China's New Foreign Policy in the West Asian Region: A Case Study of the Islamic Republic of Iran and Türkiye

Document Type : Original Article

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Abstract
The evolution of China's foreign policy in the last decade reflects a transition from an "avoidance of intervention" approach to active and network-oriented activism in the peripheral environment. The West Asian region has become one of the strategic centers of this transformation due to its geopolitical position, energy resources, and transit location. The present study uses the conceptual framework of "neighborhood policy" to explain China's new foreign policy in West Asia and examines Iran and Turkey as two comparative case studies. The main question is how China's policy in this region can be explained in the context of the logic of geoeconomic neighborhood and what factors explain the difference in China's interaction pattern with Iran and Turkey? The findings show that China, within the framework of the Belt and Road megaproject, has adopted a strategy based on deepening economic dependence, diversifying transit routes, and soft balancing against the influence of the United States. In this framework, Iran plays the role of a geopolitical partner in balancing with the West, while Turkey is more defined as a logistical node and connector of Eurasia. The research concludes that China's neighborhood policy is pragmatic, network-oriented, and non-coalitional in nature, and operates based on "comparative geoeconomic balance."

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