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After 13 years of intense and grueling negotiations, diplomatic and political activities, the Iranian nuclear issue was resolved in mid-2015 with the provision of implementing the accord in a decade. As a member of the United Nations Security Council (UNSC) Permanent Five (P5) P5+1 since April 2010 who negotiated the deal, China’s moderate role has attracted global attention. While the United States, Russia, and European countries played a crucial role, Beijing’s position in resolving the issue is not insignificant. Given China’s interests in the region—ranging from economic, commercial, energy, and regional security to strategic concerns—while being one of the quiet negotiators, Beijing periodically dispatched its envoys and others to influence Tehran’s responses. In the coming years, China’s role is expected to show benefits in terms of energy deals as well as infrastructure developments and even arms sales to Tehran.

While it is notable that China has become a member of almost all international organizations (excepting the OECD, International Energy Agency, and Missile Technology Control Regime), much less noticeable has been China’s steadily increasing involvement in regional multilateral organizations and groups of nations. As China has expanded its global footprint into literally every continent and part of the planet, Beijing has sought to join existing institutions in those regions—but what is particularly noteworthy is that China has stimulated and created a wide range of new organizations and regional groupings all around the world. That is what this chapter is about—China’s regional multilateralism. Such Chinese initiatives most notably include: the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB), Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO), Association of Southeast Asian Nations Plus China (ASEAN + 10), Brazil-Russia-India-China-South Africa (BRICS), Forum for China-Africa Cooperation (FOCAC), China–Arab States Cooperation Forum (CACF), China–Central and Eastern Europe Countries (CEEC), and a series of groupings in Latin America (China–Latin America Forum, China-Caribbean Economic and Trade Cooperation Forum, China–Latin America Common Market Dialogue, and China–Latin America Business Summit). China has been either the initiator of, or actively engaged in, the creation of all these groupings.

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India-China relations during the decade of 2004–14 expanded from tactical to strategic in nature reflecting the rise of these two Asian countries. The signing of the ‘strategic and cooperative partnership’ between the two in 2005 coincided with discussions in a number of areas including ushering in a modicum of confidence-building measures to stabilize and manage the territorial dispute, dialogue process on Afghanistan, Southeast and East Asia, Africa, strengthening multipolar and multilateral institutions, enhancing bilateral trade, and the like. However, irritants remained, such as issuing of ‘stapled visas’ by China to Kashmir residents. Also, while trade increased substantially, India faced a mounting trade deficit with China in this decade. Border transgressions in April-May 2013 and 2014 in the Western sector as well tested bilateral relations. However, overall, the bilateral relations were stable, forthcoming and remained in the configuration of ‘cooperation and competition’ during this decade.