【英文】国际事务研究院报告：中国的宏伟愿景与波斯湾（20页）

It is assumed that after the People’s Republic of China (PRC) became a net  hydrocarbons importer in 1993 it “discovered” the Persian Gulf subregion and its  importance to global energy fows. But in reality, China’s awareness of the subregion  has much deeper roots that can be traced back to the 1955 Bandung conference,  which eventually paved the way to the creation of the Non-Aligned Movement,  and the celebration of liberation movements therein. China’s involvement in  Yemen, and its support for the Dhofar rebellion in the late 1960s and early 1970s,  were the precursors to a much deeper engagement with such countries as Kuwait,  but most importantly regional power Iran, which established relations with the  PRC in 1971. 

It is worth noting that China’s largest investment market in the 1980s  was in fact Iraq. China’s secret transfer of ballistic missiles to Saudi Arabia in the  1980s and its military relationship with the Islamic Republic of Iran were perhaps  the clearest signs of China’s arrival as a critical infuence. Indeed, China’s military  reach into the Persian Gulf and the wider region is today far more extensive than  it has ever been. But it was energy that proved to be transformative. With about  one-third of its oil imports coming from the small group of Gulf Arab monarchies,  China’s thirst for oil since the mid-1990s has arguably expanded, indeed deepened,  its interactions with the Persian Gulf states. The PRC’s relations with the Gulf states have developed to become among the  most economically, politically and strategically signifcant of China’s relations in  the wider region.