Just as it happens sometimes that you unaccustomedly draw very close to a person or place in a short period of time, so too can this happen with nations. Suddenly they not only shine and impress but also occupy all your thoughts. This is China today. Its presence at any place and time these days probably comes as a surprise to no one. The old Chinese riddle is no longer an enigma in world politics. Obviously, it asserts a powerful presence in its own region in East and Southeast Asia. But it also in the process of establishing a formidable presence in Africa, South America and the Middle East, while in Europe and North America its products leave little room for the competition. The first meeting with China, this week, was different. This was not just a meeting with a world power, in every sense of the word. On top of this there is a direct connection between this world power and our conditions in the Middle East. The link is to be found in plummeting oil prices. One could come up with a dozen reasons for this, but prime among them you will find that the slump in the Chinese economic growth rate to 6.7 per cent was an instrumental factor in the decline in global demand. True, other countries have lowered their demand for oil. But the Chinese economic beast is unlike all other economic beasts. With a mere one per cent rise in the Chinese growth rate, its thirst for oil makes a huge impact on the world market. Meetings with China today are different because in earlier times meetings were shaped not by its economic growth, but also by its Maoist, communist and revolutionary ideology. In those days, China was a threat to the entire world order and all were praying for it to go away. Today, every country in the world that consumes Chinese goods or exports its raw materials to China is eager to reassure itself of China's economic wellbeing. In a way, the enormous Chinese growth during the past quarter of a century — that at certain times reached as high as 13 per cent — virtually became a fact of life. Everyone had come to take it for granted and imagined that things would always be this way. The meeting with China, this time, has departed from the familiar because the world, including oil producing nations, now needs to realise that China is on its way to become a “normal” country like other countries, whose growth rates rise and fall due to a large range of factors, some domestic and others global. Change has manifested itself in the nature of the Chinese people and the Chinese economic growth experience. The effects could be seen clearly in the meeting held with a group of Chinese experts in economy and socio-political science. After a quarter of a century of rapid and sustained growth, that generalised image of the poor Chinese man or woman toiling for a meagre wage, which made their goods and services internationally competitive, has faded. The Chinese have developed high aspirations and many consumer thirsts. Meanwhile, poverty in China has been reduced to around seven per cent of the populace, or about 70 million people. This means that the bulk of the population interweaves with the most educated and technologically skilled middle classes. The upshot of all of this is that China has turned from an investment recipient to an investment-exporting nation. It has also turned from a country that cared little about environmental factors and that had become the world's number one polluter and causer of global warming to a country making the shift to clean industries that limit their carbon emissions. But perhaps the most important gift that China has to offer the world is its experience in fighting and almost eradicating poverty. The Chinese experts in the meeting mentioned that their country had tried the most commonly used methods such as subsidies, assistance programmes and grants to the poor, but returns were minor if not non-existent. They discovered that success in China, and in its poorest villages in particular, always began with infrastructure. The village that has good roads, electricity, clean water, a proper waste and wastewater disposal system, and a smart electronic infrastructure is the village that will be eager for education, progress and will escape the cycle of poverty. Quite simply, China, according to its experts, is experiencing the same phase that developed nations passed through. This is why its economic relations with developing nations, in particular, have begun to change. Whereas it once was interested in primary materials in their crude form, such as oil from Sudan or granite from Egypt, it now is ready to provide refineries and the required technology, for the former, and manufacturing plants equipped with modern cutting and polishing machinery for the latter. In other words, contrary to its custom in the past, China is now keen to create a kind of mutual dependency with other nations. Whereas, historically, its relations with others were based on ideology in the era of Mao Zedong, and on rapid gain in subsequent eras, it now seeks to forge complementary relations, but on the condition that the other side — Egypt, for example — is ready to furnish security for economic facilities, an appropriate investment climate at the highest standards, and effective infrastructure with, above all, a high-speed, high-capacity electronic infrastructure. There must also be an appropriate, rapid and just legislative framework. The conditions or specifications that China wants its prospective partners to meet are no different from those that developed nations, international organisations and transnational companies demand. As an emergent global power, China has problems of a geopolitical nature in its Asian region and with virtually all its neighbours in the South China Sea. But the Chinese are not keen to speak about global conflicts. They are ready to listen, of course, but they are people of few words. This is not due to lack of interest, but rather because it is not the right time yet. This was evident in the third Chinese visit to the region, which brought Chinese President Xi Jinping to Riyadh, Cairo and Tehran. Not much news has been broadcast on this visit, which featured many of the courtesies attendant to close and historic ties, and consistent with Chinese customs. However, it looks like the visit came at exactly the right time for all three capitals. Beijing wants to get a better feel for circumstances at the highest levels in a region that teems with strategic dangers and regional and civil wars, but that also serves as the Chinese economy's passageway to Europe, Africa and the Middle East. Above all, this region (and Saudi Arabia in particular) is China's primary source of oil. In this regard, China does not necessarily place itself at equal distances from Arab countries and Iran, as the economic and political weight of the two sides is not equal. Iran, which signed the nuclear agreement with China in its capacity as a member of the P5+1 group, has an importance for Beijing that should not be overlooked. In all events, the three meetings point to Chinese openness to the Middle East, one that requires care and attention. It also requires greater knowledge about Chinese affairs, or at least we need to know considerably more than we do at present. The writer is chairman of the board, CEO, and director of the Regional Centre for Strategic Studies.
