Diplomacy, peace must prevail once again

With the illegal and unprovoked war waged on Iran by the joint forces of the United States and Israel, western Asia is once again the explosive focal point of global power politics.

Two trajectories have been moving in opposite directions, shaping the current reality. One is destructive, based on zero-sum-game geopolitics and the law of the jungle. The other is constructive, based on cooperation, win-win mutual benefit and the rule of law.

The first is spearheaded by the US and its allies to divide and conquer nations and regions and set the world onto the path of the unknown. The other, led by China, aims to unite and bring prosperity to nations and whole continents, moving toward a shared future for humanity. The first is known as "peace through strength", the other as "peace through development".

Almost all the nations of this region have joined the Belt and Road Initiative since its launch in 2013. The pace of cooperation between China and the nations of the Middle East and North Africa has accelerated dramatically in proportion to, and in the opposite direction of, the geopolitical failures and disasters of the Anglo-American alliance — such as the invasion of Afghanistan in 2001 and of Iraq in 2003, and the clandestine war against Syria in 2011.

China has become the top trade partner of all the Arab countries, as well as Iran, and trade between China and these countries increased nearly tenfold between 2004 and 2024, when it reached a new high of $407 billion. China is involved in many infrastructure projects in Arab countries, such as ports, railways, roads and energy. However, in recent years, the focus has shifted to include industrialization and technology transfer.

A breakthrough took place with the December 2022 summit between President Xi Jinping and the leaders of the Arab world in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia. In his speech on Dec 9, 2022, President Xi outlined the concrete economic and financial measures that China was offering to the Arab countries. One day before the summit, Xi and Saudi King Salman bin Abdulaziz Al Saud signed a comprehensive strategic partnership agreement. This partnership is symbiotic with the Saudi Vision 2030. Immediately, 30 memorandums of understanding were signed between Chinese and Saudi entities, with contracts worth $30 billion.

The deals included projects for electric vehicle production, renewable energy, cloud computing, information technology, petrochemical industries and infrastructure development in Saudi Arabia.

For example, in 2023, the Saudi Ministry of Investment signed a $5.6 billion deal with Chinese electric car manufacturer Human Horizons to make and sell vehicles in the kingdom. In early 2025,Chinese computer maker Lenovo and Saudi enterprise Alat Electronics signed a $2 billion agreement to build a manufacturing plant in Saudi Arabia.

In February 2023, Iran, which is not an Arab country, finalized a 25-year comprehensive strategic cooperation agreement with China, during a state visit by then president of Iran Ebrahim Raisi to Beijing. Interestingly, one month later, China brokered the restoration of diplomatic relations between Iran and Saudi Arabia, which had been severed in 2016.

By the end of 2023, Iran, Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Egypt and Ethiopia were all invited to join BRICS, creating BRICS Plus. Saudi Arabia has not formally joined yet. These nations are also either full members or observers in the Shanghai Cooperation Organization, which is increasingly moving from being merely a security cooperation organization to becoming an economic cooperation mechanism as well.

Ironically, when then US president Joe Biden visited Saudi Arabia in July 2022, he said that, to him, the "bottom line" was that "this trip is about once again positioning America in this region for the future. We are not going to leave a vacuum in the Middle East for Russia or China to fill. And we're getting results".

An ominous development came with the speech given by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in the United Nations General Assembly on Sept 22, 2023, in which he presented a map of the "Middle East" with only Israel in the historical land of Palestine, and no Palestinian territory. Netanyahu was emboldened by the announcement a week earlier of the US-backed India-Middle East-Europe Economic Corridor during the G20 Summit in India. It was obvious from the outset that this "initiative" had no economic substance, but instead represented a major destabilizing geopolitical move to divide and conquer the region.

Less than a month after Netanyahu's speech at the UNGA, which was intended to erase the Palestinian issue, Hamas launched its devastating attack on Israel on Oct 7, 2023. After that, a new stage of horrific crimes committed by Israel against the people of Gaza began. That development is what led to the first attack on Iran in June 2025, and eventually to the current one.

Iran's position in the Eurasian and transcontinental transportation corridors is indispensable. Its prosperity, security and stability as an ethnically diverse nation are crucial for the stability of western Asia, Central Asia, the Indian subcontinent and the Caucasus.

If Iran is destabilized and fragmented, it will have dire consequences for the whole of Eurasia and probably the world. It is, therefore, imperative that the nations of the world, especially wiser world powers, intervene in this hour to bring reason back to the international discourse.

Diplomacy must prevail again, and peaceful solutions that respect the interests of all nations must be the central issue again in accordance with the United Nations Charter and other conventions. A path toward peace and prosperity among all nations has already been charted. The Belt and Road Initiative is the first stop on the long journey for a shared future for humanity. The China-proposed Global Development Initiative, Global Security Initiative, Global Civilization Initiative and Global Governance Initiative will follow.

The author is vice-chairman of the Belt and Road Institute in Sweden and a distinguished research fellow at the Guangdong Institute for International Strategies.

The views do not necessarily reflect those of China Daily.