China’s Presence in the Middle East: The Implications of the One Belt, One Road Initiative ed. by Anoushiravan Ehteshami, Niv Horesh, and: The Red Star and the Crescent: China and the Middle East ed. by James Reardon-Anderson (review)

The literature on China–Middle East relations has long been relatively modest, as befits a set of relationships that seemed to be largely analyzed within an “oil for trade” framework. In recent years the economic relationships have thickened, including finance and investment to compliment the increasingly robust trade component, and not surprisingly, interests have consequently become more complex. Chinese leaders increasingly see the Middle East and North Africa as a strategically important region, and Middle Eastern statesmen increasingly look east when contemplating their long-term interests. The Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), announced by China in 2013, is creating more opportunities for cooperation, and the China–Middle East nexus is becoming an important geopolitical axis in understanding Eurasian international affairs. As such, the academic literature is starting to analyze these relationships in more detail, and the two books here represent wide-ranging treatments from an impressive collection of scholars. Both volumes are important starting points in understanding China’s role in the Middle East in this new BRI era.

China’s Presence in the Middle East is the result of a conference held at the University of Nottingham in 2016, and both editors are well-positioned to explore the topic. Anoushiravan Ehteshami, who has published widely and deeply on the “Asianization of Asia,” recently published a coedited volume on East Asia–Middle East relations, and Niv Horesh one on China–Middle East relations. Given their combined experience, they have put together an accomplished group of contributors.

Subtitled The Implications of the One Belt, One Road Initiative, this book is, to my knowledge, the first to adopt the BRI as a framework for analyzing China–Middle East relations. Horesh opens the book with an important starting point, claiming that the BRI does not represent a challenge or alternative to the United States’ power in the Middle East. Indeed, the US regional architecture during the unipolar moment has provided the structure under which China’s Middle East presence has flourished. As such, Horesh sees a “strong Sino-American convergence of interests in the Middle East that might alleviate other tensions between the US and China” (p. 3). This theme, which runs throughout the other chapters in the book, is an important frame of reference for understanding China’s approach to the Middle East as well as to the international order; with the exception of the United States, no other state has benefited from the liberal order as much as China, and its expansion across Eurasia with the BRI appears, for the time being at least, complementary to the existing order, rather than a challenge to it.

After Horesh’s brief introduction, the volume is organized into two parts. The first provides the wide-angle view, with four chapters discussing the importance of the Middle East and North Africa in China’s foreign policy, the implications of the BRI in the global order, and the role of the Asian Infrastructure Bank. Andrew Scobell’s chapter, simply titled “Why the Middle East Matters to China,” builds upon his other recent work emphasizing the strategic importance of the Middle East for Chinese policy-makers. Here, he makes the important claim that “Beijing now seems to perceive the Middle East as an extension of China’s periphery” (p. 9). The significance is clear to China-watchers; President Xi Jinping’s fen fa you wei approach to international politics (i.e., “be proactive in seeking achievements”) was first articulated in a meeting on China’s peripheral diplomacy. If the Middle East is indeed a part of this periphery, an increasingly proactive approach to the region becomes clearer, given...