China’s Geopolitical Strategy in the Strait of Hormuz

Abstract

The purpose of this paper is to analyze China’s geopolitical strategy in the Strait of Hormuz using secondary data of the topic and the concept of Natural Resources War. The Strait is very important to all the importing oil countries from Middle East including China as the only way in and out. At the same time, the Strait is also vulnerable with any kind of attacks that become challenge and threat to all the countries. It is the United States (US) as the one and only superpower which guarantee the security of the Strait and all the ships from importing oil countries. Recently with a lot of issues occurred in the region, the US seemed to be overwhelmed and asked every country to protect their own ships. With the status of one of the superpower countries and the power of its economy, China should be able to have the same role as the US. This paper contends that the lack of power of China’s military, dependence on the US security and Iran conflict with the US are the reasons why China is not showing some significant roles in Middle East related to its geopolitical strategy specifically in the Strait of Hormuz.

Keywords

• China
• the US
• geopolitical strategy
• Strait of Hormuz
• Middle East