ChinaMED Archive

Unsurprisingly, the assassination of Iranian Major General Soleimani by the US military caught much of the attention of Chinese commentators. In this issue of the ChinaMed Observer, we contextualize the reaction of Chinese commentators to that event against the background of growing regional instability, especially in Libya. At the same time, we start to see some of the elements typical of...

According to Xu Qingguo, a researcher at the Institute of West Asian and African Studies (IWAAS) of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, three issues were the most prominent in the Middle East: the significant strengthening of Russia’s position in the region at the expense of the United States, Trump’s “maximum pressure” strategy on Iran and Iran’s “maximum resistance"...

Media from the wider Mediterranean region covers meetings between Chinese and local officials. Among them, the comments written by Nozad Hasan for the Iraqi newspaper al-Zaman is the most interesting one. As noted in the previous issue of the ChinaMed Bulletin, many commentators expressed doubts about the usefulness of the visit of the Iraqi Prime Minister Adil Abdul-Mahdi to Beijing in...

Rumors regarding the decreasing influence of John Bolton, the American Assistant to the President of National Security Affairs, continue to circulate as the Iranian Foreign Minister, Mohammad Javad Zarif, flew to Beijing after a surprise visit to Biarritz—where French President Macron was hosting the G7 meeting. In light of this, the interest of Chinese scholars in the evolution of...

Although we found a number of interesting news, there were not many commentaries among the reports published by Mediterranean media. One important exception was an article written by Professor Yahia H. Zoubir for Confluences Méditerranée, a French journal that focuses on Mediterranean issues. Prof. Zoubir’s looks at the relations between China and the Maghreb countries. As consistent with...