Noninterference and assistance best for Middle East
At the Xiangshan Forum in Beijing last year, an ex-journalist of Al Jazeera asked me why China couldn't fill the power vacuum in the Middle East. China can be accepted by all parties, he said, because "unlike Western powers, China's hands are clean".
He is not alone in saying something like that.
Today, China's stake in the Middle East goes far beyond oil imports, and covers infrastructure, trade and investment, nuclear energy, satellite launches, and aerospace cooperation, among other things. But one only needs to look at Syria to know there is no such thing as a power vacuum in the Middle East. Instead chaos spreads unabatedly. It only brings in more rivalry, both from within and from outside. True, China's hands are clean. But would they still be clean if China became involved militarily?
