The Yellow Dragon in Warm Waters: the Strategic Interests of China in Persian Gulf

Subject Areas :

Saeed Voosoghi ¹ , Mojtaba Gholipour ² , Atefeh Darab Zadeh ³

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Received: 2013-03-15 Accepted : 2013-07-15 Published : 2013-09-01

Keywords: Persian Gulf, China, Energy, strategic interests, economic interests, commercial,

Abstract :

The foreign policy behavior of the countries at the international level more than anything is the reflection of pursuit of national interests; the way they perceive it. Therefore, for understanding the behavior of a particular government towards a particular region, best way is to identify the long term and short term interests of that country in the said region on the basis of the capabilities and limitations of that government on the one side and the pull and push factors of the region on the other side. On the basis of such understanding of foreign relations of a country, the paper wants to study the nature of the interests of China in the Persian Gulf region. The study come to the conclusion that there are three areas in which there is linkage of China’s interests with the countries of the of Persian Gulf region. These three areas are viz. the issue of energy priority, political, military-strategic linkage and eventually economic-commercial interests. The authors believe that from the ontological viewpoint these three areas are inseparable and interconnected. Therefore, such differentiation takes place merely for analytical purpose and for having a clearer understanding of the subject. The methodology used in the present paper is qualitative. However, while using data it makes use of both qualitative and quantitative data with library material collection approach. The finding of the study is that the foreign policy of China in the Persian Gulf region is dominantly an economic centered foreign policy and other priorities are subordinated to this main orientation.