A confluence of interests
China and Muslim countries have plenty of reasons to develop an engaging partnership
In its endeavor for a global community of shared future, China over the years has brought the world the Belt and Road Initiative, the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation mechanism and the Forum on China-Africa Cooperation among other things. The Muslim countries have great potential for inclusive cooperation in the mechanisms.
An ineluctable inclusiveness is emerging in China’s BRI economic projects that can encompass all the Muslim economies in Asia. Indeed Chinese President Xi Jinping happened to unveil both the Silk Road Economic Belt and the 21st Maritime Silk Road in Muslim countries, the first in Kazakhstan in September 2013, and the other in October 2013 in Indonesia with the world’s largest single-nation Muslim population.
Collectively, the Asian Muslim economies, either rich or developing, are simultaneously large consumer markets as well as suppliers of raw materials. So it is obvious that China and the Asian slice of the Muslim world cannot shrug off each other for practical benefits on either side.
On regionalism, the SCO has been fostering closer ties between China and the regional Muslim countries. It is believed by some that in the wake of growing unilateralism by the United States after the end of the Cold War, SCO is an attempt to bring the Far East and Central Asia together for lasting stability and peace.
Therefore, while maintaining traditional relations with the West, the Muslim countries may find SCO more attractive to increase their collective power for global balance.
And on globalism, the Chinese-led BRICS initiative (comprising Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa) as well as the China-Africa cooperation agenda to represent the global East and South cannot bypass the vast majority of Muslim economies, people and societies that fall within the arena.
If BRICS is taken to represent an Eastward movement of civilizational cycle from the West, the Muslim world is bound to march with BRICS due to geographical and civilizational proximities.
Throughout history, the Muslim world has been partnering with China for mutual development not only of each other, but also of Europe and Africa.
Apart from China’s ever increasing trade deals, China depends heavily for gas and petroleum on Muslim countries in the Arab peninsula, Iran and Central Asia. The South and Southeast Asian Muslim countries are also huge raw material suppliers as well as markets for Chinese industrial products.
In return, Chinese policies on foreign aid and exchange are generally dominated by partnership, political equality, and win-win cooperation in contrast with the Western policies of conditionalities and imposition of sanctions on countries like Iran, Sudan and Syria on political grounds.
The Christian West tends to treat its relation with the Muslim world in terms of civilizational conflict, while China looks at such relations from cooperation perspective. Therefore, China’s relations are based on nonintervention in domestic affairs, an approach that makes it more popular and acceptable in the Muslim countries as a reliable partner for development.
However, the Muslim world is now more divided over the role of the West due to the latter’s successive devastation of Iraq, Afghanistan, Libya, Syria and Yemen, and continuous denial of emancipation from Western-backed authoritarianism and a solution to Israeli occupation of Palestine.
For political stability the Muslim world is in search of a more reliable partner. If the civilizational cycle of the past two and a half millennia is to renew, then it is logical that the next civilizational candidate is China which needs supporting sojourners.
All these and other indicators only strengthen the age-old ChinaMuslim world inter-acquaintance and relationship further. In the contemporary time, China as a leading power in the eastward shift of civilizational cycle is acquiring the trust of the Muslim countries for being non-interventionist in their domestic affairs.
Clearly, the Muslim world might increasingly find China as a reliable partner in both development and politics. If the present trend continues, then the durable tradition of Islamic-Confucian bonds and a greater partnership building will apparently be more plausible for each other’s interests.