NEW SILK ROAD—CHINA`S PRESENCE IN THE FUTURE EPICENTER OF GLOBAL POLITICS--- MIDDLE EAST

The Middle East is an area of secure political entities regardless of its turmoil. More so than, say, twentieth-century Europe or East Asia, its borders and component nations have remained mostly stable in recent times. Nearly 400 million people lived in the Middle East and North Africa at the start of the twenty-first century, spread among twenty-one states. Eighteen of these states in total were Arab, while three others were Turkish, Iranian, and Israeli, respectively. Other nations, historically and tactically distinct yet connected via commerce, culture, and belief, bordered it. The worldwide repercussions of these nations' internal political crises in the late 20th century have pushed the Balkans, Transcaucasia, Central Asia, Afghanistan, India, Pakistan, and the Horn of Africa closer to the Middle East.

Since China's economy has been expanding, its foreign policy objectives have continually been tied to the need to improve the living conditions of its enormous population in order to prevent social unrest brought on by poverty and a lack of employment and to maintain the trust of the administration. As a result, the main focus of Chinese foreign and domestic policy now is on promoting long-term economic expansion, notably in the energy sector. China has given preserving regional peace a high priority in order to further its economic reach. It has helped to resolve border conflicts and minimise maritime claims. It hasn't been entirely effective, though; there are still lots of disagreements. China started using the phrase "peaceful rise" in 2003, indicating that it didn't want to directly compete or engage with the US military. By pursuing several foreign alliances with other nations and institutions, it hopes to reduce American influence across the world. It has chosen to build a framework of less direct foreign accords rather than seek out formal alliances. Additionally, it has concentrated on collaborating with brand-new international organisations including the Forum on China-Africa Cooperation (FOCAC), the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO), and the Euro-Asian Council for Standardisation, Metrology, and Certification (EASC). China's dependence on its economic might and its disinterest in the internal affairs of other nations has benefited its interests and allowed China to gain strong footing beyond its borders.

A Muslim from Central Asia named Admiral Zheng He, led the Chinese fleet, which at its height in the fifteenth century had 300 ships and 30,000 soldiers, reached as far west as present-day Tanzania. The last missions of the admiral travelled to Iran and Mecca. However, following his final mission in 1432, China abruptly stopped its naval expeditions after realigning its national goals to prioritise internal problems and the landward danger from Central Asia. As a result, for many centuries later, China had little connection with or presence in the Middle East. However, the People's Republic of China began to demonstrate interest in the Middle East shortly after becoming independent in 1949. But ever since China became a significant economic force and its demand for energy resources increased in tandem, its businessmen and diplomats have progressively followed Zheng He's lead.

The historic land and marine Silk Roads were once the most significant geo-economic integration and cultural-religious tie prior to the advent of the West as they served as the pathways of trade, civilisation, and faith connecting China and Eurasian countries. The maritime Silk Road between China and the Middle East has been abandoned for centuries as western nations started along the path of modernity and increased their sea might. However, there are also indications that a "Modern Silk Road" connecting China's eastern coastline provinces to the Persian Gulf has been growing since the turn of the twenty-first century, reviving the two regions' long-forgotten commercial ties with the two-way flow of Middle Eastern oil and Chinese goods. The link between the oil-exporting area and the largest industrial hub in the world in the twenty-first century lends the term "Modern Silk Road" considerable geo-economic and geopolitical significance. Therefore, the political ramifications of such a trading relationship (particularly its effects for the West) are receiving more and more attention from western ruling classes. The massive investment made as part of the Developing the West initiative, which was started in 2000, raised the GDP of the Western provinces but did not succeed in closing the economic gap between them and the Eastern provinces. In actuality, the gaps widened.

China's picked low profile position, where its political commitments are limited to defending what it believes to be its primary preferences, is challenged by the country's rising economic and geopolitical size as well as its ongoing need for imported oil from the MENA region. Iran's nuclear talks provide as an illustration of the type of broader political and diplomatic engagement China may take.

As China benefited from modernisation and experienced rapid economic growth, the CCP focused its eyes on leading the world economy by pioneering the technologically advanced transformation and leading-edge sciences. The party designed a number of programmes and efforts that were crucial to Beijing's long-term objective of using a "whole-of-nation" approach to attain — which involves by dishonest, corrupt, and illegal means — an overwhelming lead over the United States and other advanced industrial countries as it built the second-largest economy in the world after the United States. China first commits widespread intellectual property theft. The PRC has stolen technical innovation and trade secrets from businesses, colleges, and the defence industries of the United States and other countries, carrying out the largest illegal wealth transfer in the history of mankind.

Furthermore, the new triangle structure of international commerce is replacing the conventional dual structure due to the explosive economic rise of China (East Asia). The term "triangular trade" was once used to describe the trade circulation in which European colonists shipped textiles, fruit wine, and groceries to Africa in exchange for slaves, sold slaves in America to purchase raw materials like gold and silver, cotton, and minerals, and then traded finished goods for additional slaves in Africa. Due to the involvement of three continents—Europe, America, and Africa—these economic operations were referred to as "triangular trade". However, consumers from North America and West Europe, producers from East Asian nations like China, and resource providers from Middle Eastern oil-producing nations are the key players in the new triangle trade. According to the new triangular circulation mechanism, producing nations import raw materials from resource nations and export finished goods to consuming nations, while supplying capital, technologies, and services to other nations while absorbing their trade surpluses and foreign exchange reserves. As a result, there is a distinct division of labour between the three parties: financing (money, capital), commodities (made items), and raw materials (bulk commodities).

On the contrary hand, China's import of raw materials and export of produced goods are progressively replacing the direct interchange of manufactured goods and raw materials between industrialised and developing nations. As a result, direct trading between resource producers and consumers is declining. As a consequence, China develops an intense need for bulk goods and must pay a heavy political, economic, and moral price for them. The United States continues to control China's economic interactions with a sizable number of developing nations, and the underlying framework of contemporary world politics and economics has not altered significantly over time. In other words, the "Modern Silk Road" between China and the Middle East is an obvious consequence of US dominance of the world.

The pricing power in the global commodities trade belongs to the West, in especially the United States. Bulk goods are supplied by one nation, consumed by another, and priced by a different nation. As an illustration, consider the global trade in crude oil. While East Asian nations like China and Japan are big oil users, they lack the price muscle along with Organisation of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC), which is mostly made up of Middle Eastern oil-producing nations.

The US-dominated international political security infrastructure serves as the foundation for the US' control over the price of bulk commodities, settlement currency, and trade routes. A number of economic, financial, and geopolitical agreements are credit-based on the nation's political and military might. Economy and politics are strongly related. In significant part, the petrodollar system is an external representation of the American-led Middle East political security framework. The Persian oil-producing nations depend on the US politically and militarily, just as the petrodollar is dependent on US financial power. The "Modern Silk Road" linking China and the Middle East is still a by product of the global political and economic system in place today.

The accord reached between Saudi Arabia and Iran to re-establish diplomatic and commercial connections is the most recent step in the Gulf region's geopolitical upheavals, which have been developing since January 2021. Iran and Saudi Arabia are seen by the Chinese as "pivot countries" in the region, whose political, economic, and military sway makes them crucial allies for Beijing. Maintaining a balance between the two is therefore the most important course of action. China is the biggest trading partner for both nations. However, there is a noticeable change in trading levels. China's role as a peacemaker between Saudi Arabia and Iran is not solely reactive. Instead, it is a reflection of Beijing's foreign policy's larger revision in favour of a more assertive global position. A diplomatic procedure that was almost complete has been neatly seized on by Xi and the Chinese Communist Party leadership, sealing it with the seal of a great power devoted to peace in the face of growing competition with Washington and the Gordian knot of the war in Ukraine.

Syria, Iraq, Lebanon, and Yemen have all been impacted by proxy conflicts between Iran and Saudi Arabia that have been going on for decades. There is now "an opportunity for increased and sustained dialogue that could help bridge these differences," even if the already-normalized relations between the two will not necessarily immediately resolve their significant geopolitical divisions. The revelation hinted to China's expanding sway in the Arab world. Politically as well as commercially, since it already sends a huge number of commodities to the Middle East and is the biggest buyer of Saudi oil. As succeeding American administrations have given the Middle East less of a priority, Saudi Arabia's and the UAE's leaders have made deliberate steps to broaden their foreign connections and move away from being unduly dependent on the U.S. I think it shows that the United States' influence and credibility in that area have declined, and that a new type of international regional alignment is emerging, giving both Russia and China unprecedented stature and importance.