MIDDLE EAST HISTORY POLITICS CULTURE XIII MIDDLE EAST XIII | Page 175
willingness to enter into trade-aid programs with the United Arab Republic,
Syria, Yemen, Morocco, Sudan, Algeria and Tunisia. China’s such a drive into
the region perhaps was based on the theory, that the newly independent
countries could be influenced by rising China’s pattern and loosen their
economic ties with both the West (especially the United States) and the
Soviet Union 9 .
Chinese economic drive made Beijing’s foreign policymakers put
forward some basic objectives in regard to Sino-Arab relations. Four main
goals of Beijing’s policy were the followings:
Beijing’s most important foreign policy objective was an inter-
national recognition of Communist China as the sole legitimate
government: the acceptance of this fact and support by the Arabs
was necessarily important for China;
Use the potential of the Arab world as a significant revolutionary
arena against the Western imperialism;
Get the Arabs’ support for Communist China’s policies with both
of the superpowers (the United States and the Soviet Union).
Create better conditions for spreading an international Commu-
nist movement;
Get the Arabs’ support to strengthen China’s position among the
Afro-Asian nations, jointly fight against imperialism, colonialism
and neocolonialism. 10
Sino-Arab relations were developing in a positive way. They both were
sharing many identical viewpoints on the issues, such as support for the
national liberation movements, fight against colonialism, full respect for
fundamental rights of people to self-determination, peaceful coexistence with
all nations regardless of differences in social or political systems. The both
sides were eager to create friendly relations between states without the
sphere of political domination or influence. Their views regarding to the
progress of economic development were identical as well 11 .
In 1963 Zhou Enlai’s tour to the Middle East and North Africa was
China’s next diplomatic step. His mission was to get support from those
countries to hold the second Bandung conference without the participation of
Masannat, նշվ. աշխ., էջ 216:
Khalili, նշվ. աշխ., էջ 679:
11 Ibid, p. 688.
9
10
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