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Are US interests the real target of China’s ‘puzzling’ new partnership with Bahrain?
- One is a Gulf kingdom with limited oil wealth. The other is a rising superpower. On the face of it, their tie-up doesn’t seem to make sense
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Two weeks after China and Bahrain agreed to form a comprehensive strategic partnership (CSP), analysts remain baffled by Beijing’s decision to offer its strongest form of diplomatic alliance to the tiny Persian Gulf kingdom, with some saying the pact is aimed at undermining US interests in the region.
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Beijing’s selection of Bahrain, roughly two-thirds the size of Hong Kong and the smallest oil producer in the hydrocarbons-rich Gulf, has confounded leading experts on China’s role in the Middle East and North Africa because it diverges from the pattern of its other CSP partnerships across the region.
Jonathan Fulton, author of the book China’s Relations with the Gulf Monarchies, said he was “shocked, actually” by the CSP agreement between China and Bahrain.
“Given Bahrain’s market size and its relatively modest level of engagement with China, this is puzzling to me,” he said.
When the CSP agreement was announced on May 31 during a visit to Beijing by Bahrain’s King Hamad bin Isa al-Khalifa, a joint statement highlighted plans to align his kingdom’s Vision 2030 economic development programme with Chinese President Xi Jinping’s Belt and Road Initiative.
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The CSP announcement was preceded by the launch of the first direct flights between Bahrain and China, and it was quickly followed by preliminary cooperation agreements between their respective sovereign wealth funds as well as their chambers of commerce and industry.
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