A growing body of scholarly and popular literature explores the strategic, diplomatic and economic relations between the People's Republic of China and the states of the Gulf. Almost all of these studies rest on the assumption that the PRC constitutes a serious rival, if not actually an active threat, to the major powers that enjoy well-established links to the region, namely the United States and the European Union. Most recent writing further assumes that it is Beijing that has taken the lead in expanding the range and depth of the PRC's activities in and around the Gulf. This paper challenges both preconceptions. It first surveys existing academic studies and journalistic accounts, and shows that they can be grouped into four primary lines of argument. It then situates the most commonly-advanced explanations for Beijing's dealings with the Arab Gulf states and Iran in the context of broader conceptual debates concerning Chinese foreign policy and the PRC's role in the contemporary world. Finally, it demonstrates that conventional views of China's policy toward the Gulf stand at variance with widely-accepted facts concerning events and trends in inter-regional affairs. Consequently, a more compelling explanation for the PRC's relations with the Gulf requires us to recognize that Beijing usually finds itself reacting to overtures and initiatives undertaken by governments in the region, rather than taking steps to overturn the status quo.

The recent literature on Gulf-China relations often mentions that China is increasingly considered to be a new model of development for Gulf states as an alternative to Western ones. Meanwhile, the debate about a ‘China model’ and the ‘Beijing Consensus’ has also recently intensified in media and studies on Chinese political economy. This paper attempts to connect these two academic trends and explore whether there is a substantive ‘China model’ from which Gulf states can learn. It will make use of both discursive and empirical approaches. In the discursive part, it will discuss why the discourse of a ‘China model’ has emerged in recent years in both Gulf societies and elsewhere in the world by bringing this discourse into wider historical context. On the other hand, the empirical part will make systematic comparisons between China and Gulf states from the perspective of political economy (the combination of authoritarianism and capitalism) and of economy (the state’s role in the market). It will attempt to answer the question of whether a ‘China model’ is replicable in the Gulf, and if it is, whether its adoption would make a GCC political economy more viable. Lastly, it will ask whether seeking a China model, or any other model, for Gulf states can be a progressive and meaningful research programme.

The growing need for energy resources has helped propel increased cooperation and business between the Islamic Republic of Iran and countries throughout Asia. Indeed, Iranian officials have explicitly made the expansion of trade with its near and far Eastern partners a priority for the country. Particularly notable is Iran’s trade with China, which has risen ten-fold over the past decade and in the process dislodged the European Union as Iran’s most significant trade partner. Yet for China, as well as other Asian countries such as South Korea and Japan, trade with Iran must be carried it out with consideration to the growing list of international, regional, and unilateral sanctions introduced in large part as a result of concerns over Iran’s nuclear ambitions. On the one hand, Iran’s natural resources are needed to fuel their economies, and the country continues to provide opportunities for investment as well as a market for exports – opportunities made even more relevant given the increasing inability or reluctance of Western companies to do business in Iran. On the other hand, they must bear in mind the limitations and pressures on such activities as a result of the suspicion that Iran is pursuing a military component to what it has consistently maintained is a peaceful nuclear program. For Iran, meanwhile, an eastward orientation can serve to soften the economic impact of the restrictions it faces as well as trying to translate this economic dynamic into diplomatic goodwill. This paper will explore the rising significance of the Far East in Iran’s foreign and trade policy in recent years, focusing on Tehran’s links to four countries in particular: China, Japan, South Korea, and North Korea. Economic data will be complemented by official views and statements so as to provide indications of how Iran’s ties with Asia have developed, as well as the impediments to these ties and the way in which these impediments are addressed.

A plethora of economic, diplomatic, cultural, and other highly pragmatic linkages are finally making the long-predicted 'Asianization' of Asia a reality. As this paper will demonstrate, the powerful and multidimensional connections that are being forged by the very eastern and western extremities of the continent are poised to become a central pillar of this process. Given time, this will finally lead to the emergence of meaningful bilateral ties between non-Western poles of the international system, involving states that up until recently had been considered as peripheral to the global economy and dependent on the advanced capitalist countries for their trade and investment. Most notably, an important new relationship is developing between the six monarchies of the Persian Gulf and the three most advanced economies of Pacific Asia – Japan, China, and South Korea. With little shared modern economic history, with enormous political and socio-economic disparities, and separated by great geographical distances, the rapidly tightening economic interdependence between the two regions is a recent phenomenon that deserves considerable attention. What began as a simple, late twentieth century marriage of convenience based on hydrocarbon imports and exports has now evolved into a comprehensive, long-term mutual commitment that will not only continue to capitalize on the Gulf’s rich energy resources and Pacific Asia’s massive energy needs, but will also seek to develop strong non-hydrocarbon bilateral trade, will facilitate sizeable sovereign wealth investments in both directions, and will provide lucrative opportunities for experienced Pacific Asian construction companies, their technologies, and – in China’s case - its vast labour force. Although this increasingly extensive relationship does not yet encompass the Gulf’s military security arrangements - which remain exclusively with the United States, Britain, and France - and although few serious attempts have been made by either side to replace or balance these with new Pacific Asian alliances, this may change soon. Meanwhile, there is compelling evidence that the two regions are seeking to strengthen their other non-economic ties. An abundance of state-level visits, often at much higher levels than with Western powers, are undoubtedly binding these great trade partners ever closer. Moreover, with a number of future collaborations including ‘hydrocarbon safekeeping’, civilian nuclear power plants, and the building of a twenty-first century ‘Silk Road,’ the trajectory of interdependence will continue to accelerate.

I examine the political subtext of growing economic ties between Saudi Arabia and China. I argue that the strategic implications to arise from these ties are more apparent than real. One might think otherwise, and many analysts do. Saudi Arabia is an important state in the global marketplace and Islam. The country is a major producer of oil and the Saudi state is “guardian” of the holy cities, Mecca and Medina. Together they place Saudi Arabia at the intersection of international supplies of energy and transnational Muslim publics. At the same time, China is a major consumer of oil and home to a sizable Muslim minority. China is the world’s second largest net importer of oil and second biggest buyer of oil from Saudi Arabia. The United States is first in both categories though in 2011 China may well surpass it as Saudi Arabia’s biggest customer. There are somewhere between 23 and 30 million Muslims in China making it the 18th largest Muslim population in the world. Beyond the economic interdependency that the two states forge around energy and the compromises they make on the status of Muslims in China, the politics of this bilateral relationship supposedly flow from two main issues of political security: China’s military influence in the Gulf through increased sales of weaponry and material to Saudi Arabia and the complexity of the ties between Saudi Arabia and China as a strategic counterweight to the United States in the Gulf. I carefully assess these possibilities and conclude that they can be easily overstated. The business of oil is real and I use recent data on bilateral trade and investment between Saudi Arabia and China to document the vibrancy of the relationship’s economic side. But we must be careful before assuming political influence or leverage to accrue to either partner or to the partnership combined. Perception of alternatives differs in markets for energy and security. In the real world, the former offers a greater sense of opportunity; the latter a greater sense of constraint for militarily dependent states like Saudi Arabia.