CONTEMPORARY EURASIA VI( 1)
in the region, a guarantee of Beijing’ s regional interests, a coordination of China’ s Gulf policy with the broad objectives of advocating its modernization perspectives, and the increase of Beijing’ s international status together with its rising influence. In the 21 st century despite China’ s growing economic and energy cooperation with the GCC states, the above mentioned objectives are becoming very important and promising for China in regard to China-GCC relations and their perspectives 5.
Diplomacy, Economic Relations and New Opportunities
‘ Arab Spring’ developments have prompted Chinese to improve their comprehension of complexities of the Arab world. It illustrates new significance regarding China’ s further moves in the Middle East. The fall of Gaddafi regime in Libya, as well as current Syrian developments forced Beijing become more involved in the Middle East and North Africa for better protection of China’ s interests, meanwhile pursuing its major power status. In both of these crises China used its right of veto in the UN Security Council new challenges 6.
In regard to GCC-China relations the Council has been and still remains attractive to China especially because of huge oil reserves. As China intends to play increasingly important role in the Middle East and as economic relations between China and the GCC states are growing dynamically, Beijing will undoubtedly continue to give high priority to its relations with those states. On the other side, the GCC views China as a significant major power in global affairs, meanwhile they both wish to enhance their strategic maneuverability through restricting the US hegemonic role. China’ s approach towards the GCC states can be viewed as an attempt of seeking‘ soft balance’. Chinese policymakers are implementing multilevel diplomacy while dealing with the GCC states, and close coordination of various policies are in their future plans. In January, 2014 National Security Commission was established in China chaired by President Xi Jinping. This event
5 Ibid, p. 39. 6 Ibid p. 36.
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