EVENTS

Abstract 

Over the last few years, the rapidly expanding Chinese economy has dominated the headlines, producing a wide range of scholarly debates, articles, reports, opinion pieces, policy papers so on and so forth all over the world. In the meantime, Chinese business firms enter the global market and participated more aggressively in the global competition. Behind these developments, China has introduced various foreign policy initiatives in order to expand its outreach and presence across the world. Among the initiatives, China in the recent time has been pursuing a multi-pronged, ambitious global initiative known as ‘One Belt One Road’ popularly abbreviated as OBOR.

In this context, West Asia’s abundance of oil is at the core of China’s strategic calculation and primary reason for its increasing interest. Iran being a major exporter of oil, a long-time strategic ally and one of the major powers in the region has always been central to China’s West Asian foreign policy. While Iran’s oil wealth will remain a major factor driving China’s interest in that country, Iran’s location along major trade routes linking China to Europe and West Asia, and its proximity to the Persian Gulf is another major additional motivation underlying China’s OBOR initiative. This paper is an attempt to assess China’s multi-dimensional engagement in West Asia through OBOR by focusing on the centrality of Iran in order to present its implications in the region and elsewhere.

About the Speaker

Nongmaithem Kishorchand is Research Assistant at the Institute of Chinese Studies (ICS), New Delhi. He completed his MA in Politics (with specialization in International Relations) from the School of International Studies, Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi. He holds an MPhil degree from the Centre for West Asian Studies, JNU, where he also submitted his PhD thesis under title on Iran's Policy Towards China, 1997-2013.