China’s Middle East Economic Diplomacy in the New Era

Abstract

China’s economic diplomacy in the Middle East has entered a new stage in the New Era. With a proposal to build a new type of international relations and a community with a shared future for mankind, China is strengthening energy and infrastructure cooperation with the Middle East countries and expanding collaboration in finance, post-conflict reconstruction, and the health industry. Technological innovation and green development have become new impulses for improving cooperation, and a multilevel and multifaceted China-Middle East cooperation pattern has been forged. China adjusts its economic diplomacy in the Middle East in the New Era considering multi-dimensional factors: First, to respond to both sides’ new demands for economic development, seek solutions to the sluggish growth of its traditional economic cooperation pattern with the Middle East, and enhance high-quality cooperation; second, to promote a peaceful and stable regional environment and consolidate Middle East countries’ diplomatic support to China, serving China’s increasing security interest and need for political influence in the Middle East; and third, to improve Middle East countries’ willingness and capacities to deepen their engagements in global economic governance and jointly build an open world economy to respond to mutual demands for international economic institutional reform. China’s economic diplomacy would play an increasingly important role in the Middle East in the post-COVID period.