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ABSTRACT
This article examines the dynamics of China’s soft power strategy in the Middle East vis-à-vis the United States. By way of doing so, Beijing has moved away from its early focus on energy and trade relations to cultivation of bilateral and multilateral relations with Middle Eastern states via the Belt and Road Initiative that offers inter alia new energy, investment, and multilateral strategic cooperation.
Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).
Notes
1. Ikenberry, “Between the Eagle and the Dragon.”
2. Ferguson, “The Strategic Use of Soft Balancing”; Kelley, “Strategic Non-cooperation as Soft Balancing.”
3. Doyle, Ways of War and Peace; Saltzman, “Soft Balancing as Foreign Policy.”
4. Pape, “Soft Balancing against the United States.”
5. Paul, “Soft Balancing in the Age of U.S. Primacy”; Ferguson, “The Strategic Use of Soft Balancing.”
6. Wohlforth, “Revisiting Balance of Power Theory in Central Eurasia”; Ikenberry, “Liberal Hegemony and the Future of American Postwar Order.”
7. Paul, “Soft Balancing in the Age of U.S. Primacy.”
8. Shichor, “Gains and Losses.”
9. Buckley, “China, UAE sign 35 billion yuan currency swap.”
10. Ikenberry, “Between the Eagle and the Dragon”; Salman and Gustaaf, “Strategic hedging and China’s economic policy”; Etzioni, “The Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank”; Lai, “Soft balancing against the US ‘pivot to Asia’”; Qian, “The Belt and Road Initiatives.”
11. Wang, “Review and Thoughts.”
12. The National, “China inks $55bn Middle East deals”; Jin, “China’s Role in the Middle East.”
13. Yao, “The Upheaval in the Middle East and China’s Middle East Policy”; Chaziza, “Six Years After the Arab Spring.”
14. Gan and Mao, “China’s new silk road: where does it lead?”; Kamel, “China’s Belt and Road Initiative”; Shen, “How China’s ‘Belt and Road’ Compares to the Marshall Plan.”
15. National Development and Reform Commission of China, 2015.
16. Qian, “The Belt and Road Initiatives and China’s Middle East Energy Policy.”
17. He and Feng, “If Not Soft Balancing, Then What”; Bao, Eichacker and Rosenthal, “Is China Pivoting to the Middle East?”; Guo, Huang and Wu, “Strategic analysis on the construction of new energy corridor.”
18. Fulton, “China’s challenge to US dominance in the Middle East.”
Additional information
Notes on contributors
Emrah Yildirimcakar
Emrah Yildirimcakar, PhD in International Relations in the Zhou Enlai School of Government at Nankai University China.
Zhaoying Han
Zhaoying Han is Professor of International Relations in the Zhou Enlai School of Government at Nankai University China.