CONTEMPORARY EURASIA VOLUME VI (1) Contemporary-Eurasia-VI-1-engl | Seite 56

ARAM ABAJYAN
case the latter stated: “China can secure a long-term reliable market for
Qatar, meanwhile Qatar will be the Chinese market’s stable supplier” 48 .
In recent decade along with substantial increase of capital
investment and joint ventures between the GCC states and China,
those countries started to invest heavily in China’s petrochemical and
oil refining industries. At the same time Beijing is investing in GCC
states’ oil exploration and production sectors. These economic
policies could form mutual upstream-downstream interdependence
between two cooperative sides 49 .
International media pays considerable attention to China-GCC
mutual upstream-downstream interdependence policy. Saudi Arabia
assisted China’s Sinopec’s participation in its two major gas
exploration and development projects in Rub al-Khali, hence it opened
part of its domestic oil and gas upstream market for China’s
investment. On the other hand, Riyadh itself invested in China’s
downstream sector including investments in refineries in Qingdao,
Shandong province. There were Saudi investments in petrochemical
plants in Fujian province as well 50 .
Conclusion
Traditionally the GCC states have been developing their relations
especially with the Western Hemisphere. Gulf region’s Arab
monarchies are mainly ‘trustful’ to Western partners, referring them as
security holders. China has no objective or intention to act as protector
in Gulf region. Deepening its political, economic and cultural ties with
Arab world, China continues its basic policies and principal strategies,
including ‘Five Principles of Peaceful Coexistence’, ‘the One China
principle’, and ‘South-South’ cooperation. At the same time, in order
to maximally benefit from economic cooperation with Arab states,
Beijing’s diplomacy is flexible enough to support political causes of
Arabs: especially Arab-Israeli conflict is presenting great significance
Cheng J., China’s Relations, op. cit., p. 43.
Ghafouri M., op. cit., p. 89.
50
Leverett F. and Bader J., Managing China-U.S. energy competition in the
Middle East, The Washington Quarterly 29 (1), 2005, p. 190-192
https://www.brookings.edu/wp-
content/uploads/2016/06/20051216_leverett_bader.pdf
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