China-Middle East Relations and China’s Energy Strategy

International Relations Colloquium of Pomona College and The Pacific Basin Institute present a lecture by Pan Guang.

A rising China impacts the world’s oil supply, and Sino-Middle Eastern relations continue to improve. What are the international implications of this shift in global geo-politics? On the whole, there are very good relations between China and the Middle East as China has established strategic partnerships with countries in the region. Economic and trade cooperation is an important force driving forward the fast growth of the Sino-Middle East relationship, the most strategic component of the Sino-Middle East economic and trade cooperation falling into the energy field. More and more close cooperation between China and the Middle East will surely produce an increasingly important impact on China’s Middle East policy, moving China to take a more active posture in the political and economic arena of the region. It can even be expected that China, to maintain its stable and friendly relations with Middle East countries, will, more likely than ever, act as a diplomatic mediator in trying to resolve certain longstanding conflicts in the region.

Pan Guang is the Director of and Professor at the Shanghai Center for International Studies and Institute of Eurasian Studies at the Shanghai Academy of Social Sciences; Director of the SCO (Shanghai Cooperation Organization) Studies Center in Shanghai; Dean of the Center of Jewish Studies Shanghai (CJSS); Vice Chairman of the Chinese Society of Middle East Studies; and Walter and Seena Fair Professor for Jewish and Israeli Studies.