China's New Role in the Region of the Middle East: A Policy Debate

Abstract

Along with China's growing presence and interests in the Middle East, Beijing finds it increasingly challenging to sit on the sidelines of regional conflicts and tensions and has called for establishing China's new role in the region. By adopting content analysis to examine 53 articles written by Chinese elites, this study analyzes how the concept of China's new role in the Middle East is understood by this group. In particular, it addresses the following questions: What is new about China's new role? What are the policy debates of Chinese elites? And, has China's policy fundamentally changed or not? This study finds that the concept of “China's new role in the Middle East” is still under heated debate. This concerns what extent, and in which aspects, China should abandon the non‐interference and non‐involvement policy in the Middle East; whether China should identify itself as an order participant or order shaper; and which countries China should attach most importance to when conducting role adjustment in the region. The article also finds that China's elites and decision makers oscillate between prioritizing China's economic interests and geopolitical concerns with respect to this issue. This argument is tested by using the ordinary least squares model. The article concludes that the new role is too vague to be institutionalized at this stage, which reflects China's dilemma between expanding its influence and discursive power in the Middle East's rule‐setting, and trying to maintain its current risk‐aversion policy by not turning any Middle Eastern country or major international player in the region, such as the United States, into a hostile force.