III. Opportunities for sustainable development of China-Arab Expo
The world today is undergoing unprecedented profound transformation. The post-COVID-19 era has had and will continue to have a complex and profound impact on the way individuals, organizations and countries interact. New forms of business, new models and new industries that have accelerated since the pandemic outbreak will shape new growth points for economic globalization and forge closer ties in the restructuring process. Currently, the growing backlash against economic globalization and populist are prominent, global economy posts negative growth, and the global total supply and total demand are shrinking, in such a context, China accelerates the building of a new development paradigm, in which domestic and overseas markets reinforce each other, with the domestic market as the mainstay, keeps exports growing at a strong pace, signs the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP) with the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN), completes the Bilateral Investment Treaty (BIT) negotiation, and ensures the sustained and rapid growth of China-Arab economic and trade relations. All of those actions will provide a strong driving force for promoting global economic recovery and jointly building a China-Arab community with a shared future in the new era. In general, the policy support for the China-Arab Expo at the national level will remain stable, and the Expo will face both opportunities and challenges with a great promise.
First, China-Arab strategic partnership is running at a high level. The institutionalized level of diplomatic tie between China and Arab countries as a whole will soon be upgraded to the level of state leaders or heads of government. According to the differential management of China's total diplomacy with regional countries, the current institutionalization degree of China's total diplomacy with Arab countries is in the type of strategic forum, second only to that with ASEAN, EU and CEEC. Amman Declaration of the 9th Ministerial Meeting of the CASCF explicitly pointed out that "to further strengthen 'comprehensive cooperation and common development, and future-oriented China-Arab strategic partnership', to realize common development and mutual benefit, to develop an new era of China-Arab community of a shared future, to contribute to the building of a global community with a shared future for mankind, and to submit the topic to the future China-Arab Summit." This marks that China and Arab countries have basically completed the strategic development goals of building strategic mutual trust and expanding partnership, and the new development goals for the future of comprehensively deepening Belt and Road cooperation and expanding mutually beneficial cooperation in politics, economy and trade in an all-round way have taken shape. If the institutionalization degree of total diplomacy between China and Arab countries is upgraded from "strategic forum" to "summit", it will promote more positive changes in China-Arab strategic partnership. For one thing, China regards the LAS as an important partner in boosting China-Arab relations, and may promote the establishment of the "22+1" cooperation mechanism with the LAS in the future, so as to form a multi-dimensional cooperation framework led by the China-Arab Summit (Leaders' Meeting) and supported by ministerial meetings, senior officials' meetings, ambassador-level meetings and special working groups eventually. For another, the scale and effectiveness of exchanges between China and Arab countries on state governance experience are expected to be further advanced, which is of key significance to China's participation in the governance of economy, society and people's livelihood in the Middle East and the formation of more visible results. And finally, an implementation mechanism for promoting practical cooperation between China and Arab countries in various fields may be established in due course, and the bilateral high-level joint commission is expected to expand, which will help improve the coordination and implementation capabilities of China and Arab countries at all levels.
Second, China is accelerating the construction of a new development paradigm featuring dual circulation. Despite all the uncertainty, the international economic connectivity and communication still are the objective requirements for global economic development, and it is a long-term trend for countries to work in cooperation with due division of labor for mutual benefits, which inevitably require China to adhere to the organic interconnection of opening up both externally and internally and rely on its big market to promote the economic cycle between China and Arab countries, and all of this is also integral to China's construction of the new development paradigm. For one thing, from the Arab side's perspective, the profound adjustment and evolution of the international landscape and new changes in the Middle East situation have prompted countries in the region to think more deeply about their national governance and development paths rooted in traditional history and culture. The wealthier Arab gulf states have formulated national development strategies to promote economic diversification, while increasing employment and improving people's livelihood have become urgent problems for most low- and middle-income Arab countries. Strengthening South-South cooperation with China and other developing countries has become a rational choice for all Arab countries to seek governance in the process of change. For another, from China's point of view, China has the most complete and largest industrial system, sophisticated supporting capacity, top-notch infrastructure construction capacity in the world, world-recognized experience and achievements in poverty alleviation, relatively advanced agricultural production and soil improvement technologies, as well as complex resources for South-South cooperation, such as the BeiDou Navigation Satellite System, "5G", artificial intelligence, industrial Internet, Internet of Things and other "new infrastructure construction". In the wake of COVID-19, China and Arab countries have made joint efforts to fight the pandemic, and the strategic partnership between China and Arab countries has been deepened in the response to the pandemic. The UAE was the first foreign country to conduct Phase III trials of a Chinese vaccine. Sheikha Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum, Vice-President and Prime Minister of the UAE and ruler of Dubai, and several UAE government officials have got China's Sinopharm COVID-19 vaccine, built the Middle East Vaccine Center in cooperation with China, and strove to expand bilateral trade volume to USD 200 billion by 2030. To strengthen China-Arab cooperation and boost smooth economic cycle and industrial links between the two sides are in line with the common development interests and people's well-being. It is also a long-term trend that needs to be recognized and grasped.
Third, China and Arab countries have great potential for economic and trade cooperation in the post-COVID-19 era. The Regional Economic Outlook: Middle East and Central Asia, released by the International Monetary Fund (IMF) on October 20, 2020, shows that the real GDP of economic entities in the Middle East are likely to remain below the level before crisis for a decade as the region was hit by a "double-whammy" of the pandemic and the resulting sharp decline in oil prices. The market becomes the scarcest resource. By leveraging its advantages as a super-large market, China will provide the Arab world with broader market opportunities, attract products and resources from Arab countries through domestic circulation, and drive the economic recovery and growth of Arab countries. In 2020, China-Arab trade volume reached USD 240 billion, and China remains the largest trading partner of Arab countries. Key projects of Belt and Road cooperation were resumed in an orderly way. Cooperation in high and new technologies is thriving. China's crude oil imports amounted to 542.386 million tons, an increase of 7.3% year on year. Saudi Arabia, Iraq, Oman, UAE, Kuwait and other countries became China's top ten sources of crude oil imports. The outlook for the Gulf states in 2021 depends largely on the demand for their energy from Asia's major economic entities. China Council for the Promotion of International Trade (CCPIT) has successfully held the China-UAE Economic and Trade Digital Expo in cooperation with relevant authorities of the UAE, and it has become a propeller for the steady growth of China-UAE trade and investment. Furthermore, the 9th Ministerial Meeting of the CASCF was held via video on July 6, 2020. During the forum, the Joint Statement of China and Arab States on Solidarity against COVID-19 was issued, and important consensus was reached on anti-epidemic cooperation and promotion of economic recovery after the pandemic. Chinese domestic COVID-19 vaccines have been administered in the UAE, Egypt, Bahrain, Kuwait, Jordan, Saudi Arabia and other Arab countries gradually, and this is significant for the construction and development of China's overseas economic and trade cooperation zones or industrial parks in Saudi Arabia, Egypt, the UAE, Oman and other countries, as well as the resumption of normal life and work in Arab countries.
Fourth, the cooperation of local governments becomes an internal driving force for high-quality Belt and Road cooperation. The Belt and Road Initiative is a strategic measure to expand opening-up and a top-level design for economic diplomacy. Since the Belt and Road Initiative for China and Arab countries was proposed at the 6th Ministerial Meeting of the CASCF in 2014, China and Arab countries have seen increasingly close high-level exchanges, enhanced political mutual trust, expanded areas of cooperation and more results of practical cooperation. China has signed cooperation documents with 19 Arab countries under the Belt and Road Initiative, including Saudi Arabia, Sudan, Iraq, Oman, Qatar, Kuwait, Lebanon, Egypt and Morocco, and industrial capacity cooperation documents with five Arab countries, namely the UAE, Algeria, Saudi Arabia, Sudan and Egypt. Seven Arab countries - the UAE, Saudi Arabia, Jordan, Oman, Qatar, Kuwait and Egypt - have become founding members of the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB). At the local level, the implementation of national strategy requires the well-coordinated steps of local governments and enterprises, and "provincial and national docking" and "market-oriented cooperation" have become the main modes for local governments to integrate into the Belt and Road Initiative. Take international cooperation on industrial capacity for example, China has set up 17 overseas economic and trade cooperation zones or industrial parks in Egypt, the UAE, Saudi Arabia, Morocco and other Arab countries, and the main enterprises in the zones include both large state-owned enterprises and private enterprises. Along the deep involvement of local governments and enterprises in Belt and Road cooperation, on the one hand, positive contributions have been made to the implementation of national strategy, and on the other hand, valuable experience has been accumulated in "going out" to expand international economic and trade cooperation, and driving the export of the entire industrial chain of products, projects, technologies and services of local enterprises has become an endogenous driving force for mutually beneficial cooperation between China and Arab countries in all areas.
Fifth, joint construction of a Green Silk Road becomes a new driving force for practical cooperation between China and Arab countries in various fields. Joint construction of a Green Silk Road is an important international initiative proposed by China to participate in global climate and environmental governance and practice the environment-friendly development model. China gives particular attention to ecological progress and environment-friendly development model, and actively seeks to promote through international cooperation. As early as 2012, the central leadership has incorporated ecological progress in the Five-sphere Integrated Plan for advancing socialism with Chinese characteristics, and has included "building a socialist ecological civilization led by the CPC" in the CPC constitution. In March 2018, the environment-friendly development model was written into the Amendment to the Constitution of the People's Republic of China. In 2019, China's investment in renewable energy accounted for 23% of the global total, making it the world's largest investor in renewable energy. In 2020, China proposed to achieve the goals of carbon peak by 2030, carbon neutrality by 2060, and decoupling energy and power development from carbon and decoupling economic and social development from carbon emissions ("double decoupling"). In international cooperation, the Chinese government focuses on policy communication and mechanism construction, has successively promulgated the "Belt and Road Ecological and Environmental Cooperation Plan", "Guidance on Promoting Green Belt and Road", and actively built the BRI Environmental Big Data Platform and the BRI International Green Development Coalition. Arab countries have actively introduced development strategies to develop non-oil industries, increase investment in green economy and improve ecological environment, such as "Vision 2030" of Saudi Arabia, the UAE and Bahrain and "Vision 2035" of Algeria and Kuwait. China and Arab countries have tremendous potential for cooperation in desertification prevention and control, clean energy, international industrial cooperation, green infrastructure, green trade and green finance, in which some projects and development plans are of exemplary significance. For example, in May 2020, unit 1 of Hassyan "4×600MW" clean coal-fired power station, Dubai, contracted by Harbin Electric Corporation was successfully connected to the grid, becoming the first clean coal-fired power project made in China in the Middle East. The Egyptian government plans to increase the proportion of electricity generated from clean energy to 40% by 2035.
Yang Zishi is a PhD student in Ningxia University.
This article is an excerpt from "The value, significance and development opportunities of the China-Arab States Expo" (original title "China-Arab States Expo: Origin, Contribution and Outlook"), which was published in West Asia and Africa, No. 4, 2021.
This English version is for reference only. To learn more, please refer to the authoritative Chinese version.
