This article examines policies of both China and the United States in the Middle East. It evaluates the effectiveness of Beijing's strategic hedging behavior against Washington's “hard power” strategies by discussing several policy challenges in this region: energy security, the Iranian nuclear issue, terrorism, regional alliance structures, and the “Arab Spring.” The results of this study show that the gradual retreat of the United States from the Middle East coincides with a stronger Chinese presence in the region on several fronts. In examining Sino-U.S. power competition in the Middle East, it contributes to the advancement of “strategic hedging” as a still underdeveloped concept in the International Relations literature.

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Hedging in the Middle East and China-U.S. Competition

China and the United States have different perceptions of Iran and its nuclear program. In order to make sanctions effective in pressuring Tehran, the Obama administration needed cooperation from China as a veto power in the U.N. Security council and as the first trade partner of Iran. Washington tried to make Beijing cooperate with sanctions through bargaining an pressure strategies. China didn't share Western concerns over Iran nuclear program and followed its own interests in this dispute. Beijing even had some interests in a powerful and resistant Iran to challenge US hegemony over the energy-rich Middle East and to make America entangled in this region away from East Asia and Chinese borders and dependent to China's cooperation. This study plans to clarify US strategies and China's responses in this regard. American carrot and stick policy could eventually make China vote to the U.N. resolutions against Iran after some modification in texts. But Beijing continued and even expanded relations with Iran, and followed a bold policy to make US achievements costly and abortive without directly standing against Washington.

Iran Sanctions in US-China Relations

This study analyses China’s economic diplomacy approach in the Middle East conflicts in order to explore the following question: How does China use diplomatic means to protect and pursue commercial...

https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/pdf/10.1177/0009445518818210

China’s Economic Diplomacy Approach in the Middle East Conflicts:

This article sheds light on the foreign policies of China, Russia, and Turkey towards the controversial Iranian nuclear program and analyzes to what extent their policies are indicative of a security culture that resists hegemony. While advocating a nonhegemonic security culture discursively, China, Russia, and Turkey still partially adhere to hegemonic power structures on a behavioral level. These states’ policies are the outcome of a balancing act between resistance to hegemony and hegemonic accommodation. The analysis in this article nuances the idea that counter-hegemonic discourses of rising powers always herald a revisionist power transition. The article thereby makes a contribution to the scholarly debate about emerging powers and the coexistence between declining hegemonic powers and norm-shapers in the making.

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Chinese, Russian, and Turkish policies in the Iranian nuclear dossier : between resistance to hegemony and hegemonic accommodation

/pdf/the-reorientation-of-iranian-trade-from-west-to-east-since-iwhokne6gd.pdf

The reorientation of iranian trade from west to east since 1979

This article analyses, the complex relationship between Tehran, Beijing and Washington on the Iranian nuclear issue. Indeed, China's policy towards Iran has often been described as ambiguous, in supporting Washington, on the one hand, while protecting Tehran, on the other hand. In this article, we argue that, in fact, Beijing policy vis-a-vis Tehran depends on the state of its relationships with Washington. Indeed, a closer analysis shows that China is using Iran as a bargaining chip with the United States on, among others, two key security issues, i.e., Taiwan and the oil supply. The guarantee of a secured oil supply from the Middle-East in addition to a comprehensive policy of the US with regard to Chinese security interests in Taiwan as well as the use of smart sanctions against Tehran, which would thus take into account, to a certain extent, Beijing economic interests in Iran, are, indeed, the guarantee of Beijing's support to the US policy towards Iran.

/pdf/china-and-the-iranian-nuclear-crisis-between-ambiguities-and-308v7q7oxz.pdf

Lounnas Djallil

Papers

China and the Iranian Nuclear Crisis: Between Ambiguities and Interests