Sun Bigan’s unavoidable clashes comment

I’ve finally tracked down a copy of Sun Bigan’s article that refers to unavoidable conflict between China and the United States in the Middle East. The article was published in the Chinese-language “Asia and Africa Review”. The quote was first referred to in an editorial by Lebanon’s Daily Star and, later, in article by Robert Fisk for the UK’s The Independent.

But the rest of the article makes for compelling reading. Sun is China’s former Special Envoy to the Middle East. He is also an Arabic speaker and former Chinese ambassador to Saudi Arabia, Iraq, and Iran. Sun retired earlier this year and so enjoys greater freedom to speak his mind. And that makes him worth listening to.

Here is the full quote, “Obama’s new Middle East policy is only a strategic change. Yet America’s global goals and hegemonic complex cannot change. America always tries to hold the world’s main oil ‘switch’. There is thus competition and cooperation between China and America. In particular, America views China as a strategic competitor. And bilateral discord and clashes are unavoidable. China must not drop its guard in the Middle East over its oil interests and security”.

I am also struck by Sun’s concerns that America intends to monopolize the Middle East’s oil industry. He states that oil was central to the invasion of Iraq and “it can be expected that America will exert itself to firmly control Iraqi oil in its hands”. He also worries that if relations between America and Iran were to improve, then American and other Western oil companies will “swarm” Iran. And that Iran will strive for its “maximum self-interests”.

It is these insecurities that do much to explain Sun’s worries about unavoidable conflict between China and America, while also hint that China’s relationship with Iran is perhaps less robust than it is often portrayed.