From the implementation of more liberal reforms in China from 1979 to the September 11, 2001 attacks on the United States, China’s focus in the Gulf shifted from Iraq to Iran. The Islamic Revolution broke out in Iran in 1979, which changed the situation in the Gulf fundamentally. The IranIraq War, which began in 1980, meant that ideological battles between Iraq and the Gulf monarchies were no longer the main source of antagonism in the region. According to Iraq’s discourse, ethnic conflict between Persians in Iran and Arabs in seven Arab Gulf states was the new source of conflict, whereas Iran propounded religious violence against anti-Islamic regimes.