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Tras la Primavera Árabe, en el plano geopolítico de Oriente Próximo, la progresiva retirada de Estados Unidos (EEUU) de la región ha sido una de las cuestiones más tratadas por la academia, por lo que los países de la zona se han visto en la necesidad de buscar alianzas alternativas a EEUU para proteger su seguridad territorial, política, económica y diplomática. Ante este vacío, otras potencias exteriores han ido emergiendo con el objetivo de ocupar ese rol que antaño ostentaba EEUU como potencia hegemónica en la región, como Turquía, Rusia o Israel. Sin embargo, ninguno de estos países ha llegado a consolidarse completamente como tal, por lo que en los últimos tiempos observamos que un nuevo actor ha puesto el foco en la región: China.El gigante asiático se ha constituido en la última década en una potencia en busca de recursos y alianzas, pero cuyo modus operandi difiere del que tradicionalmente ha seguido EEUU. Si los norteamericanos se centraban en tener presencia principalmente militar sobre el terreno, la política exterior china se centra en herramientas de tipo econó-mico, diplomático o comercial, y con una política mucho más permisiva y tolerante con la idiosincrasia de los países de la zona, algo mucho más atractivo para estos. En este artículo vamos a analizar cómo estos medios de influencia van a afectar o no a la distribución del poder en el plano regional, y qué consecuencias entraña.Finalmente llegamos a la conclusión de que el objetivo de China no es tanto alterar el equilibrio de poder a su favor, sino hacer un uso instrumental del mismo que favorezca sus intereses. Desde el punto de vista metodológico uti-lizamos una revisión descriptiva de la situación apoyándonos especialmente en literatura especializada de autores de origen chino y en parte autores tradicionales de las Relaciones Internacionales occidentales, así como en datos de carácter cuantitativo principalmente de fuentes abiertas para analizar cada una de las dimensiones que soportan nuestro estudio.
Following the Arab Spring, in the geopolitical sphere of the Middle East, the progressive withdrawal of the US from the region has been one of the issues most discussed by academia, and the countries of the region have found it necessary to seek alternative alliances to the US in order to protect their territorial, political, economic and diplomatic security. Faced with this vacuum, other external powers have been emerging with the aim of occupying the role once held by the US as the hegemonic power in the region, such as Turkey, Russia and Israel. However, none of these countries has been able to fully consolidate itself as the hegemonic power in the region, so that in recent times a new power has come into focus in the region: China. In the last decade, the Asian giant has become a power in search of resources and alliances, but its modus operandi differs from that traditionally followed by the US. While the Americans focused on having a mainly military presence on the ground, China's foreign policy focuses on economic, diplomatic and commercial tools, with a much more permissive and tolerant policy towards the idiosyncrasies of the countries in the area, which is much more at-tractive to them.The origin of this investigation lies in March 2023, when the agreement to restore diplomatic relations between Iran and Saudi Arabia was announced, with China as mediator. After more than five years wi-thout relations between the two major powers in the Middle East region, the Asian giant had contributed to a significant rapprochement between the two. This gave rise to the research question at the core of this study: how China influences the regional balance of power.In order to get to the bottom of the issue, we must first approach the historical and geopolitical context in the region. To this end, we will first analyze the historical evolution of relations between the two poles of our analysis, focusing on what happened after 1949 with the birth of the People's Republic of China, noting that they have gone through different phases until reaching the state of responsibility that the Asian country has in the region. On the other hand, from the geopolitical aspect we will analyze the current state of relations and alliances in the region, as well as the presence (and non-presence) of certain actors such as the US or Russia, and the prominence of important regional actors, which marks the state of alliances and distribution of power in the area today.The major theoretical line to be considered is the Chinese conception of International Relations and the International System. This is justified by the cultural substratum behind the scientific and theoretical approach to certain phenomena, such as the International System. The cultural differences between China and the Western context from which we write justify this theoretical approach to Chinese inter-nationalist thought, from which its foreign policy decisions are justified. We note that Chinese action at the foreign level has become much more assertive since 2012, with the coming to power of Xi Jinping in the Asian giant, which is partly motivated by the country's economic development since the begin-ning of the century, leading the country to seek the position in the system that it considers rightfully its own. Also, the ghosts of what is known as the century of humiliation in which China was occupied by foreign powers during the 19th century lead the country to want a leading role in the system. Fur-thermore, the Tianxia conception establishes a system with the Asian giant at the center and the rest of the countries as vassals, with a relationship based on cooperation and mutual benefit, and not on military coercion.From this point of view we are going to analyze China's influence in the regional order of the Middle East, and in order to try to answer our research question we are going to propose the following specific objectives, into which we are going to divide our analysis, such as the following: i) Assess the strategic importance of the Middle East for China within its conception of the international system; ii) To analyze the evolution of China's relations with the countries of the Middle East; iii) To know the economic, mili-tary and political-diplomatic means through which China tries to influence the region; iv) To determine China's lines of interaction with key players in the region.In terms of methodology, since this is an issue that has not been dealt with much, we do not have many reference authors, so we are going to carry out a bibliographical review of authors who have dealt with China's presence in the area, as well as everything related to the specific objectives we have set.Therefore, conclusions based on public statements, authors who deal with the relations between China and each of the regional actors, as well as on the different Chinese ways of presence in the area, are fundamental. For this reason we use an eminently qualitative approach, although we take into account some quantitative data that we will use to interpret what is proposed in the literature.Finally, we conclude that China's objective is not so much to alter the regional order in its favor, but rather to make instrumental use of the balanced relations with most of the states in order to maintain regional stability that favors its economic interests. We reached this conclusion after observing that relations have evolved in accordance with China's foreign policy strategy and the configuration of the geopolitical landscape in the region; that the means of influence are varied but that the economic and political-diplomatic component (incipient) predominates; and that it maintains balanced relations with the key players in the area, championing the concept of shared responsibility and maintenance of re-gional stability. It is also important to consider the need for both poles to diversify alliances within the framework of a multipolar and changing International System, in which China seeks to gain followers through cooperation, negotiation and the establishment of a system that is much more attractive to the countries known as the Global South by not imposing conditions that do not fit their idiosyncrasies, while the countries of the Middle East seek to draw closer to China by detecting the economic benefits they can obtain from it and the solvency of the Asian giant.
