Chinese Foreign Minister Li Zhaoxing flies on Friday to the Middle East, a region where China is keen to boost its influence as its appetite for oil grows. Li will visit Jordan, Syria, Lebanon and Israel, where he will meet Israeli and Palestinian officials before returning on June 26. The Foreign Ministry said economic co-operation agreements would be signed during the trip, but it declined to give details.
While none of the countries is a major oil exporter, analysts say China is keen to build friendships in the region where it can, and they may be more receptive than big-league oil producers with strong links to the United States, like Saudi Arabia.
China has been stepping up diplomacy to match its already active pursuit of energy sources in the greater Middle East region. The world's second biggest consumer of oil, China got nearly 50 percent of its crude imports from Iran last year.
"China wants to play a bigger part," said Yin Gang, an expert on the region with the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, a government think tank. "China's actual economic interests in the region are getting bigger and bigger, particularly in energy imports, so China can no longer be detached about the Middle East like before."
Demand for oil in the world's fastest-growing major economy has grown steadily in recent years. It became a net importer of crude oil in the mid-1990s and is seeking to diversify its source.
Because of its growing demand for oil, China is concerned about the stability of the whole Middle East region, said Zhu Feng, an international relations expert at Peking University.
Li was also likely to lobby against a United Nations reform proposal that includes expanding the Security Council to include Germany, Japan, India and Brazil as permanent members, foreign policy analysts said.
The trip to Israel will be Li's first since becoming Fforeign minister in March 2003, in part because Chinese officials insisted on meeting Palestinian officials if they travelled to Israel, a condition Israel opposed in recent years until Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat died in November.
Israel has come under pressure from the United States not to sell advanced weapons to China that Washington thinks could tilt the balance of power in Asia and make it more difficult to help Taiwan defend itself, as the United States is bound by law to do.
China considers self-ruled Taiwan a renegade province which must be brought back to the fold eventually, and by force if necessary.
Yin said the arms issue would definitely come up during Li's visit to Jerusalem.
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