The Role of the EU and China in the Security Architecture of the Middle East

For decades, contradicting foreign policy principles, including state sovereignty, territorial integrity, and non-interference have hindered cooperation between the EU and China beyond the economic realm. However, since the establishment of the EU-China 2020 Strategic Agenda for Cooperation (2013) we observe a shift towards cooperation. For instance, China and the EU have expressed the desire to collaborate on security issues in the Middle East. The paper argues that although EU and China follow different trajectories in the Middle East, they play complementary roles for the region’s security. It takes a role-theoretic perspective to assess the changing security roles of the EU and China in the Middle East, ascribed to them by external and internal expectations and shows in two exemplary cases the complementarity of the EU’s and China’s roles in the region. The analysis draws on policy documents, expert interviews and secondary literature. The paper concludes with a discussion of the findings against the backdrop of growing tensions between the EU and China.