THE NEW ROLE OF CHINA IN THE MIDDLE EAST-conference program.pdf (original) (raw)
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CHINA AND THE MIDDLE EAST: VENTURING INTO THE MAELSTROM
China’s increasingly significant economic and security interests in the Middle East have several impacts. It affects not only its energy security but also its regional posture, relations with regional powers as well as the United States, and efforts to pacify nationalist and Islamist Uighurs in its north-western province of Xinjiang. Those interests are considerably enhanced by China’s One Belt, One Road initiative that seeks to patch together a Eurasian land mass through inter-linked infrastructure, investment and expanded trade relations. Protecting its mushrooming interests is forcing China to realign its policies and relationships in the region. As it takes stock of the Middle East and North Africa’s volatility and tumultuous, often violent political transitions, China feels the pressure to acknowledge that it no longer can remain aloof to the Middle East and North Africa’s multiple conflicts. China’s long-standing insistence on non-interference in the domestic affairs of others, refusal to envision a foreign military presence and its perseverance that its primary focus is the development of mutually beneficial economic and commercial relations, increasingly falls short of what it needs to do to safeguard its vital interests. Increasingly, China will have to become a regional player in competitive cooperation with the United States, the dominant external actor in the region for the foreseeable future. The pressure to revisit long-standing foreign and defence policy principles is also driven by the fact that China’s key interests in the Middle East and North Africa have expanded significantly beyond the narrow focus of energy despite its dependence on the region for half of its oil imports.1 Besides the need to protect its investments and nationals, China has a strategic stake in the stability of countries across the Eurasian landmass as a result of its One Belt, One Road initiative and the threat of blowback in Xinjiang of unrest in the Middle East, North Africa and Central Asia. China has signalled its gradual recognition of these new realities with the publication in January 2016 of an Arab Policy Paper, the country’s first articulation of a policy towards the Middle East and North Africa. But, rather than spelling out specific policies, the paper reiterated the generalities of China’s core focus in its relations with the Arab world: economics, energy, counter-terrorism, security, technical cooperation and its One Belt, One Road initiative. Ultimately however, China will have to develop a strategic vision that outlines foreign and defence policies it needs to put in place to protect its expanding strategic, geopolitical, economic, and commercial interests in the Middle East and North Africa; its role and place in the region as a rising superpower in the region; and its relationship and cooperation with the United States in managing, if not resolving conflict.
DECIPHERING CHINA IN THE MIDDLE EAST
EU ISS Brief, 2020
As a relative newcomer to the region, China has already made significant inroads in the Middle East: many regional states have welcomed its presence and shown eagerness to become involved in its ambitious ‘Belt and Road Initiative’. › The fact that China does not attach any conditions to trade relationships means that its engagement is positively perceived by many states in the region, including US regional allies, much to the dismay of Washington. › Given its status as the second-largest economy in the world, China’s economic penetration of the Middle East inevitably has far-reaching foreign policy and security implications. It remains to be seen if the region turns into an arena of struggle for a new world order between the US and China, which would also have far-reaching implications for the EU.
BRIQ, 2019
Can the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) provide a remedy to current problems in the Middle East? What are the driving forces, opportunities and challenges for China to play a constructive role in the Middle East? These are some of the questions that this article will attempt to answer. Domestic academia in China had extensively discussed the “westward strategy” before the Belt and Road Initiative was put forward. At that time, this strategy was conceived of as a hedge against the “Asia Pacific Rebalancing Strategy” of the United States. However, under the Belt and Road Initiative, China is also engaged in strengthening its interactions with Middle Eastern countries, which will be an important way to further strengthen China’s Western front as an extension of China’s opening up to the outside world, a further acceleration of Eurasian linkages, and an effort towards further strengthening globalization. The “Belt and Road Initiative” faced severe Western criticism. Yet in fact, this initiative is not modeled on the post-World War II Marshall Plan as a Chinese conspiracy. The initiative is not a geopolitical tool, but it is intended to serve as a practical cooperation platform. The Middle East is an important site on the strategic roadmap of the Belt and Road Initiative. Indeed, achieving regional stability is in line with China’s overseas strategic interests. Without getting on the train, however, China will not learn how to drive. It is through participation in the practical process of addressing these problems that China can accumulate greater experience in managing international conflicts and improve its ability to deal with complicated international disputes.
China’s Role in the Middle East: Current Debates and Future Trends
China Quarterly of International Strategic Studies, 2017
There are two prevailing arguments among international observers about China’s role in the Middle East. One is that China has been a “security free-rider;” the other is that China is fundamentally a business-seeker. Yet neither of the two is well-grounded. If viewed comprehensively rather than in terms of military engagement alone, China’s contribution to stability and security of the region is enormous, and its role in the Middle East can be described as a combination of a major economic partner, a low-profile mediator and a modest but important provider of security public goods. As China has proposed various new concepts and initiatives as guidelines of its foreign policy, its future policy toward the Middle East can be best understood through its increasing efforts to promote the “Belt and Road” initiative, to develop a new-type major-power relationship, and to uphold justice and pursue shared interests with all related countries. With ever more Chinese engagement in the region, ...
CHINA'S EVOLVING MIDDLE EAST ROLE
ISDP POLICY PAPERS, 2016
Under the leadership of Xi Jinping, China has sought to further consolidate and diversify its relations in the Middle East. This comes on the back of the Chinese lead-er’s Middle East tour in January and the articulation of a new “Arab Policy” unveiled in the same month. Focused on energy, trade, and transport, China is seeking to maximize its economic ties and interests in the region. In particular, Middle Eastern oil supplies remain critical for China’s con-tinued economic development. However, becoming more engaged in the region brings with it a number of implica-tions, not least that Beijing will find it necessary to balance its ties between Sunni and Shia countries.
Can the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) provide a remedy to current problems in the Middle East? What are the driving forces, opportunities and challenges for China to play a constructive role in the Middle East? These are some of the questions that this article will attempt to answer. Domestic academia in China had extensively discussed the "westward strategy" before the Belt and Road Initiative was put forward. At that time, this strategy was conceived of as a hedge against the "Asia Pacific Rebalancing Strategy" of the United States. However, under the Belt and Road Initiative, China is also engaged in strengthening its interactions with Middle Eastern countries, which will be an important way to further strengthen China's Western front as an extension of China's opening up to the outside world, a further acceleration of Eurasian linkages, and an effort towards further strengthening globalization. The "Belt and Road Initiative" faced severe Western criticism. Yet in fact, this initiative is not modeled on the post-World War II Marshall Plan as a Chinese conspiracy. The initiative is not a geopolitical tool, but it is intended to serve as a practical cooperation platform. The Middle East is an important site on the strategic roadmap of the Belt and Road Initiative. Indeed, achieving regional stability is in line with China's overseas strategic interests. Without getting on the train, however, China will not learn how to drive. It is through participation in the practical process of addressing these problems that China can accumulate greater experience in managing international conflicts and improve its ability to deal with complicated international disputes.
CHINA'S CHANGING ROLE IN THE MIDDLE EAST Atlantic Council RAFIK HARIRI CENTER FOR THE MIDDLE EAST
China's Changing Role in the Middle East, 2019
A quiet shift in geopolitics has been taking place, with East Asia and the Middle East drawing closer together. Energy trade explains part of this, as Japan, South Korea, and China are consistently among the largest export markets for Middle Eastern oil and gas. As the global economic center of gravity moves east, economic relations between the two regions are becoming increasingly deep and multifaceted.
The Middle East is of major interest to China because it supplies half of the country’s imported oil. • The security and stability of the Middle Eastern Nations are of major importance to China, but Beijing is reluctant to get too deeply enmeshed in the region’s complex politics. • New dynamics in the Middle East beg not just an economic but also a geopolitical response from
China’s Belt and Road Initiative: Implications for the Middle East
Cambridge Review of International Affairs, 2018
This article examines the geopolitical and economic implications of the Belt and Road Initiative for the Middle East. It locates the BRI within the region's politics and examines the opportunities that the initiative offers for the region, as well as its inherent risks and challenges. It argues that the BRI is not merely an economic project as framed by Beijing, but that it represents a new stage in China's engagement with the region, and-if fully implemented-could have wide geopolitical implications. The Middle East has the potential to contribute immensely to China's sustained growth by addressing its energy security, supporting China's role as a 'megatrader', and, more importantly, driving China's efforts to become a global maritime power and monetary power by internationalizing the Renminbi (RMB). Thus, the BRI could have wide implications for the Middle East. Far from being a win-win project for all, the BRI will likely benefit some countries in the region more than others. Iran stands ready to benefit most. The BRI will likely increase the strategic importance of the Suez Canal and could potentially undermine the importance of some logistic hubs in the Middle East in favour of other trade hubs in Central Asia. Launched by President Xi Jinping in 2013, the Belt and Road initiative (BRI) is a comprehensive long-term strategic project that seeks to integrate Asia, Europe, the Middle East and Africa through a land-based Silk Road Economic Belt (SREB) and a Maritime Silk Road (MSR). It signals a new emerging trend in China's foreign economic policy and has been described by Beijing as the third round of China's opening after the development of Special Economic Zones in the 1980s and accession to the WTO (in 2001). 1 Although Beijing deliberately avoids specifying the initiative's membership, many sources have highlighted that the BRI includes 65 countries, 4.4 billion people, about 40 per cent of global GDP and 70 per cent of the world's energy reserves (European Parliament 2016). Wu (2015) described the initiative as 'the most significant and far-reaching initiative that China has ever put forward'. China is implementing it as a broad conceptual development framework that aims to contribute to greater connectivity and economic integration through a diversity of activities and projects, some of which had already begun prior to 2013. Beijing has signed Memoranda of Understandings (MOUs) with more than 30 countries, all of which have pledged to jointly implement the BRI, and, as of the time of writing (May