The China Thread: Chinese Influence in the Middle East
Abstract
While Chinese engagement in the Middle East only constitutes a modest portion of its overall global portfolio, the region serves as a critical link in China's network and global strategy. China pursues what Americans would call a whole-of-government approach to foreign relations, with the Chinese Silk Road in its various iterations marking the formal, branded continuation of decades of global networking and diplomacy. The very ways we go about understanding China, as a declared adversary, drive the answers we find. The cognitive tools military planners and government analysts use to organize understanding carry inherent meaning and implicitly allow certain opportunities and risks to remain deemphasized. To address the nature of these gaps in understanding, this study evaluates the relevance of an array of Western assessments on China when compared to China's potential perspective as well as the quantifiable activities China has taken to implement its foreign relations approach. Active self-criticism exposes existing divergence in views on geographic spaces and concepts of self-interest as well as a tendency to overlook how interconnectivity redefines not only a given environment but also the actors in it.
Document Details
- Document Type
- Technical Report
- Publication Date
- May 23, 2019
- Accession Number
- AD1137123
Entities
People
- Amanda R. Karlin
Organizations
- United States Army Command and General Staff College