At the beginning of 2022, the foreign ministers of Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Oman, Bahrain, Turkey, Iran and the secretary-general of the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) paid an intense visit to China from Jan. 10 to Jan. 14. During this period, the minister of foreign affairs and international cooperation of the United Arab Emirates (UAE) also spoke with his Chinese counterpart by telephone.

This diplomatic activity between China and the Middle East has attracted extensive attention from the international community. Several Arab countries, Turkey and Iran visited China in the same week, which largely reflects a feature of China's approach to Middle East diplomacy – that it is able to directly communicate with all parties in the region.

The developing China-Middle East relations are free from historical burdens and also have a relatively clear goal, that is, most view economic and trade cooperation as the core pursuit. Coupled with the promotion of China's Belt and Road initiative (BRI) and the urgent needs of the Middle East countries to economically develop, ties between China and countries in the Middle East have shown strong progress in recent years.

However, despite the genuine motivation of certain countries in the Middle East and China to strengthen relations, which have been developing steadily, the China-Middle East interaction in early 2022 does not mean that bilateral relations have undergone qualitative changes.

This visit of several foreign ministers from the Middle East to China is also an opportunity to discuss regional security. In fact, Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi emphasized as early as March 2021 that China proposes holding a multilateral dialogue meeting on security in the Gulf region in China as he presented an initiative to achieve stability in the Middle East.

Wang discussed the Iranian nuclear issue during his separate talks with the foreign ministers of Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, the UAE and the secretary-general of the GCC. The Arab states are very concerned about Iran's nuclear development. Over the years, Turkey has also been paying close attention to Middle East affairs. It is obvious that discussing the security issue in the Middle East requires the joint participation of Arab countries, Turkey and Iran.

But that's not enough. In this intensive diplomacy between Middle Eastern countries and China, both Qatar, which belongs to the GCC, and Israel, which is closely related to Middle Eastern security, are absent.

This is because one of the highlights of this visit is the interaction between China and the GCC. The absence of Qatar, which recently experienced being collectively isolated by other GCC member states, is a disappointment in regard to China-GCC cooperation. If this China-Middle East interaction includes discussions on regional security issues, then Israel's absence is also a problem.

On the whole, the Middle Eastern foreign ministers' visit can indeed deepen bilateral relations. However, to a greater extent, the trip is a continuation of the strong development in bilateral relations in recent years. Nonetheless, it is difficult for China-Middle East relations to achieve qualitative improvement through this visit.

With the strengthening of China's diplomacy in the Middle East, Beijing's role in the region has attracted increasing attention. Comments in the vein "China wants to replace the status of the United States in the Middle East" emerge one after another.

Frankly speaking, while it is a fact that China and Middle Eastern countries are close, China still lags far behind the U.S. in terms of influence in the region. As far as the attitude of Middle Eastern countries toward the world's major powers is concerned, China's appeal also lags behind that of European and American powers. Moreover, I don't think Beijing has a plan in place to replace the U.S. in the Middle East.

There is no need to overinterpret the China-Middle East interaction in early 2022. I believe that China needs to strengthen its bilateral relations with key countries in the region when conducting diplomacy in the Middle East. When it comes to exchanges with Middle Eastern countries, it is far easier to succeed with bilateral cooperation than with multilateral collaboration.