Abstract
This article discusses China's economic development and political influence in the Middle East, and the construction of China's Belt and Road Initiative (BRI). It also discusses Xi Jinping's vision for relationships with the Middle East states as its natural partners, the China-Arab States Cooperation Forum (CASCF), the law of value, and the antagonistic contradictions China will encounter in its path to accumulation with US hegemony in the region.
Highlights
This article discusses China’s economic development and political influence in the Middle East, and the construction of China’s Belt and Road Initiative (BRI)
At China’s Two Sessions held in March of 2018 Xi Jinping put forth his vision for China’s place in the world. In his speech to the National People’s Congress in Beijing Xi said that the Chinese were a people of justice and compassion and that their destiny and future were linked to other people in the world. He continued that China stands ready to lend selfless support to other countries and people suffering from war, poverty and hunger and that China would not seek development at the expense of other countries, and that “China will never seek hegemony and expansionism” (Campbell and Ratner, 2018, 66)
In Xi’s keynote speech on April 10, 2018, at the seventeenth annual Boao Forum for Asia (BFA) held between April 8 and 11 in Hainan, China, where leaders in government, business, and academia in Asia and other continents gathered for highlevel discussions about their most salient issues on development, Xi utilized the opportunity to re-launch his economic vision for China and reiterate his commitment to liberalization reforms for the Five Year Plans
Summary
At the 8th Ministerial Meeting of the CASCF on July 10, 2018, Xi Jinping followed through with these proclamations by announcing a US$20 billion loan for reconstruction of Lebanon, Syria and Jordan, transportation infrastructure help, energy cooperation with oil and gas and low-carbon, a financial cooperation platform and high-tech industrial cooperation. A joint investment fund (i.e. GE-Silk Road Fund) and a joint financial platform would allow the China–Arab development interests to tap into a global financing fund He was committed to infrastructure and energy partnerships to deepen financial ties and pointed out that in 2017 China had US$33 billion in construction contracts and US$191 billion in trade with the Arab world which was four times as much as when they first started the CASCF in 2004 (Jinping, 2018, July 10). Xi Jinping attended the sixth CASCF in 2014 and he visited Saudi Arabia, Egypt, and the Arab League Headquarters in 2016 These ministerial meetings have been providing an opportunity for China and the Arab States to map out a blueprint for China– Arab relations with practical discussions on cooperation and how to advance the BRI in the Middle East (Yi, 2018). In early 2018, China provided Iran with US$8.5 billion in loans from the Export-Import Bank of China
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