FROM RIYADH AND TEHRAN TO BEIJING: CHINA’S DIPLOMATIC ROLE IN A CHANGING WORLD

In Moscow on 22 March 2023, Chinese President Xi Jinping told Russian President Vladimir Putin: ‘Right now there are changes—the likes of which we haven’t seen for 100 years—and we are the ones driving these changes together.’¹ Leaving the hyperbole aside, there is evidence that many certainties of the Western-led world and the ‘rules-based order’ are changing and, with this, so is China’s role in the diplomatic world. Since emerging from its zero-COVID period, Beijing has launched a significant series of diplomatic initiatives in areas where hitherto China has played little or no diplomatic role. Chief among these