5.31.2024
Lots of CASCF: Xi's speech, a strategic partnership for Syria, Iran behind the scenes, limited western media coverage, and a refinery for Kuwait.
Full text: President Xi's keynote speech at the opening ceremony of the 10th ministerial conference of the China-Arab States Cooperation Forum - Xinhua. If you don’t have the time or inclination to read the whole speech, Xinhua also put out this overview.
China’s Xi calls for peace conference to end ‘tremendous suffering’ in Gaza - Al Jazeera. The pull quotes from Xi’s speech: the war “should not continue indefinitely” and “justice should not be absent forever”. The material commitments from Beijing:
Xi said China would continue to help with alleviating the humanitarian crisis and post-war rebuilding in Gaza, pledging to provide another 500 million yuan ($69m) in emergency humanitarian assistance.
The country will also donate $3m to the United Nations agency for Palestinian refugees (UNRWA) to support its emergency assistance to Gaza, Xi said.
Big gap between the rhetorical and material support.
A lot of couverage on the UAE delegation to CASCF has come out over the past 24 hours.
UAE, China: Four decades of strategic partnership, collaboration - Zawya. An overview of the bilateral relationship with lots of details. This bit on FDI I found interesting because I’ve been thinking, talking and writing about China-Gulf investment a lot lately. Not sure where the data comes from but maybe a brilliant reader out there is willing and able to share reliable sources of investment flows:
From 2003 to 2023, UAE investments in China reached $11.9 billion across diverse sectors like telecommunications, renewable energy, transportation, hospitality, and rubber. Conversely, Chinese investments in the UAE totalled $7.7 billion during the same period.
UAE President participates in 10th Ministerial Meeting of the China-Arab States Cooperation Forum - Emirates News Agency. A press release that I found interesting just because of the more comprehensive list of delegation participants from the UAE:
Xi holds talks with UAE president - Xinhua. A detailed release from the Xi-MbZ meeting. Among the more interesting lines:
Mohamed said that he was very happy to once again visit China, his second hometown, and attend the opening ceremony of the 10th ministerial conference of the China-Arab States Cooperation Forum together with President Xi…
The UAE attaches great importance to developing relations with China, places China at the top of its diplomatic priority and regards China as a long-term and reliable strategic partner, he said, adding that the UAE is willing to take the 40th anniversary of the establishment of diplomatic ties as an opportunity to further deepen and expand cooperation in such areas as economy, trade, investment, energy, science and technology, education and culture.
President Sheikh Mohamed discusses trade relationship with China’s Xi Jinping in Beijing - The National. Coverage from the Emirates, not a lot of new details. Frankly, I’m a little surprised that we haven’t seen any big-ticket announcements, but those might come today as the delegation meets with their Chinese counterparts away from the Forum.
Other CASCF stuff:
Wang Yi: China-Syria strategic partnership features mutual trust and support - I’ll have to update my list of Chinese partnership agreements in MENA now that Syria has a strategic partnership. I’m not sure what this means, other than Syria rejoining the Arab League makes it easier for China to start working with Damascus more systematically. There hasn’t been a whole lot of action between the two, natural given war, instability, and high risk for Chinese SOEs that haven’t been enthusiastic about the Syrian market. I wrote about China’s strategic partnership diplomacy in the Gulf region in this excellent 2019 POMEPS collection edited by Marc Lynch and Amany Jamal; I think it holds up well. Last week Alyssa (Yixin) Chen wrote a great explainer for the SCMP on strategic partnerships that’s worth a read.
China May Withhold Support for UAE's Territorial Claim Against Iran - Iran International. Obviously, Iran isn’t participating directly in the Forum, but there’s still some interesting Iran content:
A diplomatic source close to the UAE-China negotiations told Iran International that Beijing has decided not to support the UAE's claim of ownership over the islands of Abu Musa, Greater Tunb, and Lesser Tunb at this meeting.
In exchange for this action, the Islamic Republic has promised to disrupt the development of the "International North-South Transport Corridor" project to slow down its progress… According to information received by Iran International, on the eve of the Arab-Chinese meeting, Beijing sent confidential messages to Tehran, stating that it is willing to refrain from recognizing the UAE's position on the sovereignty of the three islands in exchange for disruptions in the development of the North-South Corridor project.
Take it for what it’s worth. Seems a little off-beat; there’s plenty of bigger issues for Tehran to worry about than the insertion of the islands dispute in the joint communique. It did cause a pretty significant response in Iran when it was included in the Riyadh Summit from December 2022. With Iran in a very fragile state I suspect the last thing anyone in Tehran wants to see is a story about its most important partner supporting its rivals, so there might be something there.
Western media reporting on the CASCF have been surprisingly muted. I imagine their limited ability to operate in China has a lot to do with it, but I was still expecting more coverage. A sample of what I’ve come across so far:
Xi pledges more Gaza aid and talks trade at summit with Arab leaders - Washington Post.
Xi says China wants to work with Arab states to resolve hot spot issues - From Reuters.
And now for something completely different:
Kuwaiti emir officially inaugurates country's largest refinery facility - Nothing to do with CASCF, but a short bit on Kuwait, which like I mentioned earlier in the week, doesn’t feature frequently in China’s Middle East affairs. This Xinhua article about Kuwait’s Al Zour Refinery, which has a capacity of 615,000bpd, was built with “extensive participation of Chinese companies”:
Over half of the project contracts were awarded to Chinese companies. Notably, Sinopec Fifth Construction Company completed six refining units by 2021, while Sinopec Luoyang Engineering Company, acting as a general contractor, finalized 15 core units in 2019.
In other China-Kuwait news, a Chinese delegation was in Kuwait this week, which would explain the ‘Xinjiang is a wonderful land’ performance. From Kuwait Times:
The two sides held in-depth discussions, focusing on the necessity to cement technical, development and economic ties in the realm of executing mega development projects in Kuwait. Moreover, they addressed the need to offer proposals and the aspired perceptions for attaining aspirations of the supreme political leadership to press ahead with laying the foundations of a future plan to launch common strategic ventures, namely Mubarak Al-Kabeer Port.
I’ll file this one under ‘I’ll believe it when I see it.’ There was so much talk of China in the Silk City project between 2017-2019 and since then, not much movement.