China and Morocco: Improbable Partners?

Abstract

If Chinese foreign policy acumen in the Middle East is manifest in China’s ability to bypass Shi'a-Sunni rivalries between Iran and Saudi Arabia, then in North Africa this policy is surely paralleled by China’s ability to remain neutral in the Western Sahara conflict, with a slight tilt in favour of Morocoo1. Moreover, China has always kept a balanced foreign policy between rivals Algeria and more pro-Western Morocco even though the latter did not possess large oil reserves and had less of an anti-colonial legacy to boast. Morocco despite its deep seated ties with France, and more recently with the US, established diplomatic ties with China at the height of the Cold War, as early as 1958. It was only second to Egypt in doing so within Africa as a whole, yet Egypt challenged the West, fostering a strategic alliance with Moscow under Gamal ‘Abdel Nasser