CONTEMPORARY EURASIA VOLUME VI (1) Contemporary-Eurasia-VI-1-engl | Page 40

ARAM ABAJYAN
Beijing took the Gulf region seriously starting from the 1970s. In
1971 China established relations with Kuwait. Later in 1978 China
established diplomatic relations with Oman, then with the UAE in
1984, with Qatar in 1988, and with Bahrain in 1989. In 1990, after one
year of China’s Tiananmen incident, Saudi Arabia became the last
GCC state establishing diplomatic ties with China. Thus, China
established diplomatic ties with all six GCC states immediately after
launching economic modernization programs and reforms. China’s
main reason to strengthen its ties with the ‘Third World’ in general
and with the GCC states in particular, possibly could be viewed as
consequence of Tiananmen incident together with Western sanctions
imposed on the country. Nevertheless, It is more proper to accept the
year of 1993 as the milestone for China-GCC relations. China became
a net oil importer country, trying to enlarge its economic relations
with oil-rich GCC region. Energy security naturally became essential
objective between China-GCC cooperation. During June and July of
1993 China’s then deputy premier Li Lanqing visited all six GCC
countries (also Iran). Beijing’s fundamental goal was to secure its
peace oil supply. While seeking new markets for its labor-intensive
products China succeeded in ‘discovering’ the GCC states which
showed rising interests to Chinese products. For instance, the UAE
has become the most significant location for China’s manufactured
products for re-exporting them to neighboring states since 1990s. The
Emirate’s imports from China increased significantly accounting from
$2.1 billion in 2001 to nearly $24 billion in 2008 4 .
The basic trade cooperation between China and the GCC states has
been clear-cut, covering some fundamental aspects. China is mainly
importing oil, natural gas, and also chemical products from the GCC
states, and it is exporting electronic and telecommunication equipment,
textile fabrics and garments. China’s overall considerations related to
the Gulf region are based on some basic assumptions and foreign policy
objectives, including a recognition of the PRC as the sole legitimate
representative of China, a maintenance of friendly cooperative ties with
all the other actors in the region, an encouragement of multi-polarity
4
Ibid, p. 38.
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