China must not join West's actions against IS

There is no reason for China to join Western countries in the "war" against the Islamic State group no matter what the Western media say, because it has a far smaller stake than the West in the Middle East. The Western media say China should join the United States and its European allies to take on the IS, which is wreaking havoc in the Middle East, because it has a lot of interests in the region's oil exporters. They claim that since China is the biggest importer of oil from Iraq and other countries, it will suffer serious losses if it does not join Western efforts to restore normalcy in the Middle East.

But the fact is that, Western countries have far greater interest in the region than China in terms of politics, economics and culture. China could politically support the action against the IS, and offer logistics and even intelligence help, but it should not send its armed forces to fight against the Islamic militants.

War enthusiasts argue that the oil supply to China will suffer and oil prices will shoot up because of the turmoil. But the potential threat can become reality only if the IS captures the oil fields and sabotage their production. Also, the oil supply in the global market has to suffer a severe setback for China's imports to be sabotaged.