【英文】德国国际安全事务研究所报告：中国的地缘政治之路：中国伊朗政策个案研究（38页）

英文研究报告 2022年03月18日 06:52 管理员

China’s first key interest in the region is therefore to secure its energy supply. The country’s demand for oil is enormous and is substantially met with oil from the Middle East – up to half of the crude oil imported by China comes from there. In 2019, a total of 43 countries supplied crude oil to the PRC, including nine Middle Eastern countries that provided 44.8 per cent of China’s crude oil imports.6 The second key interest is export markets for the Chinese economy.

Accordingly, China has expanded trade with the Middle East and become a major economic partner and investor. According to the Direction of Trade Statistics (DOTS) of the International Monetary Fund (IMF), in 2020 China’s largest trading partners (imports and exports) in the Middle East were Saudi Arabia with over US$67 billion (equivalent to 1.4 per cent), the United Arab Emirates (UAE) with nearly US$49.3 billion (1.1 per cent) and Iraq with over US$30 billion (0.6 per cent). The trade balance with Iran amounted to just under US$15 billion (see Chart 1, p. 9). At the heart of China’s growing economic presence in the region is the Chinese Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), which primarily aims to open local markets to Chinese trade actors and secure a diversified oil supply.