Fluid Triangle: Shifting Cold War Alliances between Beijing, Moscow, and Washington in the Middle East

This chapter deals with the shifting Cold War alliances between Beijing, Moscow, and Washington in the Middle East. Nearly three decades after the end of the Cold War, Beijing appears to have learned an important lesson with regard to its international behavior. In the Cold War period, China’s foreign policy and international behavior were “non-Chinese” in the sense that Mao’s China looked at the global system through a black-and-white, friend-or-foe, prism. As the Cold War blocs disintegrated along with the Soviet Union, China’s new leadership was ready to expand and improve relations with all countries, including former “foes,” as well as with the United States and Russia. This chapter aims at analyzing China’s shifting roles in the Cold War and afterward, as they are reflected in the Middle East. This region is remote from China’s “core interests,” in many respects, and indeed, most, if not all, China scholars and watchers treat Beijing’s policies in East Asia and in West Asia as two separate issues. Nonetheless, in China’s global perception, these two regions are linked, even interdependent.