Factors Influencing China’s Oil Diplomacy in the Middle East

Seyedashkan Madani, Seyedjavad Khoshghalb Toosi and Ali Gholizadeh
Additional contact information
Seyedashkan Madani: School of International and Public Affairs, Shanghai Jiao Tong University, Shanghai, China
Seyedjavad Khoshghalb Toosi: School of Public Affairs, Shanghai International Studies UniversityChina (SISU), Shanghai, China
Ali Gholizadeh: School of Public Affairs, University of Science and Technology of China (USTC), Hefei, China

The Journal of Social Sciences Research, 2020, vol. 6, issue 10, 890-899

Abstract: Even though China extracts oil more than any other country in the Asia-Pacific region, the country is still hugely dependent on imports, and this dependence increases with each passing year. In recent years, the need for import of oil in China had risen from 35% in 2000 to 70% in 2017. Today, the People’s Republic of China mainly buys crude oil in the Middle East and political change in the region directly influence on Chinese foreign policy. In this study, we examined four critical factors that influence china’s oil diplomacy in the Middle East. Accordingly, Arab spring events, OPEC, China foreign policies and strategies, and influence of the U.S. in the region have direct or indirect effects on china’s oil diplomacy. China’s historical reaction to these factors is remarkable and made its energy security strategies in the Middle east. This study shows that the events of the Arab Spring hurt China’s oil diplomacy with the middle East countries. The developments taking place in the Middle East from the beginning of the Arab Spring have led to an increase in world oil prices. For China, this meant higher import bills and a reduction in the trade surplus, as well as slower economic growth, as the contribution of net exports decreased. OPEC market controlling strategies let China thinks to other oil producers, and oil exports from the Middle East reduced in front of increasing imports from other regions. U.S. as hegemon of the area somehow made steady pressure on China alliance, especially after making sanctions on Iran due to its nuclear programs. During the trade war between the two countries, the influence of the U.S. on China oil diplomacy more appeared.

Keywords: China oil diplomacy; OPEC; Arab spring; China foreign policy; China-US relations; The Middle East (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2020
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.arpgweb.com/pdf-files/jssr6(10)890-899.pdf (application/pdf)
https://www.arpgweb.com/journal/7/archive/10-2020/10/6 (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:arp:tjssrr:2020:p:890-899

Access Statistics for this article

The Journal of Social Sciences Research is currently edited by Dr. Paola Magnano

More articles in The Journal of Social Sciences Research from Academic Research Publishing Group Rahim Yar Khan 64200, Punjab, Pakistan.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Managing Editor ().