump Administration's approach has been to put pressure on the victim, Ukraine, rather than on the aggressor, Russia,' the U.S. Ambassador to Ukraine Bridget Brink said in April before resigning. Rutte says that the U.S. President is 'doing exactly what he needs to do. I really commend him for that. Because he broke the deadlock and is constantly engaging with Ukraine and Russia.' Rutte brushed off current concerns that Trump is abandoning his cease-fire efforts at the press conference with Schoof. An agreement must ensure that Putin never again tries to 'capture one square kilometer, square mile of Ukraine. That is crucial.' But the conflict has only escalated, with Russia's launching some of its most extensive strikes in a war that has claimed hundreds of thousands of casualties, and Ukraine's carrying out the audacious Operation Spiderweb drone attack, which damaged or destroyed strategic aircraft inside Russia. The prospect of a cease-fire looks more elusive than ever. NATO, of course, was created to deter an attack by Russia, when it was doing business as the Soviet Union. And the U.S. was a key architect of the alliance, and the world order Trump is intent on dismantling. So there are easier jobs than the one Rutte holds. And even critics give Rutte high marks for handling Trump and rallying European allies to boost spending and military readiness. The abbreviated NATO summit— reportedly scaled back to keep Trump happy—should be a point of celebration for both men, assuming the funding boost is agreed to as hoped. But the next challenge will be executing those plans. 'He's got big, big work to do,' General Davis says, and 'there are surprises to come.' It helps that he's upbeat. Back at Rutte's office, as our interview begins to wind down, the Secretary-General repeats a familiar line about the alliance's ability to outpace Moscow—if it chooses to. 'The Russian economy is only 5% of the NATO economy. They are $2 trillion. NATO is $50 trillion. And they produce four times as much ammunition as the whole of NATO.' Three-quarters of a century after its founding, Rutte is confident that NATO can fend off any threat from Moscow. 'I am pretty much convinced that we are safe for now,' he says. But Russia is reconstituting its armed forces, and Rutte warns of the risk of being complacent. 'If we do not invest much more, plus get the defense industrial production going,' he says, 'the Russians might try something.'
Time Magazine
2 hours ago
- Time Magazine
‘If Middle East Is Unstable, World Will Not Be at Peace': How China Views the Israel-Iran War
Iran's friends don't like the war decimating Tehran, but they're not ready to join the fight against Israel and potentially the U.S. Instead, Russia and now China have urged deescalation, emphasizing the dangerous consequences the escalating conflict could have on the whole world. 'If the Middle East is unstable, the world will not be at peace,' Chinese President Xi Jinping said Thursday. 'If the conflict escalates further, not only will the conflicting parties suffer greater losses, but regional countries will also suffer greatly.' 'The warring parties, especially Israel, should cease fire as soon as possible to prevent a cycle of escalation and resolutely avoid the spillover of the war,' Xi added. Xi's comments came in a call with Russian President Vladimir Putin, in which both leaders called for a ceasefire, according to a readout by China's foreign ministry. Earlier this week, Russia warned that Israel's attacks have brought the world 'millimeters' from nuclear calamity, and Putin urged Trump against attacking Iran, as the President is mulling direct U.S. military engagement in the war that has already killed hundreds in Iran and dozens in Israel. Kremlin aide Yuri Ushakov told reporters that Putin and Xi 'strongly condemn Israel's actions, which violate the U.N. Charter and other norms of international law.' Ushakov added that Xi expressed support for Putin's suggestion to mediate the conflict, an offer Trump said he has rejected. China, like Russia, has also positioned itself as a potential peacebroker, though experts say it's unlikely Israel would accept Beijing as a neutral conciliator, given its past criticisms of Israel and ties with Iran. Here's what to know about how China has responded so far to the conflict and what it may see is at stake. Rhetorical but not material support 'Iran doesn't need communiqués or declarations, but concrete help, like anti-aircraft systems or fighter jets,' Andrea Ghiselli, a Chinese foreign policy expert at the University of Exeter, told France 24. But communiqués and declarations are all China is likely to offer, experts tell TIME. William Figueroa, an assistant professor of international relations at the University of Groningen, tells TIME that China's lack of military support should not come as a surprise. China has historically followed a policy of non-interference, focusing more on domestic issues while aiming to avoid entanglement in protracted foreign conflicts. Earlier this year, China similarly called on both India and Pakistan, the latter being an ' ironclad friend ' of China, to show restraint. And while it has been accused of providing ' very substantial ' support to Russia in its war against Ukraine, China has maintained that it doesn't provide weapons or troops to its neighbor. (Reports suggest, however, that its material support has included lethal systems.) White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt said Thursday that the White House doesn't see 'any signs' of China providing military support to Iran 'at this moment in time.' Instead, China has offered words. Beijing has been 'harshly critical' of Israel, says Figueroa. In separate calls with his Iranian and Israeli counterparts over the past weekend, after Israel launched an attack on Friday against Iran, Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi stressed that China 'explicitly condemns Israel's violation of Iran's sovereignty, security and territorial integrity.' It has also publicly advised the U.S. against greater involvement in the conflict. 'The heating up of the Middle East region serves no one's interests,' Chinese foreign ministry spokesperson Guo Jiakun said on Tuesday. 'To fan up the flames, use threats and exert pressure does not help deescalate the situation and will only aggravate tensions and enlarge the conflict.' 'The international community, especially influential major countries, should uphold a fair position and a responsible attitude to create the necessary conditions for promoting a ceasefire and returning to dialogue and negotiation so as to prevent the regional situation from sliding into the abyss and triggering a greater disaster,' a Chinese state-media editorial declared on Thursday. China's diplomatic response reflects its priority to 'lower the temperature,' says Figueroa, particularly in tensions with the U.S. Diplomatic limitations China has sought to deepen its investments and influence in the Middle East over the years, which has raised the expectations of its regional diplomacy to 'sky high' levels, says Figueroa. But while Beijing touted brokering a historic truce between Saudi Arabia and Iran in 2023, the task before it now is much taller. Wang, the Chinese foreign minister, said China is 'ready to play a constructive role' in resolving the conflict, according to foreign ministry readouts of his calls with both Iran and Israel, but unlike with Saudi Arabia and Iran, Figueroa says, Israel has expressed no interest in negotiating a resolution. And even if Israel was interested in coming to the table, China is unlikely to be seen as a neutral arbiter given its ties with Iran, criticisms of Israel including over Gaza, and ongoing global power competition with the U.S., Israel's biggest ally. China has developed strong economic ties with Iran over the years, becoming Iran's largest trading partner and export market, especially for oil—a critical lifeline for Iran as the U.S. has placed severe economic sanctions on the country. Iran joined BRICS, the intergovernmental group China has viewed as an alternative collective of emerging powers to the Western-oriented G7, in 2024; joined the Shanghai Cooperation Organization, a Beijing-backed security group, in 2023; and the two countries signed a 25-year cooperative agreement in 2021. While China has also maintained an economic relationship with Israel—China is Israel's second-biggest trading partner and the two countries have had an 'innovative comprehensive partnership' since 2017—Figueroa says it's 'not close enough to have a serious influence over Israel's actions.' When asked about the possibility of China acting as a mediator, Israel's Ambassador to Beijing Eli Belotserkovsky told the South China Morning Post on Wednesday, 'at this stage, we are concentrating on the military campaign. This is our main concern at the moment, and we need to see how things will develop.' Still, he added that Israel would 'continue talking to China as [part of] an ongoing process.' Failure to help bring peace to the Middle East could seriously dampen China's recent efforts to portray itself as an effective global peacebroker, especially after Ukraine already rejected a peace plan Beijing had proposed in 2023. And if Iran's regime falls, Marc Lanteigne, an associate professor of political science at the Arctic University of Norway, told France 24, the China-mediated truce with Saudi Arabia would also risk 'going up in smoke.' 'It is hard to predict how the conflict itself might impact [China's diplomatic] efforts,' Figueroa says. 'A wider conflict would undoubtedly complicate Chinese diplomatic efforts, which largely rest on their ability to provide economic development.' Economic concerns While the Iran-China trade balance is largely skewed in China's favor— around a third of Iranian trade is with China, but less than 1% of Chinese trade is with Iran —China is heavily dependent on the Middle East's oil. 'China is by far the largest importer of Iranian oil,' according to a statement in March by the U.S. State Department, which added: 'The Iranian regime uses the revenue it generates from these sales to finance attacks on U.S. allies, support terrorism around the world, and pursue other destabilizing actions.' Sara Haghdoosti, executive director of public education and advocacy coalition Win Without War, tells TIME that China 'has a vested interest in seeing the conflict end before Israel strikes more of Iran's oil infrastructure.' But China is less dependent on Iran itself than on access to the region's reserves. 'The Islamic Republic is a replaceable energy partner,' according to a Bloomberg analysis. For global oil markets too, changes to Iran's supply alone are unlikely to cause significant price disruptions. 'Even in the unlikely event that all Iranian exports are lost, they could be replaced by spare capacity from OPEC+ producers,' assessed credit agency Fitch Ratings earlier this week. Around 20% of the world's oil trade, however, passes through the Strait of Hormuz, which Iran has threatened to close in retaliation if the U.S. joins the war. 'If the United States officially and operationally enters the war in support of the Zionists, it is the legitimate right of Iran in view of pressuring the U.S. and Western countries to disrupt their oil trade's ease of transit,' said Iranian lawmaker Ali Yazdikhah on Thursday, according to state-sponsored Iranian news agency Mehr News. Doing so would also impact China, for which more than 40% of crude oil imports come from the Middle East. The conflict's 'greatest impact on China could be on energy imports and supply chain security,' Sun Degang, director of the Center for Middle Eastern Studies at Fudan University, told the South China Morning Post. 'While Beijing will continue to condemn the conflict, it will also seek to balance ties with Israel and the Gulf states and promote stable energy flows,' according to Bloomberg's analysts, especially as surging commodity prices would exacerbate domestic economic growth challenges already hampered by the trade war with the U.S. and an ongoing real estate crisis. In response to a question about the potential interruption of Iranian oil supplies to China, Chinese foreign ministry spokesperson Guo Jiakun reiterated on Tuesday the need to 'ease tensions as soon as possible' in order to 'prevent the region from spiraling into greater turmoil.' A contained conflict could be good for China 'If a wider conflict breaks out,' Figueroa says, 'the impact on China's economic projects and investments in the region would be significant.' Foreign policy analyst Wesley Alexander Hill noted in a Forbes op-ed that an escalated conflict could force China into a bind between taking 'decisive action' to defend Iran, which might alienate Saudi Arabia, or doing nothing militarily and letting Israeli and potentially U.S. attacks 'continue to degrade Iranian export capacity,' which would leave other regional partners with a 'dim view [of] what Chinese commitment under pressure looks like.' Still, some analysts have suggested that China—as well as Russia—may be content for now to sit back and let things play out, with their higher priorities clearly elsewhere. According to Bloomberg Economics analyst Alex Kokcharov, a contained conflict in the Middle East could 'distract Washington from strategic competition with China.' Added Bloomberg's bureau chief in China, Allen Wan, in a newsletter Friday: 'Should the U.S. once again get tangled up in a war in the Middle East, that'd probably suit China just fine. Beijing and the [People's Liberation Army] would appreciate the chance to squeeze Taiwan tighter.' 'At very least, both powers [Russia and China] are content to watch the U.S. further squander goodwill with gulf Arab partners by backing another destabilizing conflict in the region,' Haghdoosti, the Win Without War executive director, tells TIME. And they, she adds, are likely 'shedding no tears that the U.S. military is currently burning through stocks of difficult-to-replenish missile defense interceptors to shield Israel.'
Newsweek
2 hours ago
- Newsweek
US Grows Defense Partnership Next Door to China
Based on facts, either observed and verified firsthand by the reporter, or reported and verified from knowledgeable sources. Newsweek AI is in beta. Translations may contain inaccuracies—please refer to the original content. The United States has transferred a third coast guard ship to Vietnam, as the former foes expand their defense partnership amid China's growing threats in nearby disputed waters. Newsweek has contacted the Chinese defense and foreign ministries for comment by email. Why It Matters In 1995, the U.S. and Vietnam—former adversaries during the Vietnam War, which ended in 1975—normalized diplomatic relations. Following Washington's lifting of an arms sales ban in 2016, Hanoi acquired military equipment from its new partner, including training aircraft. The bilateral defense cooperation comes against the backdrop of tensions in the South China Sea, where overlapping sovereignty claims by countries such as Vietnam and China, as well as the strong presence of the Chinese coast guard, continue to heighten friction in the region. What To Know The U.S. Mission to Vietnam announced on Wednesday that the former U.S. Coast Guard ship USCGC Mellon has been transferred to Vietnam as the high-endurance cutter CSB 8022. The ship arrived in Ninh Hoa, south-central Vietnam, the same day following a trans-Pacific voyage that began in Seattle, with stopovers in Hawaii and Guam. The Vietnam Coast Guard received CSB 8020—formerly USCGC Morgenthau—in 2017 and CSB 8021—formerly USCGC John Midgett—in 2020. All three ships were transferred under a defense cooperation memorandum of understanding, according to the U.S. Mission. "Through this cooperation, the United States and Vietnam is enhancing the development of maritime law enforcement, search and rescue, and humanitarian and disaster relief abilities, and supporting capacity to protect sovereignty," the U.S. Mission said in a statement. The former U.S. Coast Guard vessels were built as Hamilton-class cutters designed for extended maritime operations, each weighing over 2,700 tons and having a range of 10,000 miles—the approximate straight-line distance between New York and Melbourne, Australia. The Vietnam Coast Guard's high-endurance cutter CSB 8022 arrives in Ninh Hoa, Vietnam, on June 18, 2025. The Vietnam Coast Guard's high-endurance cutter CSB 8022 arrives in Ninh Hoa, Vietnam, on June 18, 2025. U.S. Mission to Vietnam This class of cutter is capable of conducting a wide range of missions, including search and rescue, defense operations, and law enforcement. The Mellon was once armed with missiles, torpedoes, and sonar, but all were later removed, according to the U.S. Coast Guard. The recent transfer of the coast guard ship comes as the U.S. and Vietnam celebrate the 30th anniversary of their diplomatic relations. However, an American aircraft carrier canceled its planned visit to Vietnam and transited toward the Middle East amid the Iran-Israel conflict. What People Are Saying U.S. Chargé d'Affaires in Vietnam Courtney Beale said in a statement on Wednesday: "The United States and Vietnam respect each other's sovereignty, territorial integrity, and political system, and remain firmly committed to supporting our shared vision of peace and stability, and of prosperity and security in the Indo-Pacific." The U.S. Mission to Vietnam said on its website: "The United States and Vietnam are trusted partners with a friendship grounded in mutual respect that has developed since the normalization of diplomatic relations on July 11, 1995. U.S.-Vietnam relations have become increasingly cooperative and comprehensive, evolving into a flourishing partnership that spans political, economic, security, and people-to-people ties." What Happens Next The U.S. is expected to continue its defense cooperation with countries in the South China Sea, including the Philippines, its mutual defense treaty ally. Whether Washington will provide additional military equipment to boost Vietnam's capabilities remains to be seen.
