Donald Trump’s return to the Middle East marks a shift toward transactional diplomacy, emphasizing trade, investment, and a retreat from human rights rhetoric. In a striking parallel, China has long pursued a similar approach in the region—prioritizing business ties over political entanglements.
The question now is how will China respond to this rapidly changing geopolitical landscape?
In this special edition of the podcast, CGSP partnered with The ChinaMed Project to organize an online seminar featuring leading experts from China and the United States, exploring how Beijing will adjust its Middle East engagement strategy in the Trump era.
Eric speaks with Zhang Chuchu, a China-Mideast scholar at the school of international relations at Fudan University in Shanghai, and Grant Rumley, a senior fellow at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy. Later in the program, Enrico Fardella and Andrea Ghiselli from the ChinaMed Project join the discussion.
Show Notes:
- Bloomberg: Offshoring AI to the Middle East Could Hand China a Win by Gideon Lichfield
- The Atlantic Council: Trump’s remarkable Middle East tour is all about striking megadeals and outfoxing China by Frederick Kempe
- The Atlantic Council: Present without impact? How the Middle East perceives China’s diplomatic engagement by Jonathan Fulton
About Zhang Chuchu and Grant Rumley:
Zhang Chuhu is an associate professor of international relations in the School of International Relations and Public Affairs at Fudan University. She is also the deputy director of the Center for Middle Eastern Studies at Fudan University. She received her PhD in politics and international studies from the University of Cambridge. Her research focuses on Middle Eastern politics, Sino-Middle Eastern relations, and regional governance. Zhang is the author of Islamist Party Mobilization: Tunisia’s Ennahda and Algeria’s HMS Compared, 1989–2014 (Palgrave, 2020). She has published in many top peer-reviewed journals, including Environment and Planning A: Economy and Space, Land Use Policy, Pacific Focus, Chinese Political Science Review, and Asian Journal of Middle Eastern and Islamic Studies.
Grant Rumley is the Meisel-Goldberger Senior Fellow and Director of the Diane and Guilford Glazer Foundation Program on Great Power Competition and the Middle East, where he specializes in military and security affairs in the Middle East. From 2018 to 2021, Grant served in both the Trump and Biden administrations as an advisor for Middle East Policy in the Office of the Secretary of Defense, Office of the Under Secretary of Defense for Policy. While in OSD Middle East Policy, Grant served in multiple roles, including as deputy chief of staff, Syria director, Jordan director, and Israel director. In this capacity, Grant supported senior Pentagon leadership on key defense issues in the Middle East. He is the recipient of the Office of the Secretary of Defense Award for Outstanding Achievement. Prior to joining OSD, Grant was a research fellow at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, where his research focused on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. He is the co-author of The Last Palestinian: The Rise and Reign of Mahmoud Abbas (Prometheus, 2017), the first English-language biography of the Palestinian leader. Prior to joining FDD, Grant was a visiting fellow at Mitvim: the Israeli Institute for Regional Foreign Policies.
