China’ s Role in BRICS & Relevance to GCC-China Relations: Complementarities & Conflicting Interests

Abstract: BRICS is indeed viewed as one of the manifestations of ‘Rise of the Rest’ as against the West. In this milieu, China remains the main vehicle of this change in global transformations. Concurrently, GCC was seen broadly as a consortium of the era when the West required venturing with the oil producing countries. Nonetheless, there is potential for improvising connectivity between the GCC and the BRICS in the backdrop of complementarities and dealing with differences. This is true because, on one hand, BRICS is rapidly gaining a central control in international development and cooperation. While on the other hand, GCC countries remain the focal point of the world in terms of energy supplies. Their amalgam can further strengthen the place these blocs enjoy in the globe at large. Furthermore, with the ‘Dawn of the Asian Century’ , China is flexing its muscles as an economic giant quite aptly. Since the formulation of its policy of ‘opening up’ to the world, China has pursued a global agenda of connectivity and growth. Consequently, this rapid development is in consonance with unrestricted energy supply. This is where the GCC countries, especially Saudi Arabia as a major oil exporting country to China, play an important part. In fact, the very rise of BRICS coincides with a radical change in its relations with other countries, specifically with the GCC. For instance, China has succeeded in displacing traditional economic powers, such as Japan, the EU and the US, from the list of the GCC’ s largest trading partners over the past five years. China has also been successful in completing joint strategic agreements, demonstrated most recently by the Chinese-Kuwaiti joint investment of $9 billion (Dh33.05 billion) in petrochemicals and oil products. In this regard, this article aims at answering questions like, can this makeup be interpreted as a more strengthened China-GCC relations? What are the complementarities of both China and the GCC in the realm of political, social, economic and security affairs? And are there any conflicting interests?