The beginning of China's active policy in the Middle East is generally linked to the Bandung Conference (April 1955), at which Chinese and Arab leaders met for the first time. This meeting led to cultural, economic and eventually diplomatic relations between Peking and several Arab countries. Yet the origins of the Chinese communists’ Middle Eastern policy can be traced back to the early 1940s, long before the Bandung Conference or even the establishment of the PRC.

The origins of China's Middle Eastern policy

It was during World War n that Mao and his colleagues became fully aware of the strategic importance of the Middle East. In 1941–2 they first realised that the control of this area by hostile powers could determine the fate of the world, as well as the survival of the Chinese communist movement and China's future as a national and independent entity. Seemingly isolated from the rest of the world in Yenan's caves and preoccupied with the Japanese and the Kuomintang (KMT), Mao and the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) leaders, nonetheless, observed the international situation very carefully.

In the spring of 1941, and then the summer and autumn of 1942, some anxiety about German control of the Middle East could be detected in Chinese communist publications. With the collapse of the Allied offensive in the Balkans in April–May 1941, the whole of southern Europe fell to the Germans. The next target was the Middle East. Syria, then under a French Mandate, had already submitted to the Vichy Government which had been collaborating with Germany. Then, in early April, a pro-German clique, headed by Rashid ‘All al-Kaylani, seized power from the pro-British government in Iraq.