China expected to keep its distance from Middle East conflicts, focus on cooperation
- Chinese president’s first visit to region since 2016 featured meetings with Arab and Gulf leaders
- Iranian president demands ‘compensation’ for China’s positions at last week’s summits
China is expected to keep its distance from regional conflicts in the Middle East and focus on expanding cooperation as it is regarded as more than a trade partner after recent summit meetings, observers say.
Joint statements from the first-ever China-Arab States and China-Gulf Cooperation Council summits in Saudi Arabia last week pledged a wide range of cooperation that stretched beyond the traditional fields of energy and trade to technology, security and the digital economy. They also included joint calls for peaceful resolution of some hot regional issues – ranging from Palestine to Yemen and Iran – through dialogue and international law. Iran, a strategic partner of China that is not a member of the GCC, has had strained relations with some other countries around the Persian Gulf for years.
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Tehran seemed displeased after Xi and GCC leaders said Iran’s nuclear programme must be peaceful, opposed support for terrorist organisations, and supported the United Arab Emirates’ efforts to resolve its territorial disputes with Iran over Abu Musa and the Greater and Lesser Tunbs, islands that are administered by Tehran but also claimed by Abu Dhabi.
China’s ambassador to Iran, Chang Hua, was summoned by the Iranian government after the summit to hear its side of the islands dispute, and Iranian cabinet official Mohammad Jamshidi directly addressed his “Chinese colleagues” in a tweet that said: “When Saudi Arabia and America supported Isis and al-Qaeda terrorist groups in Syria and destroyed Yemen with brutal military aggression, it was Iran that fought the terrorists to establish stability and security in the region.”
The Chinese side said Hu expressed China’s “firm support” to Iran’s safeguarding of its sovereignty, and foreign ministry spokesman Wang Wenbin said China’s relations with both Iran and the Gulf countries did not target any “third party”.