Arab countries put forward the "Look East" trend and called for deepening scientific, technological and strategic cooperation with China

China News Service, Cairo, September 30 (Reporter Ma Xiuxiu) On September 29, local time, at the "World Dialogue on China Studies·Arab Countries Special" event held in Cairo, Egypt, Mahmoud Said, Vice President of Graduate Studies and Research Affairs at Cairo University, mentioned in his speech that there is an increasingly obvious trend of "looking east" in the Arab world, including Egypt.

Mahmoud Said believes that China's experience is becoming an important issue of concern, and the exchanges between Arab countries and China should also go beyond trade and investment, and further extend to scientific and technological cooperation, joint research, talent exchange and other fields.

He also pointed out that "looking eastward" does not mean moving away from the West, but that as the global knowledge, economic and technological landscape changes, more attention will be paid to new cultural, economic and technological centers and their experiences.

Izzat Saad, director of the Egyptian Foreign Affairs Council, said that Arab-China relations, especially the comprehensive strategic partnership between Egypt and China, are no longer limited to traditional trade exchanges, but extend to development vision and international issues such as peace, security and global governance. He believes that China's rising role in the international system and the global South has made it more necessary for Arab studies and diplomatic institutions to conduct in-depth research on China's internal transformation and its foreign policies.

Izzat Saad summarized China's changes as moving from "the world's factory" to "innovation and technology leadership." In his view, the Arab world’s research on China also needs to break through the language and translation levels and enter the fields of political economy, decision-making mechanism, and security strategy.

Hassan Daja, a well-known Jordanian international relations scholar and professor at Hussein bin Talal University, said in an interview with reporters that the ongoing wars and security crises in the Middle East have caused some Arab countries to re-examine their past reliance on external security forces and expand international cooperation objects in a more pragmatic way.

Hassan Daja believes that in the future, the relationship between Arab countries and China may further develop from economic and trade cooperation to a higher level of strategic partnership, and "will not just be a limited and cautious partnership." (over)