U.S. President-elect Donald Trump has already indicated that the Middle East is going to be a central focus of his second term’s foreign policy. He’s already named Elise Stefanik, a fiercely pro-Israel lawmaker, to be his ambassador at the United Nations and he’s been in regular contact since his election last week with both Arab and Israeli leaders.
But Trump is coming back to power at a time when the region is very different than when he left office in 2020. Back then, China was a marginal player in Mideast diplomacy which is no longer the case. China’s economic and diplomatic influence in the region has increased significantly over the past four years.
In this special edition, produced in partnership with The ChinaMed Project, Eric hosts six of the world’s leading China-Mideast scholars to discuss their forecast for how Donald Trump’s re-election will impact U.S.-China relations in the region.
The conversation is divided into two parts:
Panel 1: How the arrival of a new U.S. President fits in the national strategies of regional actors and their relations with China
- Ahmed Aboudouh is the head of the China studies unit at the Emirates Policy Center and an associate fellow at the Chatham House in London.
- Gedaliah Afterman is the head of the Asia-Israel policy program at the Abba Eban Institute for Diplomacy and Foreign Relations and a lecturer at Reichman University and Tel Aviv University.
- Jonathan Fulton is an assistant professor of political science at Zayed University in Abu Dhabi and a nonresident senior fellow for the Atlantic Council’s Middle East Programs and the Scowcroft Middle East Security Initiative.
Panel 2: How a new US President will/might shape US-China relations in the Middle East
- Dawn Murphy is an associate professor of national security strategy at the U.S. National War College.
- Zhang Chuchu is an associate professor of international relations in the School of International Relations and Public Affairs at Fudan University in Shanghai and she is the deputy director of the Center for Middle Eastern Studies at Fudan University.
- Mohammed Al Alsudairi is a lecturer in politics and international relations of the Arabic-speaking world at the Australian National University in Canberra.
Discussants:
- Enrico Fardella is the director of the ChinaMed Project and an associate professor at the Department of Human and Social Sciences at the University of Naples “L’Orientale.”
- Andrea Ghiselli is an assistant professor at the School of International Relations and Public Affairs of Fudan University.
Watch the seminar on YouTube:
Transcript:
Eric Olander: Hello everybody, and welcome to this special round table on the U.S. elections and China’s policies in the Middle East. My name is Eric Olander, Editor-in-Chief of the China Global South Project. We have a very special two-hour event coming up today for you, where we’ve brought together leading experts on U.S. and China Mideast affairs from around the world. And we’re going to divide today’s panel into two parts. And I’ll go through the mechanics of that a little bit later. But we’re going to have this very robust discussion about the first takes of what will happen in a second Trump administration as it comes into power next January. But before we get started into the conversation, I’d like to hand it over to the organizers, Andrea Ghiselli and Enrico Fardella, to say a few comments to welcome everybody to this special event. Enrico, let’s go to you first.
Enrico Fardella: Thank you very much, Eric. Thank you for having us. My name is Enrico Fardella, I’m Director of the ChinaMed Project. The ChinaMed is a research platform supported by the Torino World Affairs Institute, and it’s a platform that looks at the evolving role of China in what we call the Greater Mediterranean Region, namely Southern Europe, North Africa, and the Middle East. And we organize, as ChinaMed, every six month, a series of seminars that are basically trying to look at these growing role of China in this region from like an inside-out perspective. And here we are today with this great event that we put together, thanks to you, Eric, and China Global South. So thank you so much for having us, and I look so much forward to our conversation.
Eric: Andrea, if you few comments from you.
Andrea Ghiselli: Yeah, I would just add thanks to you, Eric, and thanks to the speakers today for joining us with different time zones. It was great to see such a great response. And of course, I also look forward to the discussion later on with the audience, and I’m sure there will be a lot to talk about. But just as a preliminary thing, Trump has just been elected, so take everything that is said here as, let’s see what happens. Just informed speculation. Maybe in a couple of months everything will turn out to be true or not — let’s see. But in any case, I hope that everyone will enjoy the forthcoming discussion.
Eric: Andrea, I’m glad you brought that up. And that was a point that I was going to make. This is what we’re calling a first take. It’s a quick take. The events are moving so fast, and at the end of the day, we don’t know what’s going to happen. But what we wanted to do today with this two-part round table is to provide you with some ideas and some thoughts and some perspectives from people in the regions around the world as to what might happen. Sometimes these predictions don’t age very well, and especially in this era of clips sitting on YouTube forever. And so I want to put a disclaimer out there in order to encourage our speakers today to take the chances to kind of project and to think about things, knowing that these are very fluid dynamic situations. A couple housekeeping things before we get in.
We’re going to have two panels. Each panel will have three guests in it. Our first panel is going to be focused on how the arrival of a new U.S. president fits in the national strategies of regional actors and their relations with China. Then, in the second hour, we’re going to have a panel about how a new U.S. president will or might shape U.S.-China relations in the Middle East. So I encourage you to wait for both of the panels because we’re going to have very different perspectives, and we have different speakers from various parts of the world. Also I want to remind everybody that this is an on-the-record conversation. In fact, we’re streaming live on YouTube. And for all of our viewers on YouTube, please put your questions and comments in the chat, and we will then, or at least, you know, post them up and we will then take them to our guests.
Just one final point on decorum. These are sensitive issues. These are difficult times that we’re living in. Not everybody’s obviously happy with how the results turned out in the U.S. The issues that are ongoing in the Middle East today provoke a lot of controversy and tension. And we are hoping today, and we will today have a very courteous and respectful conversation. So if comments coming from YouTube or elsewhere don’t meet that standard, they’re simply not going to get aired. And this is not the venue to air those out. So, let’s start with our first panel, and I’m going to bring three of our guests to the center of the stage. First, we’re joined by Ahmed Aboudouh, who is the Head of the China Studies unit at Emirates Policy Center and an associate fellow at the Chatham House in London.
Ahmed, thank you so much for taking the time to join us today. Also, we’re joined by Gedaliah Afterman, who is the head of the Asia Israel Policy Program at the Abba Eban Institute for Diplomacy and Foreign Relations, and a lecture at Reichman University and Tel Aviv University. Gedaliah, wonderful to see you again, and thank you for joining us. And then finally, for this first panel, we’re joined by Jonathan Fulton, an Assistant Professor of Political Science at Zayed University in Abu Dhabi, in the United Arab Emirates, and a non-resident senior fellow for the Atlantic Council’s Middle East program, and the Scowcroft Middle East Security Initiative, and also host of the invaluable China-MENA Podcast and the newsletter. Ahmed, Gedaliah, Jonathan, thank you all for taking the time to join us today.
Jonathan Fulton: Thanks, Eric.
Ahmed Aboudouh: Thank you so much, Eric, for having us.
Eric: Well, wonderful. Ahmed, we’re going to start with you. This is the question of how a new U.S. president is going to fit in the national strategy of regional actors. The United Arab Emirates, where you are the Head of China studies at the Emirates Policy Center in many ways is a focal point in this region, both for the Americans and the Chinese. When the new administration comes back in, one of the things that they cite as their major foreign policy accomplishment from the first Trump administration is the Abraham Accords, where the United Arab Emirates was central to that. The Chinese themselves also put the UAE as a focal point of their foreign policy in the region. Let’s start with you to get your reflections on how this election will change or alter the national strategies for the UAE and then thinking more broadly around the Gulf.
Ahmed: Thank you, Eric. Again, this is a very important question. And it’ll be a pleasure for me to speak about the Gulf state, especially in their relations with China and the new president. And thank you also for putting forward the caveat in the beginning because our discussion today will be based on speculation. But we are fortunate because we have a new president, but not brand new. We tried him before and we know some of his policies that I expect to continue to be the same. It is clear to me that many governments in the region wanted Trump to win the elections. And this is not surprising because Trump’s mercantilism and transactionalism go very well with the wave of pragmatism that is dominating the region right now.
I think also that a lot in the region think that Trump might be easier to sway compared to President Biden, especially on issues they deem very crucial for the national security. But I think the other caveat here is it’ll be premature to think that by winning the elections, Trump could alter the policies of these countries or their relationship with China. And this is because the Middle East now is completely different than the Middle East during Trump’s first term. The region now is in conflict. These countries think that there they’re more autonomous, they have more options, and that the United States need them more than before in the context of strategic competition with China and Russia. At the same time, China’s influence in the region now is deeper and more entrenched especially when it comes to trade and investment but also in China’s normative offerings, values under the GSI, GDI, and GCI and the local perception of China as an alternative, potential alternative mediator in the region regardless of these countries’ perception of China’s capabilities or abilities to turn its rhetoric into action.
Judging from his first term, I think Trump will have massive loopholes in his Middle East policies. For example, during his first day, Trump didn’t show any interest in charting a meaningful trajectory towards peace between the Palestinians and Israelis. On the contrary, in fact, he adopted a lot of initiatives that supported Prime Minister Netanyahu’s preferences like recognizing Jerusalem at the capital of Israel, the annexation of Golan Heights, or kicking out the PLO representative office in Washington, D.C., and many other initiatives. There’s nothing to convince me this time that this administration, or until so far, they will have a different view on peace in the Middle East. Trump was not interested, and I suspect will not be interested in Palestinian governance or putting a workable plan for the day after in Gaza or push the two sides towards a two-state solution.
At the same time, this puts massive burden on countries in the region like Saudi Arabia, who are considering normalizing their relationship in Israel because in the absence of such a plan, I don’t think that normalization is viable anytime soon. This in turn means that a comprehensive defense treaty between Saudi Arabia and the United States is off the table, at least in the short term, especially after Republicans managed to get a majority in the Senate. Let’s also not forget that the perception in the Gulf States about the Trump administration after that [inaudible 0:11:26] and attack in 2019, that Trump was not there for them. And subsequently, the United States was not perceived as a reliable partner when it comes to defense and security commitments. At the same time, I don’t think anybody in the region is interested now in joining any future policy of maximum pressure against Iran or ditching their ongoing reproachment with Iran, or be a battlefield in any potential regional conflict between Iran and Israel.
But at the same time, I think Gulf States also recognize the risks that are emanating from the more assertive and bullish foreign policy that President Xi Jinping and the CCP are adopting now, again, towards the West and the United States and the risks that are coming out of China’s economic challenges from the economic restructuring now that is going on in China. And that will stay with us for some time to come. This will pose risks for their own economic visions and economic transformation policies. And they’re also aware of what’s coming, which is more protectionism, higher interest rates, more inflation, and more de-risking and decoupling, which also will pose a lot of risks for their own economies. So, I suspect Gulf countries will continue to diversify, will continue their multi-alignment policies. I also suspect that they would even increase or escalate their policy of using China as a bargaining chip with the United States in the future while trying to leverage the nearshoring and offshoring policies that come with de-risking on both sides on China and the Western side to localize the manufacturing industry in their own countries.
To sum up, and the main takeaway here is it is wrong to think that because Trump had a nice workable working relationship with these countries that his administration will be able to alter the relationship with China. On the contrary, I would go, actually, as far as thinking or suggesting that on the last day of this administration, I think China’s interest in the Middle East would be significantly higher compared to current age.
Eric: Ahmed, thank you so much for really setting the tone for our discussion today and providing such a great introduction in an overview on this. I just want to remind our attendees on Zoom today that the Q&A function is open. As soon as we get through our next two speakers and their presentations, we’re going to open it up to Q&A. So, I’m inviting everybody to submit their questions, also for you on YouTube, if you’re watching this, to put your questions there as well for our panelists. Jonathan, Ahmed has really teed it up nicely for you. He’s talked a lot about the changing dynamics of the Mid East and the Persian Gulf in particular since the Trumps were in the White House four years ago. China’s posture in the region has changed dramatically in that time. They’re more active in Israel-Palestinian Peace talks. They’ve increased their oil purchases considerably. They’ve deepened their engagement with Iran.
Can you focus on looking at it from the Chinese point of view, which is something you do quite a bit in your own research in terms of how does this change their perception of how to engage the region?
Jonathan: Yeah, that’s a good one, Eric. So, thanks for having us on and thanks to the ChinaMed guys for putting this together. And, fortunately, in the next panel, you’ve got Zhang Chuchu, who will be able to really get into the Chinese side a whole lot better than I can. Just looking at it from kind of a macro level, I think, like Ahmed said, we’ve got the benefit, if we call it that, of… it’s pretty rare that an incoming president, we can look at past performance and understand what they’re going to do. So we can kind of make some assumptions about what a second Donald Trump administration’s going to mean for the Middle East and how Chinese decision makers are going to have to engage with that.
I think one of the points I constantly make, China’s interests in the Middle East are primarily economic, and that means that the preference is stability and predictability, that wasn’t the feature of the last time Trump was president. It was a very unpredictable region. It was a very unstable time. It’s very strange for me, I say this not to be the annoying guy who’s not American, but I’m not. I’m from Canada. So, when I’m talking about this stuff, it’s not as somebody who’s angling for an administration position or anything. it’s weird for me walking around campus here in the UAE the past couple of days because my students would all come up to me and congratulate me. And I’d say, “You know I’m not from the States, right? Like, it’s not my election.” And they’d still say, “Well, it’s, it’s great news for everybody that Trump is president again.” My students were young during the last time, and I don’t think they really remember what it was like.
I was just trying to refresh or jog my memory, when, when Donald Trump was president, he flip flopped on Qatar. He was overly generous towards Israel, as Ahmed mentioned, I’m sure Gedaliah can talk about in more depth than I can, but this created a lot of problems in the region. He was very ungenerous towards Palestine, which made things a lot worse eventually, as we’ve seen. And then towards Iran, which I think is the biggest X-factor, pulling out the JCPOA, implementing maximum pressure. I think at the beginning, you’d see a lot of folks here, initially thought that was great to see an American president really coming down hard on Iran. But what we saw was the implementation of maximum pressure resulted in the attack in Fujairah on tankers. We saw the attack on Saudi Aramco. We saw attacks in Iraq. And all this came to a head with the assassination of Soleimani.
And that point, up until very recently, I thought was the most stressful period I’ve experienced since I came to the Gulf back in 2006. The day after Soleimani assassination, I thought we were going to actually have a hot war. What we saw around that time, I mean, talking to people in the Gulf, a lot of them, a lot of officials here were actually saying, “We’re going to try to distance ourself from American policy as much as possible.” I remember talking to an Emirati official who had been in Washington talking to American counterparts who said, “We want to speak with one voice. We’re going to send the messaging on Iran. We want you guys to support it.”
And the Emirati saying, “No, that’s not reasonable. You can’t expect us to follow you blindly on an Iran policy. That’s very much threatening us.” And you saw the Emirates reach out quietly to Iran and start to change the way they talked about Iran, the way they engaged with it. And you saw that with Turkey and you saw that, I think, with Israel as well. I know we often think of the Abraham Accords as a triumph of Jared Kushner and Trump’s diplomacy. If you read Barak Ravid, I haven’t read his book, I listened to his podcast — you see a lot of agency for local actors and Israeli actors and making that happen. And I think that was because they found unpredictability very nerve-wracking for the region. Now for China, I mean, bringing it back to your question, this is a very long-winded way to get to it.
I think for China, that same dynamic exists. You see a region where they have a lot of expatriate citizens, where they have a lot of economic interests, where they have a lot of assets. A place where there’s been a lot of tension, a lot of conflict that has the potential to spill over and what looks like a pretty reckless administration, at least for the Middle East. There’s a perception that Benjamin Netanyahu is going to have free rein to direct policy for the U.S. and a lot of the levant. That may be good for Netanyahu. I think for other actors in the region, it’s unsettling. Just this morning, the lead story in the Wall Street Journal was somebody from the Trump campaign saying there will be a return to the maximum pressure with Iran that they can see Iran’s on the ropes, and it gives them a chance to really come down hard on them.
For China. I think that’s distressing, right? They do a lot of business here. And to see this region get much less stable is going to be problematic. I don’t know what that’ll mean because like Ahmed said, it is a different region. China’s a different actor here. Local actors are different than they were four years ago as well. I still think the same restraints or limitations on China’s ability to really shift things here is still a pretty important factor. I don’t think China is the security or diplomatic actor that can move the needle on most things in this region. I don’t think many people here see it in that way. There might be moves to try to engage China more seriously or more meaningfully in security or diplomatic affairs in the region.
I’m not sure that China really sees an interest in that. And then you just scale back and you think, there’s going to be so many other effects — thinking of the Russia-Ukraine war and what this means just more broadly. If this intensifies, then our commodity price is going to shoot up. Are there going to be more economic stresses in countries in the Middle East where there’s weak governance already? What’s that going to mean for political stability here? And what’s China going to do in that situation? So really, I think what we’re seeing is, again, I know what you’d like is a lot of big predictions to say this is what I think we’re going to see. I have no idea. And political scientists, frankly, are terrible at this anyway. But what I do see is just a lot of things that are really the unknown unknowns that we’re all going to be kind of fumbling through.
And I think that’s different. The Biden administration wasn’t great by any stretch, but there was a degree of predictability that we were able to look at the playbook and make some assumptions. And I just don’t think any of us can say that right now.
Eric: No, I appreciate that. And again, I am just emphasizing over and over again throughout these discussions, what Jonathan’s saying is that we just don’t know. Again, this is a very dynamic situation, but Jonathan, thank you for giving us a forecast. It’s like the weather a little bit. We can’t guarantee for sure that it’s going to be sunny or rainy, but we at least have an indication.
Jonathan: Make sure you’ve got an umbrella all the time.
Eric: Make sure you have an umbrella. We know that’s for sure. Gedaliah, no one was more excited about Donald Trump’s victory than Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. I mean, he was openly advocating for Trump. He’s had a very contentious relationship with not only President Biden, but the Democratic Party in the United States. At the same time, the relationship that he has with China has soured considerably since October 7th. We cannot forget that in the time since the conflict began on October 7th, Benjamin Natanya was planning to go to China to meet with President Xi Jinping in October of 2023. And so to see the pace of how, and the speed of how events have changed between Israel and China, and now with the reelection of Donald Trump, help us understand the matrix of all of this from an Israeli point of view.
Gedaliah: Thank you, Eric. Again, happy to be here and thank you for the ChinaMed guys for setting this up. Absolutely, I mean, it’s been a very intense, very dramatic year from a Israeli perspective, and I agree with you, Netanyahu not only was happy, I think that was his strategic bet that eventually Trump will win the election, and that will position Israel and his administration specifically in a better position. I think that since in the war itself have changed quite considerably over the last month or five weeks or so, with the shift from Gaza to Lebanon and Hezbollah and Iran, and I think there’s a different mood and also a sense of opportunity within Israel that maybe more can be done on the Iran front. And in that sense, Trump’s election in particular could allow Israel a fair hand in doing more against Iran.
I would say that in general, Trump in Israel is seen as a very, very good president. We mentioned some of the things that happened during his previous presidency — the Abraham Accords, the recognition of Jerusalem as the capital of Israel. All of these things are seen as strategic, and there is a hope that under the Trump administration, Israel can do two things at once. So, one, go back to the Abraham Accords, expand them, push normalization with Saudi Arabia, and two, as I just mentioned, perhaps do even more to weaken the Iranian stance in the region. I think that after what has been a fairly rocky year or so between Netanyahu and Biden, the expectation is that under Trump, there’ll be much less pressure on Israel to, to do things, especially on the Palestinian front as Ahmed said.
But we should also keep in mind that there could be pressure to end the Gaza war quickly because that’s something that Trump has said pretty clearly that he wants to end or he wants to see come to an end as quickly as possible. There’s also a sense in Israel that under Trump, we could see a relatively quick return to cross-regional initiatives like IMEC and others, the Indian Middle East Economic Corridors. On the relationship with China itself, you mentioned the souring in the relationship between Israel and China following the sermons of October, and that indeed has been the case. Israel has shifted pretty quickly from considering playing between the superpowers and considering a reality where China could perhaps play a role, even in mediating between Israel and Saudi Arabia to seeing China not only not as a friend, but also as a supporter of Israel’s enemies.
We’ve seen interesting changes actually in the Chinese position in recent weeks as well. We’ve seen an attempt by China to kind of soften what was a very one-sided anti-Israel approach when the war was focused on Gaza. We’ve seen that shift a little bit with the Israeli successes against Hezbollah and strikes on Iran, where suddenly, for the first time, China mentioned or recognized Israel’s legitimate security concerns. And that was seen as a shift, as a attempt by China to reframe a little bit its relationship vis-à-vis Israel. I think that following what we’ve seen in the first Trump administration, there’ll be clear American pressure on Israel to limit even further its relationships with China, its trade relationship with China, cooperation on infrastructure and technology. I think we might see new areas where there would be perhaps limited or an expect an American expectation for Israeli loyalty.
I think one area that could be relevant for that is electric vehicles. Israel is a small country but Chinese electric vehicles are a huge market here. There’s a huge market here for electric vehicles in that sense. I’ll just add it’s important also to consider that we have seen China trying to calibrate its view and its relationship with the region as things change. And in that sense, I think that I agree with both Ahmed and Jonathan and just say that China will probably take a wait-and-see approach initially, but they will be playing with their position a little bit. Generally speaking, I think the starting point is that China is feeling quite comfortable after a year in which its narrative on Gaza and the war in general has been well received in the region. I think it feels that they managed to discredit the U.S. or weaken, at least on the narrative level, weaken the U.S. position in the region. So it has a good starting point. It’s in a better position than it was before.
But it’s also aware that things can change pretty quickly, especially if things deteriorate or there’s a more direct, more substantial conflict with Iran.
Eric: Okay. That’s very interesting. Let’s now kind of step back a little bit and kind of reflect on these three presentations. I’d like to bring Andrea and Enrico back into the conversation for you to share some of your views on what you’ve heard from Gedaliah, Ahmed, and Jonathan. Enrico, let’s start with you first.
Enrico: Thank you, Eric, and thank you everyone. Very stimulating as always. Let me start with Ahmed and the continuity or discontinuity of Trump administration. Yes, of course, I mean, we already seen Trump policy and their impact on the Middle East in the previous administration, but it’s also true that the outbreak of the Ukrainian war and the rising conflict in the Middle East also are creating a different regional contest and in particular different role for China. This conflict and China’s role in both this conflict have emphasized, in my opinion, the polarization between China-U.S. also at a regional level. And something that I am very interested in and maybe we haven’t discussed yet, maybe we can discuss in in the conversation, is in fact the importance that China has.
I mean, if you read like the word emerging from the Trump administration, for the Trump administration, China is basically all about China, including the incoming economic measures. China’s being defined not as a rival, but as an enemy, basically. And so it would be interesting to understand how the incoming tariffs, the 10% tariffs, and I just came out actually today with a very interesting conversation with Michael Paris on this topic and the potential taxation of capital inflow in the U.S. may reverberate in the region. Because like the effect of this economic policy that actually are being taken are going to be taken by the U.S. administration as a protection towards the distortion, the export of economic distortion coming from Beijing. They may actually generate a more positive trend, I mean, a forced positive trend in terms of trade and investment from China into the region.
And this this will increase the role of PRC, maybe also creating a sort of dependency. And then we go back to what Ahmed mentioned about the awareness of the emerging structural crisis of Chinese economy. So, I would like, maybe in the debate, if we can touch upon this relationship because what we are seeing is like a very interesting scenario in which someone, for example, Niu Xinchun in the past, which is a very famous analyst from China, used to say that U.S. and China have actually more interesting common in the region in terms of stability. But what we have seen in the last few months, at least, in my opinion, is actually how this notion of stability in the region is diverging more and more. I would be very curious to, to know what to think about it. And I think I can stop here for now.
Eric: Okay. Before we get onto our questions and some questions, some great ones are starting to come in into the question box. And again, I want to invite all of our attendees on Zoom and also on YouTube to submit their questions. We’re going to get to them very quickly. But Andrea, let’s hear from you very quickly first.
Andrea: Yes, and I’ll be very quick. Actually, I have a question for anyone dependent really, it’s a open question. I was very interested in the point made especially by Jonathan and Ahmed about the fact, on the one hand, there’s a normative affinity with the Trump administration that definitely did not exist with the Democrats and Biden, while at the same time, the economic if not dependence reliance on China, is also extremely important for these, for countries in the Gulf. So how do you see this dynamic, contrasting dynamics playing out? Would imagine somewhat countries, especially like the UAE or Saudi Arabia and others to try to maybe nudge Trump policy vis-à-vis China to avoid a two-drastic weakening of the Chinese economy on which countries in the Gulf then rely so much?
Eric: Okay, Andrea-
Andrea: And maybe the opposite-
Eric: Actually, can I just hold you there? Let’s put that question to Ahmed. Let’s see if Ahmed can take that question right there before we go on.
Andrea: Yeah.
Ahmed: Well, it’s a very interesting question, and I think it’s very important to be asked at the moment. I would like to address the tariffs thing and then the balance between economic relations and security relations. Let’s start with Andrea’s question. I think it is well known and became cliche now even that the Gulf states are not interested in replacing the United States as a guarantor of security by China or any other player for that matter. So, this relationship will not go anywhere. But at the same time, we are going through turbulence now when it comes to trade and investment, and this is linking Andrea’s question to Enrico’s question about protectionism. And I think everybody in the region’s aware of what’s going on.
That is the Biden administration is not crazy about China, just for the sake of punishing China. He is expected to put up the tariffs to force the Chinese companies to invest into the American market. The same dynamic is going on between the EVs, the EU on the EVs with China. This can provide the Gulf States with both benefits and challenges. The benefit is these countries are well connected and they have free trade agreements with the west, not China yet, which will provide Chinese companies with strategic opportunity to relocate some of their operations into the Gulf states, especially with the flourishing of the free zones, industrial zones in the Gulf, and the infrastructure that comes to ports and roads, and so on and so forth. But at the same time, on a cost-benefit calculus on the part of the Chinese, they might think that this will not sort out the problem.
And we could see how harsh the Biden administration and also the Trump administration are on Mexico as related to the nearshoring policy and also Southeast Asian countries, including Vietnam, Singapore, and so on. So I think from a Gulf perspective, they will hope to have more investments coming from China and also coming from the EU and the U.S. But at the same time, they are aware that this will might be difficult because China will have to compromise by allowing some of its companies to localize their industrial bases in the West at the same time.
Eric: Thank you very much, Ahmed. Andrea, you had another question that looks like you were getting ready to ask. Let’s go back to you very quickly.
Andrea: And just essentially the other side of the same question, whereas countries, some countries might find themself somewhat fighting different forces in a way, dependence on Chinese economy, while also this normative affinity with new American president, I was thinking maybe especially Gedaliah or also Jonathan, of course, could say something else maybe on actually the increasing dependence that will be, imagine from Iran on China and Israel and the U.S. that this new election will create essentially. There is no policy choice to be made. Probably they will love just to follow the trends maybe that the Trump election will create or not.
Ahmed: Can I say a couple thoughts on that?
Eric: Yeah, go ahead Ahmed. Very quickly.
Ahmed: Yeah. I think this is also an important question because it lines neatly with my prediction that we will see more diversification and more hedging. Why? Because these protectionist policies from the United States will force these countries to actually not double down on their relationships with China investment. On the contrary, I think they will be very careful in going all in into the Chinese market at the moment. And I could give you a number, the first nine months of this year, they invested only $9 billion into China out of $55 billion, the sovereign wealth funds invested over the world. So, I think they don’t see this binary competition between China and the United States. On the country, I think they will go around the world and double down on their relationships, trade relationships, investment relationships with other countries, and we could see that and the safer agreements that the UAE has now chartered.
Eric: Gedaliah and Jonathan, I’d like to get you both to weigh in. Jonathan, sit tight. Let’s go to Gedaliah first and then we’ll come to you, Jonathan.
Gedaliah: Sure. Thank you. Jonathan and I had a podcast early in the war, and one of the things that I said to him is I think the relationship with Israel will be affected politically, but not very much economically with China, between China and Israel. And I think for now that’s pretty much held true. I do expect we’ll see more American pressure and more emotional American pressure. And like I said, we’ll hear things like loyalty and Trump expectation to see visible signs that Israel is doing what America wants on China in the region. And I think there will be a greater willingness in Israel to comply given the situation. EVs, as I mentioned, are probably a hot topic.
On Iran, I think we’ll see a pretty interesting dynamic because Jonathan mentioned the article in the Wall Street Journal today, I think we will see more pressure on Iran and that we expect will create more dependency, economic dependency from Iran on China, which could bring benefits and could bring opportunities for China. And China has used it in the past. But it’s also important to remember that under the first Trump administration, China actually, in some ways, did less with Iran. For example, China’s oil trade with Iran came down to almost zero at the end of the Trump administration, and actually rose under Biden administration again. I could also imagine a scenario where China says, “This is becoming too complicated. We’re going to do much less with Iran and focus on Saudi Arabia and the UAE in the region and other actors.” So it’ll be interesting to see how that develops.
Eric: Jonathan, let’s get your take.
Jonathan: Yeah, there’s a lot in there. I mean the Iran side I think is interesting. I was just going to make the same point that Gedaliah did that the China-Iran Conference strategic partnership was initially signed in January, 2016. Trump came into office, he won that November. And as a result, you saw China really step back from Iran in a lot of ways. The economic relationship between the two really deteriorated during the first Trump administration. I don’t think that’s going to change. I think China is going to not want to risk getting sanctioned, secondary sanctioned. They’ll probably be pretty hesitant to do too much with Iran. And frankly, they don’t do a lot, like a lot of the stuff you’ve seen with Iran has been buying oil from second parties to refining these teapot refineries that aren’t connected to Swift.
It’s been a very cautious economic relationship. It’s been very one-sided. It’s been very opportunistic. For the Gulf economic side, I think one thing, when you talk about economic dependency from the Gulf on China, they do a lot of trade with China. Obviously, they sell a lot of energy products to China. They buy a lot of everything, which is a vulnerability. That’s a structural vulnerability in the economic relationship because China’s saying 2030 rather is going to be peak oil for them. They’re going to start reducing their consumption. The goal is to be done with it by 2060. Gulf countries are going to think, “Well, what else do we have to sell?” Right? “We still buy everything from China and China’s going to stop buying the one thing that we really sell to them in any meaningful way.” One thing on the investment side, I mean, it’s also very one-sided, China’s not investing much in this region despite the hype.
And Gulf countries have been very reluctant to put their money into… they’re just as risk intolerant as everybody else. They look at the Chinese market and think — this is very unpredictable, right? We’ve seen a lot of Chinese companies, a lot of Chinese firms, a lot of Chinese officials coming here to try to get Gulf capital to go into Chinese real estate, into Chinese businesses. And it’s just not happening. There was an investment fair here in Abu Dhabi in May, and the Chinese ambassador to the UAE said, “Hey, the Gulf Sovereign Wealth Funds have like $2.3 billion in China right now.” And a lot of folks went, “Wow, that’s a lot of money.” Well, it is, but they managed $4.2 trillion worth of assets, so 2.3 is nothing. And when Mohammed bin Zayed, the President of the Emirates, was in Washington in September, one of the figures we kept seeing was that the Emirates has about a trillion dollars invested in the U.S. So, the idea that China’s the major economic actor in the Gulf and the U.S. is the major security actor, I think that’s a really clumsy narrative. Also just, I mean, and I know we’ve got to move on, but just dissecting trade, trading in good versus traded services — China does a lot of trade in goods, and that’s important. but when countries are trying to rebuild these kind of hydrocarbon-dependent economies into something more sustainable, it’s the trade in services they need. And that’s what countries like the U.S. and the Europeans and the UK, that’s what they have to offer. So, it’s a very different dynamic than just China handles the money and the U.S. handles the military.
Eric: Yeah. Enrico, over to you.
Enrico: Well, yes, Jonathan, I totally agree with you. I have a question for you. So, how do you envision the impact of Trump economic policies in this regard? Do you think that because it’s evident that this may favor like a stronger trend of this dynamic that you correctly say, comparatively speaking between China and the U.S.? Of course, China is not such a dominant actor as sometimes it’s being portrayed. So do you think that U.S. economic policies that Trump economic policies, the tariffs, they may actually become like a boost in this direction and maybe change? How do you envision the impact of these policies on China’s and the Gulf relations?
Jonathan: Sorry, was that for me?
Eric: Yes.
Jonathan: Well, I mean, I think we’re going to see… Actually, I don’t know. I mean, the way I look at it, the transactional of it, I think a lot of folks think that the Gulf is quite comfortable with that. One of the things I heard throughout the Biden administration when I talked to Gulf officials or Gulf strategic thinkers was they’d say, “Look, our relationship with the U.S. is strategic, our relationship with China’s transactional.” And they would say that as a way to say, look, the U.S. is much more meaningful to us. We do stuff with China that helps us, but it doesn’t cover everything. just watching the AI story here over the past year, I think has confirmed that. AI has seen, especially in the UAE, and increasingly in Saudi, as an existential opportunity.
If you’re so reliant on expatriate labor for so much of your workforce, and you can bring in digitization, you can use AI to resolve that. That takes a lot of the uncertainty off. So, when they’re working with us firms on AI, they’re thinking this is going to be a long-term important thing. I think the economic side will probably continue to flourish because I think the U.S. is going to lean on them to bundle trade with other things. We saw Trump, in his previous administration, would often reduce everything to deals, right? When Aramco was hit, it was like, if you want more protection, give us more money. So I think probably what these countries will do is say, “Let’s make sure more money’s going to the states,” whether it’s to the Trump Hotel in D.C. or whether it’s buying more whatever, food, agricultural products, whatever, because it just seems like a smart policy to keep your biggest strategic partner happy.
Eric: Ahmed, I’ll get to you very quickly, but I just want to remind everybody, we only have about 10 minutes left, and I do want to get a few questions in from the audience. In fact, Ahmed, I’m going to come to you with this first question. Since the Trumps were first in the White House, the BRICS has expanded considerably, and it’s become something much larger than just five countries. And in fact, the UAE and Egypt are now part of the BRICS+. Will that have any impact on the undercurrents of that body in terms of how the GCCs, the Gulf Cooperation Council’s balancing act with Washington? What role does the BRICS play in all of this, do you think, Ahmed?
Ahmed: Okay, that’s also an interesting question. I would just like to say very quickly a couple of points on Jonathan’s remarks, which I agree with. But I think the relationship of the Gulf States with both the U.S. and China will most likely, in my view, develop into high tech from the U.S. manufacturing from China. So, these countries are very, very interested in building their manufacturing bases. I don’t think there is yet a massive input from the United States companies and EU companies to help them do that. I think they recognize the importance of bringing Chinese engineers into the Gulf to help them to do that in the long term. And also, I think that we are seeing a specialized manufacturing input from both sides. When it comes to China. We are thinking about the renewable energy and technology, EVs, batteries, solar panels, and so on and so forth.
When it comes to the U.S., it’s advanced technology, AI. Why? Not because only of their partnership with the United States, but also because the United States and the West are the best in this field. One example is South Korea. South Korea is very good at nuclear technology, the EU went to South Korea. So, if, for example, Europe was as big as the United States in AI and chips, advanced chips, the Gulf States will not have a problem to build a partnership in this field with Europeans or Asians or Indians or whoever. Going back to the BRICS, I think we are seeing a very fast development in the BRICS sphere and very increasing interest in the Middle East. In fact, some countries like Algeria are very frustrated of not being invited the last summit to be members.
And they feel like they are being treated less than other countries who were invited. And this shows you how attractive the idea became given even with all the challenges, the internal divisions in the BRICS, the lack of structural, or structure, governance structure and all that, that we know. But still, countries seem to be interested. Why? And this is the important question. Because they just want an umbrella of protection from sanctions, from weaponizing the dollar, first and foremost. Second, they want financing opportunities, investment opportunities from these big nations that are the original members of BRICS. Trump coming in the Whitehouse, in my view, will likely accelerate this trajectory as countries look at how he uses the weaponization of tariff as a statecraft tool of coercion against other nations he doesn’t like or he doesn’t agree with their policies.
Top of the list is China and Russia. When this happens, and even European countries, when this happens, I think the attraction of BRICS will increase not only in the Middle East, but across the global south. New ideas within BRICS will come up to make it more institutionalized like BRICS pay, and so on, and a lot of financial infrastructure, a lot of cooperation in this field. And I think what Trump will do as a service to China and Russia is to make BRICS a meaningful body unlike what it is now.
Eric: Okay. Thank you, Ahmed. Let’s go to another question. Gedaliah, you brought up this question of Chinese EVs. One of our attendees says the total exports of Chinese EVs are estimated at around 700,000 to 750,000 in 2023. Israel shares roughly about 10,000, a mere 1%. Would that really be a needle mover for loyalty for U.S. in containing Chinese EVs? That comes from one of our questions. Gedaliah, what’s your take on that?
Gedaliah: I would say yes. I think it’s a lot about the symbolism and Israel being seen to act again, it’s about loyalty, it’s about symbolism, it’s about Israel showing Trump that it’s listening to him on these things. And this is in contrast to at least the perception in the U.S. in the past that Israel has been quite wishy-washy in its relationship with China, and not very attentive to U.S. concern. So in that sense, I think it’s an area where Israel could fairly easily show that kind of move. As we’ve discussed earlier, the relationship between China and Israel anyway has been shrinking in most areas and is also limited by definition. I think that’s just something that we should keep in mind. Is it a game changer? Will it change the strategic [inaudible 0:52:05] between China and the U.S. and the Middle East?
I’m not sure. But I just wanted to add something to what Ahmed said about BRICS and BRICS+ plus. I mean, I think we should keep in mind that part of the reason that China is seen as some kind of alternative to the U.S., if you want to call it, on the economic front, on the strategic front. It’s because there’s a trust gap between the region and the United States. And the question is, under Trump, would that be better or worse? Would the region trust the United States longer term more or less? And I tend to agree with Ahmed that the trends will actually accelerate in the other direction where there’s a lot of benefits in the region for having a Trump as a president for a while. But longer term, I think the foundations of the relationship with the U.S. might actually become weaker and push trends more towards other actors, including China.
Eric: Okay. We just have five minutes left, and we’ve covered a lot of ground. It’s very dense everything that you’ve given us to think about, we have to kind of pour through. So I’d like each one of you, in really 60 seconds to just a minute or two, to help our audience on what to look for on these topics going forward. What’s your best suggestion on how to think about this issue of us China and the Mideast with the incoming Trump administration? So Ahmed, let’s start with you, and then Jonathan, and then Gedaliah, we’ll come to you. Ahmed, just a very quick food for thought for our audience to take forward in the next six to 12 months.
Ahmed: Two points. First, let’s understand that from a Chinese perspective China’s influence in the Middle East and the level of aggressiveness of China’s approach to the Middle East depends on the bilateral relations with the U.S. China started its aggressive approach to the Middle East under Trump after the trade war in 2017, and started to tout some normative ideas in the Middle East. If these two countries don’t chart a rapprochement, we will expect Chinese China to be more aggressive. The second one is the Middle East now is going through massive transformation that is depending on the United States and supporting Israel’s vision of reconstructing the regional order, with Israel first among equals or even the leader of the region. Why? Because the United States want to focus somewhere else.
This will not bother the Chinese. The Chinese don’t, in my view, care too much about the shape of the framework of security in the region. And in fact, they will continue to free ride in the region. But they will always have this issue with isolating Iran because what October 7 taught us is that no initiative, excluding Iran, can go forward in this country, in this region.
Eric: That’s great. Jonathan, what’s your key takeaway for people to follow in the next six to 12 months?
Jonathan: Yeah, that’s a good one. I mean, really, the way I look at it, I think we frame a lot of this, not today, but I think just in general, the way this often gets framed is U.S. and China are calling the shots. Like there’s this great power competition taking place in the region, and we’re all reacting to Washington or Beijing. I would watch more what actors in the region are doing and how they’re using this situation because they have a lot of agency and they’ve got game plans too. They’re watching this and trying to figure out how this is going to fit in with their own development agendas, their own security agendas. I think we often give too much credit to the Grand Wizards in Beijing and Washington and the strategic communities for shaping events. And I think that often misses what the really interesting stuff that’s happening on the ground. It’s great that Mohammed Alsudairi, who’s, to my thinking, one of the sharpest strategic thinkers that he’s on the next panel. He can give you some local ideas about this. But I would listen more to folks from the region on this stuff because they’re saying a lot of pretty interesting things.
Eric: Okay. Gedaliah, we’re going to give the last word to you for this panel.
Gedaliah: Thank you. I agree with both Johnson and Ahmed. I think that the Chinese policies would be mainly reactive, at least initially. I’m not expecting any big strategic initiatives from China, not to bring peace between Israelis and Palestinians and not to mediate between Israel and Iran or anything like that. I think that a war and a full-out war between Israel and Iran would have quite an impact on China in the region. But I also agree that in the end, one of the most important things that shape China’s position in the region is its relationship with the United States and how that plays out. I think as we see, on the one hand, as Jonathan said, what’s happening in the region itself, what the actors are doing, especially the war, and on the other hand, the dynamic between Beijing and Washington themselves. I think that could give us clues as to how we see things develop in the Middle East in the coming years.
Eric: Gedaliah, Ahmed, Jonathan, thank you so much for your time and your insights on this and for sharing what is, again, a very fluid issue and your forecast. And I just want to reiterate, again, these are quick takes. Please don’t hold anybody to these because the events are changing on the ground so fast. Just a reminder, Ahmed Aboudouh is the head of the China Studies unit at Emirates Policy Center and an associate fellow at the Chatham House in London. Gedaliah Afterman is the Head of the Asia Israel Policy Program at the Abba Eban Institute for Diplomacy and Foreign Relations, and a lecture at Reichman University and Tel Aviv University. And Jonathan Fulton is an assistant professor of political science at Zayed University and a non-resident senior fellow for Atlantic Council’s Middle East program. Thank you all so much.
We really appreciate it. We’re going to put links to all of your bios in the show notes when this program goes on our podcast and on YouTube later. And so we want to thank our first three panelists for their contributions. And now I’d like to welcome our next panelists who’s going to transition now into a different discussion, how a new U.S. president will/might — we don’t know, again, there’s a lot of conditionality in all of this — shape U.S.-China relations in the Middle East. And I’m very excited for this panel because we’re going to have perspectives from both China and the United States and again, as you heard from Mohammed Alsudairi, who is an expert in these affairs and more broadly. So, very excited to have with us Dawn Murphy, who’s an Associate Professor of National Security Strategy at the US National War College. Zhang Chuchu, who is an Associate Professor of International relations in the School of International Relations and Public Affairs at Fudan University in Shanghai and also the Deputy Director of the Center for Middle Eastern Studies at Fudan University. And of course, Mohammed Alsudairi, who is a lecturer in politics and international relations of the Arabic-speaking world at the Australian National University.
Dawn, Chuchu, and Mohammed, welcome, and very excited to have you join us today.
Dawn Murphy: Thank you for having me.
Mohammed Alsudairi: Thank you.
Eric: So, you’ve had a chance to, to kind of sit in the bullpen and listen and get warmed up for this conversation. Dawn, we’re going to start with you given the fact that the events that unfolded this week happened in the United States. You are a longtime follower of U.S. and Chinese engagement in the global south, particularly in the Middle East. Let’s talk about how Trump, too, is going to shape the Great Power competition in the Middle East.
Dawn: So the first thing that I should actually say is that I need to give a disclaimer that today the views that I expressed are my own and they don’t represent the U.S. government. With that said, I think the way that I look at, and as it’s already been framed, there’s a lot we don’t know, this is a fluid situation, this is speculation. But the way that I’m looking at this is, first, thinking about continuity and change between the first Trump administration and the Biden administration, and what that may tell us about an incoming Trump administration. So, the first change from Trump to Biden was that the first Trump administration had a very strong focus on trade, in particular the trade deficit with China and implementing various tariffs. And at this point, there’s been campaign promises of having across-the-board tariffs on all countries potentially importing goods into the U.S. in the 10% to 20% range, and particularly tariffs on China at 60% or higher on some goods.
So, if the Trump administration returns to that focus with a much more muscular approach to tariffs, I think you’ll see the Middle East becoming much more important for China, for its exports for its broader economic engagement, and potentially China becoming more important for the Middle East if trade with all countries ends up being at a higher tariff level. So, if you have more protectionism in the U.S., I think it could draw China and the Middle East economically closer together. Another change from the first Trump administration to the Biden administration was that the Biden administration focused on framing national security strategy in terms of a contest between autocracies and democracies. I would assume going into a new Trump administration, there will be less emphasis on that potentially. And that could have a couple of different effects. It could potentially just be that there’s less concern regarding the ways in which China’s interaction with countries in the Middle East could support or facilitate authoritarian regimes.
That could potentially be an impact. It also may be that countries in the Middle East are more comfortable with the U.S. if there’s not as much a focus on the democracy aspect or the human rights aspect, for example. But it very well, in a new Trump administration, could cut in a different direction because there are definitely elements within the Republican Party. And even if you look at the end of the first Trump administration, a focus on the CCP that the Chinese Communist Party and Chinese Communist Party influenced globally and worries regarding the authoritarian and communist aspects of China’s governance. So I think that could cut either way. Another change in focus between the first Trump administration and the Biden administration was that the Biden administration focused more on multilateralism. I’ll get back to this in a minute, but I would assume that the second Trump administration may not focus on that as much.
For example, with NATO, there may be less worry about Turkey joining the Shanghai Cooperation, for example, right? There are some different impacts of that. So at a high level, that’s what I’m looking at. Looking forward, thinking through what was said in the first panel, as well as some emerging dynamics that I think we could see, I’ve already spoken to the economic side, I think there could be closer ties across a broad range of issues. With the U.S. focusing less on multilateralism and China over the last four years, and even before that, obviously for decades in many ways, focusing on multilateralism in the region, I think you very much could see China emphasizing even more the ways in which it is building institutions in the Middle East as well as throughout the global south.
Whether that’s the China-Arab States Cooperation Forum, cooperation with the Gulf Cooperation Council. The first panel talked about BRICS+. BRICS+ is already becoming more important. Middle Eastern countries are key to that expansion in many ways. So you could see more emphasis on that. The Shanghai Cooperation Organization continuing to expand to include the Middle East. The Gulf Cooperation Council, China FTA, Free Trade Agreement. The Global Development Initiative, Global Security Initiative, Global Civilizational Initiative, all of these things I would expect that China will continue to build for its own purposes, but that will be in stark contrast to how the U.S. potentially is dealing with the region. Another trend I would pay attention to would be that if the U.S. under a new Trump administration becomes more isolationist, that could result in less U.S. focus on the Middle East. And as a result, because the U.S. is the primary security provider in the region, perhaps China will need to step up and provide more security for its own citizens or for the [inaudible 1:05:41] of communication.
Another part that I’m thinking through right now that also was mentioned in the first panel was that if under a new Trump administration there are stronger support for Israel from the U.S., this will give China an opportunity to further differentiate itself from the U.S. in the region in regards to the Palestinian issue as well as its criticism of Israel. I’m not going to go into it in detail, but again, it was mentioned in the first panel, I think over the last year, China has actually been able to gain quite a bit of positive perceptions about its Palestinian leaning stance and about its broader approach to the region. And so that may become even more prominent as we go forward. Another element of this is if we have a more confrontational approach towards Iran coming from the U.S. government, I would expect that China will continue to stress its balanced approach between Arab Gulf states, Iran, other actors in the region.
It may offer to mediate more between Iran and Saudi Arabia and other countries in the region. Another element of this is if the U.S. focuses more on Iran, you may all be looking at the fact that within the U.S., there’s this emerging kind of debate about whether there’s an axis that’s developed between China, Russia, and North Korea, and Iran. So, if you have an emphasis on Iran, that narrative may start to have a lot more traction. Another piece to think about, I would say, and this was mentioned in the first panel as well that if you have a more transactional approach, perhaps because the U.S. and China do share a lot of interest in the Middle East, maybe there will be cooperation on ending the war in Gaza or other issues. So, I don’t think we should count that out.
I think it’s hard to know what a Trump administration, how that will be approached. If relations between the U.S. and China deteriorate under the new Trump administration, there may be more pressure on countries in the Middle East to take sides. That’s something that was discussed on the first panel quite a bit, but there’s a lot of strategic autonomy that’s being exercised. But the space for that strategic autonomy may become smaller if relations become much worse. Another thing I would pay attention to is the fact that President Trump won the Senate is moving towards Republican majority, and the House may also. So, when you combine that with this emerging bipartisan consensus regarding a China threat, it may result in a more adversarial relationship between China and the U.S. broadly under the next administration. And so concerns about China in the Middle East may rise as a result of that.
And the final thing I would say because I know time is very limited is one really important thing to to watch is who Trump appoints in various roles in the cabinet and other advisory roles. Because it’s one thing to look at Trump’s approach to China, but in the first administration under Trump, a lot of the policy really the nuts and bolts were driven by specific advisors. And I think it’s way too early to tell what that looks like. So, overall, I think you’re going to see closer relations between China and the Middle East and the economic realm, closer political relations, and possibly this becoming more of an area where countries are asked to choose between the U.S. and China if things become more confrontational.
Eric: Dawn, that’s a great way for us to start this conversation, laying it out so broadly. Chuchu, you had a chance to listen to what Dawn was saying in her forecast of potentially closer ties between China and the Mideast, depending the direction that the Trump administration goes and who they appoint and how this is handled. It’d be great to get your thoughts on what Dawn laid out and more broadly about the direction as you see it from Shanghai.
Zhang Chuchu: Okay, thank you so much Eric for having me. Actually, I would say, so I have a few points to add. First of all, I think Trump may bring the so-called Trump risks. But actually right now for China, he’s not that scary since, as a lot of our colleagues has already mentioned, he’s not brand new and he was there. So, at least China has some kind of experience of dealing with him in the past. And secondly, I would say when it comes to the Trump administration, although today we are talking about the Middle East, but the important thing we should notice that what China is concerned most is not about the Middle East, but about the other issues such as whether the United States is going to impose tariffs as a tool, for instance, for his statecraft, and whether Trump’s attitude towards Taiwan, for instance, is going to change.
So that is a bigger concern of China. Also, like Trump’s administration may even push for stronger military operation and cooperation with the Philippines, for instance. And it’s going to mobilize anti-China rhetorics in our neighboring countries. And that is going to frighten China more than what’s going on in the Middle East. And now if we come back to the Middle Eastern issues, I would say what we are most certain about Trump is that he is extremely unpredictable. For instance, when it comes to Iran, actually there is a kind of voice which says Trump met Kim Jong-un during his previous term. And right now it’s very interesting that Iran has a new president, Masoud Pezeshkian, and he is a reformist politician. So anything can happen.
It is not impossible for Trump to meet him to attract attention. And as far as I know, actually in Iran, also, the opinions are differentiated. And one kind of opinion even thinks that Trump can be a kind of transactionalist and who might want to renegotiate a nuclear deal. So, a lot of things can happen, and it’s still very unpredictable. And right now, I would say what can be expected with a Trump administration is his attitude towards the cooperation between China and the Gulf, for instance, because the Trump administration is very likely to escalate scrutiny of China’s, let’s say infrastructure projects or digital projects in the Middle East, especially the Gulf, which can affect China’s economic interest in the region. And also, for instance, even if he is going to meet Pezeshkian or whatever for attracting attention, but in the end, it is still very likely for him to reimplement his maximum pressure campaign against Iran.
And this kind of renewed U.S. sanctions are worrisome because that is going to increase the risks for Chinese companies operating in Iran. And also I would say that the growing China-U.S. competition is also very likely to force the Gulf States into the delicate technical balancing act. But also the Trump administration may also give them more pressure in order to let them choose sides between China and the United States. And that is exactly what China doesn’t want because actually a lot of people are saying, okay, so the Gulf is, for instance, looking west for security and it’s looking east for economic interest, or it is, for instance, like our colleagues have mentioned in our first round, that the Gulf is trying to looking east for high tech and looking for China for manufacturing.
Actually, China is okay with that. And it’s not saying, okay, we should dominate everything. but China just want to become part of it and wants to do business with all these regional actors. But the thing is that if the Gulf States are placed in this kind of situation to choose sides between the two sides, then it’s a very bad situation for China. And also a more worrisome situation can be that, so if there is a return of the maximum pressure policy, it can align with the Gulf interest in constraining Iranian regional influence. And this can affect the reconciliation between Iran and Saudi. And that is also very worrisome because actually last year China negotiated the relations between these two powers. But then, at the same time, maybe there are also some other scenarios that can happen.
One thing that maybe we haven’t touched a lot is that we also have to think about Turkey and some other countries in the Middle East because actually I would say the Turkish political elites, they prefer the victory of a Republican. And also Erdogan is also convinced that he can return his personal relationship with Trump. And also, for instance, so they predicted that that Trump is going to withdraw his forces from Syria. So, maybe there is also going to be a change of the geopolitics in Syria, and we should wait and see what is going to happen. And meanwhile, we have also talked a lot about whether China can play a role in mediating regional disputes such as the disputes between Israel and Iran and the conflict between Israel and Palestine. I would say that’s the most important issue here is not whether China is willing to do so.
But the more important issue is to what extent China is allowed to do so. Because actually, in Biden’s administration, actually the administration has been very strict about it, and it is very alarmed with every China’s move when it comes to Israel. So, I think maybe Dawn is right with Trump, but it’s still very unpredictable. But maybe if he’s transactional enough and if he thinks that okay, actually a peaceful Middle East is something beneficial both for China and United States, so maybe there are some space for negotiation. And also last but not least, I would say another issue is attitudes towards multilateral organizations. Again, Dawn has already talked about that. Actually, Trump and Netanyahu neglected, and they’re very interested in bypassing the United Nations, for instance. And this is very worrisome for both for China and also for regional powers in the Middle East.
Maybe this can bring the two parts together, but again, I would say the BRICS, for instance, it is very important to note that it is not China dominated, but China is actually just part of it. And within the BRICS, for instance, there are differences between China and Russia, China and India, it doesn’t matter. The purpose is just to let the global south powers to have more chance to express themselves, take actions. And last but not least, regarding the China’s electrical vehicles, so I predict that maybe Trump is likely to abandon diplomatic solutions with the European allies, and that may also increase tariff on Chinese EV imports. But Trump he’s not very interested in the climate change, etc. So, he’s very likely to encourage the traditional, the fossil fuels industry in his country.
And in that sense, maybe he’s going to depend less on the oil in the region, which can also lead to a closer relationship between China and the region. And I’ll stop here. Thank you.
Eric: Yeah, thank you, Chuchu. And let’s not forget that the unpredictability that Dann talked about, and even that Chuchu alluded to, Donald Trump actually said that he would welcome Chinese EVs into the United States if they manufactured in the United States. Again, we’re just not sure on this question of Chinese EVs, what’s going to happen. So thank you, Chuchu, we’ll come back to you very quickly. But Mohammed, you have been sitting very patiently listening to everything, particularly what Dawn and tr have said, one from Washington, the other from Shanghai. Help us bring this all together from your perspective as someone who really studies the region more broadly and strategically.
Mohammed: Yeah, thank you, Eric. And I just wanted to first express my gratitude to your team as well as the team from ChinaMed for organizing this. And it’s also good to see many familiar faces that I respect and hold to great esteem. Second, I also wanted to use this platform to express my deep solidarity with the people of Palestine and Lebanon for the ongoing genocide and ethnic cleansing with the death toll that’s nearly 100,000. I think it’s very important to affirm and recognize that we live in very unusual times. Now, having heard the discussion, I kind of agree with many different points, but I also have a slight disagreement, which is in terms of how do we understand American foreign policy because I would argue, in fact, that we’ve been dealing with Trumpian foreign policy for at least since 2016.
The Biden administration, in many ways, may have departed in uncertain points or certain discursive framings, for instance, the democratization framing that Murphy had mentioned, or human rights. But I think in terms of the broad contours of American foreign policy, there’s been a very high degree of consistency. And we can expect that many of these approaches will continue throughout the coming second term of the Trump administration, but even beyond. And the basic approaches are China is conceptualized as a major threat, right? And one could even argue that the honeymoon has ended well before even Trump ascended office back in 2016. And the primary focus really is on China as an economic threat and as a technological competitor. And you can see this, if you could reflect on the Biden administration, they kept many of the tariffs that the Trump administration had introduced. They embraced the securitized debate on Chinese technology and infrastructure. There were multiple panics on the united front.
They’ve even embraced an industrial policy. I mean, the Chips and Science Act, where supposedly $50 billion were to be dumped in subsidies were all enacted under the Biden administration. Not to mention kind of this geopolitical economic state craft embodied in, for instance, the India-Middle East-Europe corridor was conceived as an attempt to counteract the BRI. And if you look at a lot of the figures coming in with the Trump administration, whether it’s J.D. Vance, Bob Lighthizer, the people who are writing for Project 2025 through the Heritage Foundation, I mean, many of them actually expand on many of these elements. But in many ways, the Biden administration carried out a Trumpian template right in its approach.
Now, in terms of the Middle East, we can also see a lot of continuities, right? There’s one the maintenance of the containment of Iran, not allowed to cross a certain nuclear threshold, and to proxy war expansionism, but at the same time avoiding war, right? In combination with that kind of containment approach towards Iran, and it’s interesting to consider how the Biden administration did not try to go back to the JCPOA, right? They’re also expanded on the idea that to achieve peace in the region, you have to kind of integrate Israel regionally through the Abraham Accords, kind of sidelining the Palestinian core issue.
And again, there’s a lot of continuities here now in terms of China in the Middle East itself, the discourse in the Biden administration has been very similar to that of the Trumpian one, which is there is a need to preempt the fall of the region to China. I mean, I was looking at different interviews as well as the sources, again from Project 2025. And it’s very interesting to look at some of the officials and what they were saying about this. For instance, Kiron Skinner, who was a prominent official in the Trump administration, she kind of articulated it as the U.S. must continue to support its allies and compete with its economic adversaries, including China. Relations with Saudi Arabia should be strengthened in a way that seriously curtails Chinese influence in Riyadh.
So, the framing, in general, I think, is that we’ve been really living in a Trumpian foreign policy world for quite a long time, and I don’t expect that there’s going to be many departures from this script. Now, having said all that, if we think about the strategic triangle as being composed, and this is a very old term, the Middle East, China, and the U.S., all of these three actors have changed, right? So, the way in which these foreign policies play out is going to be somewhat different. I mean, first of all, the U.S. itself has changed. The second Trump administration comes in a bit more far more organized, didn’t have that daze of victory as back in 2016. I don’t expect there’s going to be a revolving door attrition of officials, and I don’t expect there’s going to be that much internal resistance within the White House itself to Trump’s own preferences, right?
Having, of course, said all that. I mean, the president is, of course, capricious. He kind of operates with personal relations in mind. And it’s going to be really dependent how he pursues his foreign policies and what are the staff that he appoints, right? I mean, there’s a lot of debate about whether it’s going to be a mix of neocons and isolationist nationalists, kind of the Mike Pompeos, the Richard Grenells, the Bill Hagertys, and even Brian Hooks. And I think in that sense, I really agree with Dawn Murphy that we have to wait and see, kind of what is the constellation that will be stabilized moving ahead. And I think also it’s interesting to think about how the domestic front has changed because Trump comes with a very big Republican mandate, right?
There’s a capture of the three branches of government expected, including kind of Congress. And this reddening will have interesting implications. I mean, it could either mean that Trump will be focused on domestic restructuring and putting foreign policy aside, or sometimes this will turn out to be a curse in disguise because potentially the GOP and Congress won’t agree with a lot of his internal visions or even his foreign policy approaches. So that might redirect him outward, which is, again, a common pattern among U.S. presidents. Now, with regards to China and the Middle East as kind of the two other pillars in this triangle, I’m not going to expand too much on China, but I do think that as Chuchu had mentioned, China comes experienced with Trump.
And China itself has also changed in the past, I would say six, seven years, right? It has accommodated to growing protectionism, it has expanded its kind of industrial policy. And in fact, even though the Chinese economy and for consumers is not doing great, in terms of its industrial and technological capacities, it’s expanded and it’s far more flourishing. So of course, there’s also an interesting question about how effective will a more aggressive trade war really undermine the economy in the key sectors that matter. So, this is something to watch. Now, I want to go into the Gulf, and that’s maybe the largest kind of key points that I want to mention is that the Gulf is also very, very different, right? I mean, back in 2016, the Gulf elites, particularly Saudis and Emiratis, were extremely excited in terms of Trump, right?
Especially the Saudi elites, they saw the Trump administration as a like-minded entity through which they can pursue their domestic restructuring as well as pursue an aggressive foreign policy. And that had to do a lot with the change in the constellation of rulers within the Kingdom. Now, they’re far more entrenched. There’s been actually a turnover within the elites with the rise of technocrats, and there’s far more internal focus on development. They want to realize the vision. They don’t want to be engaged with maximalist pressure on Iran. They’re not interested in entering into the different conflicts that the U.S. is interested in entering into.
And they’ve also understood that the Trump administration is not particularly reliable. They may like Trump because he’s transactional, they have familial and business ties with him. But at the end of the day, as Ahmed had mentioned, they also know that the Trump administration isn’t necessarily going to live up to its promises of protecting the Gulf when things become serious. I mean, the [inaudible 1:27:11] event in 2019 when kind of oil infrastructure in the Gulf was struck, was really major in shifting their attitudes about the U.S.’s role in terms of safeguarding their security. They also want to maintain an accommodation with Iran, which has proven to be extremely beneficial and very much congruent with their interests. So all of this to say, and, of course, on top of all that, the expansion of the Abraham Accords is a no-go for many of the Gulf states, particularly Saudi Arabia, I think, given domestic opinion and other issues, and now the requirement that a Palestinian state be recognized if such an accord is to be signed.
And, of course, on top of all that, I would say that the Gulf is far more united. Back in 2016, the main cleavage was between Qatar and the UAE, Saudi Arabia and Bahrain. This is gone. So there’s a lot more internal cooperation within the Gulf. So the Gulf is a bit in a much more different place and far more settled footing having experienced Trump, right? I think that the areas in which they will probably, I would say, face problems with is really in technology, right? Because I think there’s going to be a lot of continuities in terms of their engagement with China, in terms of their engagement with the U.S.
But I think the area that needs to be watched closely are really the high stakes technological arenas, particularly AI as well as chip making, or the semiconductor manufacturing space. Because a lot of these states, particularly Saudi Arabia and the UAE, have indicated a desire to build their own indigenous capacities. And the problem is, is that they recognize and are very well aware that the U.S. really calls the shots when it comes to the supply lines and transfers of these technologies, right? And they’ve already been in constant talks with the U.S. administration, the Biden one, which I expect will continue on with the Trump administration, to kind of limit the expansion of the U.S. legal frameworks and punitive frameworks, really, that control the sale of chips or U.S. manufactured chips to the Gulf. I mean, there’s already been aggressive work done by the Committee on Foreign investments in the United States, and they’re very much cognizant of that. And I suspect that the Gulf will be very willing to be compliant with US demands in that arena, right?
Eric: And we saw that with the G42 case in the United Arab Emirates just
Mohammed: Absolutely.
Eric: Very quickly, Mohammed, just to wrap up just so we can get feedback from Enrico and Andrea, just your final thoughts.
Mohammed: Yeah. I think maybe the point that I want to just wrap all of this with is that the Gulf comes to this moment disabused of a lot of the illusions with regards to U.S. commitments to say they’re security and whatnot. The Gulf has already struck a course using the terms from [Abdalla Abdulkhalik 1:30:20] of having a Gulf moment that really builds up its strategic autonomy, builds up its industrial capacities, right? They still have a preference for deepening their partnership with the U.S., but they know structurally they cannot occupy a space similar to, say, Israel, right? In terms of the vision of U.S. elites. And that therefore the long-term trend, regardless of who comes to office, is to really build that independent space. And I think that dynamic is going to continue on, and that’s really the key point, I think, when thinking about kind of U.S.-China competition and how it unfolds in this context of the Gulf. And I can expand on the technology bit later, but those are my thoughts.
Eric: Wonderful. Thank you, Mohammed. So Enrico and Andrea, if the Trump team thinks that they’re going to pick up where they left off, Chuchu makes the point that the Chinese leadership knows what they’re getting with the Trumps. They are experienced with it, they’ve been studying it, and then Mohammed lays it out that in the Middle East and in the Persian Gulf, they, too, have changed and evolved, and they know what’s happening, and we have a different set of realities. Enrico, let’s have your thoughts on what you’ve heard so far in this second panel.
Enrico: Yeah, thank you, Eric. A wonderful panel indeed. Thank you all. Lots of food for thought. Let me start with the notion of, again, of continuity and discontinuity. Yes, I mean, we all agree basically, I mean, even in the previous panel that China is basically has become the cornerstone of U.S. foreign policy. Mohammed mentioned since 2016, we can say since ’17, it doesn’t really matter because this is a real change. To a certain extent, it’s interesting because this is also a change in the way how U.S. has approached the Middle East. And the U.S. approach toward the Middle East, being more and more China focused, somehow resemble, mirror the approach China has had towards the Middle East that has always been traditionally very much U.S.-focused.
But if there is this kind of continuity, and by the way, Eric, to connect to what you mentioned about Brownfield investment of Chinese electric vehicles in the United States, that is welcome. I mean, this doesn’t have any impact and fits perfectly well with Trump administration economic approach as long as those investment are bringing with them supply chain. Because this is something that we are seeing also in Europe and something that they may be seeing also in the Middle East, Chinese trying to produce, doing brown investment in electric vehicles in those countries. But the problem is that if those investments are still connected with supply chain, well, they’re not going to have a very easy life in the United States.
But coming to the discontinuity, I think that there is a clear discontinuity as much as there is a clear continuity in terms of China as a cornerstone of U.S. foreign policy. There is a discontinuity in methodology. And I’m very happy that Dawn brought this up as much as I did in the previous panel that I really think that I agree, fully agree with Dawn that the economic measures that may be most probably implemented by the Trump administration, they’re going to have an impact on the role that China is going to play in the region — a stronger economic presence, and that brings in also a stronger security commitment or a strong investment in terms of creating mechanism, a structure of governance at a regional level.
And here, I come to a question, which brings back what Gedaliah said about the recent China opening to Israel. Opening, I will say sort of détente towards Israel in the last few weeks. Now, as we wrote with She Gangzheng in a recent paper we published on Chinese foreign policy in the Middle East, it’s a classic for China, before U.S. elections, to invest political capital in what is called intermediate zones. So in Europe, in the Middle East. So we have seen China being more, I would say morbid and proactive towards Japan, not to mention towards the European countries and Israel in particular.
But Israel, in my opinion, has its own relevance. And this is something I would like to discuss with you because Israel, for China in this moment, given the possibility of a Trump maximum pressure of Iran, a sort of repetition of the maximum pressure approach towards Iran, China has opportunity, it makes sense for China to create a stronger channel with Israel, also because you this could facilitate… China may present itself as the only reliable actor that is capable to talk and approach all the regional actors. And therefore, by so doing, implement his own vision of stability at the regional level. Not to mention that for China, Israel is also a bridge to lobby American policy, especially under the Trump administration. So I would like to know what to think about it. And I’ll stop here. Thank you so much.
Eric: Okay. We’ll get to that question, but I just want to, very quickly, Andrea, get your points. We are running a little tight on time, so if you could keep your remarks brief, that would be great because we’ve got a number of questions from the audience. And just again, to remind everybody, if you’re watching this on YouTube or you’re participating as an attendee, please submit your questions and we will get to them. Andrea, your points very quickly before we go to questions.
Andrea: I’ll keep it very short. Actually, I have two questions really, because I think the panel really was exceptional in their remarks and comments. Again, really two questions related to two countries. One is Iran and one is Saudi Arabia. It seems to me that Iran is primed for maximum pressure because of Israel, because of its support to Russia, because of its relationship with China. So I guess the question is, do you expect indeed run to be target of such kind of pressure from the American side? And then the question is, what do you expect China to do about it? Because this seems to me an important question for China’s policy in the region and globally.
Eric: Can we do what we did last time? Let Chuchu take a stab at that question, just from a Chinese perspective, and then we’ll get to your second question next on the Saudi Arabia side, and we’ll go to Mohammed for that. Chuchu, can you weigh in on Andrea’s question?
Chuchu: Sure. So, about China’s attitude towards Iran, I would say that, of course, it is a very important concern. So what China is going to do is to just continue its previous policy of providing an inclusive approach because according to China’s philosophy, it always believed that if you exclude a partner or an actor in the region, it is only going to radicalize that actor and then it can create eight more problems. And also, as China negotiated the Saudi-Iran reconciliation, obviously China does not want to just let it be damaged. Then it means that this kind of diplomatic achievement is no longer there. So what China is going to do is to try to keep bringing the two parts to work together under this kind of framework. So, I’ll stop here. We can have more discussion.
Eric: That’s good. Andrea, let’s get your second question, and that will be directed towards Mohammed.
Andrea: Yeah, I mean, it’s for the panel, really. Mohammed can reply, but also I’m interested in the others if they have anything to add. There’s been discussion about this defense deal, defense pact between the United States and Saudi Arabia, which I think all the analysis that I’ve read so far also say, well, this also mean that Chinese companies will be kicked out of the Kingdom, or in any case will suffer from that. Where you see this going, again, in a way, Chuchu, what do you think China will do about it? What do you, Dawn, think the new Trump administration will try to push? And well, Mohammed, of course, you’re from Saudi, so if you have an input, also what you expect the Kingdom to do? That would be great to hear. In a way, Iran is already there. It is already in a very difficult situation. It has to decide what to do, but Saudi Arabia is probably going to be in another very difficult situation. So it would be great to hear what you think about this.
Eric: Go ahead, Mohammed. Let’s hear from you first.
Mohammed: Yeah, I mean, it’s a difficult question because, I mean, obviously we’re dealing with black boxes in terms of the policy-makers and the negotiations on the security agreement with the U.S. from what has been leaked and what has come out from the news, the targets have changed. So now we see an attempt to decouple, for example, normalization with actually getting a security pact. There’s a lot of questions about what the security pact would entail, whether it’s going to follow the UAE model where Saudi Arabia gives up certain sovereign rights when it comes to nuclear enrichment and the like, or whether there’s going to be pushback on certain sectors. I’m not privy to those, and I think these are always constantly shifting, and they will shift because the political landscape in the U.S. and what is possible under Congress has also changed dramatically.
Now, I think in terms of what’s been happening within Saudi, what people need to, I think, remember is that Saudi elites, pretty much like other Gulf elites, in terms of their cultural outlook, in terms of their political preferences, are still very much U.S.-leaning, right? Look at all of the invocations done by the top heads of the Sovereign Wealth Funds, by the big economic bodies and vehicles of these states, they see the key area of innovation being in the U.S., right? I mean, also the figures that Jonathan had mentioned with regards to the trillion dollar mark, these are quite true because that’s really where Gulf elites are oriented towards. I think this is going to endure and continue looking ahead, where the top key cutting edge technologies will continue to be aspired and procured from the U.S. and the EU to a lesser extent.
And we see this also, like I did a Carnegie report with two colleagues, Hai Jiawei, as well as Kameal Alahmad, where we looked at the technology cooperation between China and Saudi Arabia. And the West is still very, very dominant in terms of cooperation, in terms of key industries. And I think that will continue. There’s already indicators that they will comply. I mean, Musk, Sam Altman now, in terms of that big space on AI, they’re raising funds from the Gulf, right? To the tunes of hundreds of billions of U.S. dollars. Where the capital flows tells you all you need to know about the realities of these relationships. And with China, China’s important from procurement for infrastructural projects. I mean, projects like NEOM cannot really take off without Chinese companies.
But this is a whole different level than really the cutting edge innovations where the U.S. will continue to be a supreme actor. Yeah. And I’ll stop there.
Eric: Okay. Dawn, I want to bring you back into the conversation. We’ve got a question from one of our attendees talking about the potential lineup of the administration, and you mentioned this in your remarks, some of the names that are being thrown around right now — Florida Senator, Marco Rubio, possibly for Secretary of State, Mike Pompeo former Secretary of State in the first Trump administration for Secretary of Defense. Tom Cotton, a notable China Hawk in the Senate is also being considered, potentially a name that’s floating around for Secretary of Defense. One of the interesting things, and Mohammed alluded to this, is the personnel could have a dramatic impact on what happens. And these names that are being circulated are all on the very, very tip of the sword in terms of their antipathy for China. And if it does appear that the national security team is shaped or unified by hostility to China, how will that have an impact on all of this that we’re talking about today?
Dawn: Right. So, if we go that direction, as you brought up Rubio, I think this is a good example of I made the comments that the focus on democracy and human rights, etc., is not something we saw in a very strong way during the first Trump administration. But when you have Rubio or Pompeo or some of these actors, this across the board competitive dynamic on all these issues may very much be more emphasized. To your point, if you end up with an extremely hawkish lineup, I think the potential for deteriorating U.S.-China relations, not just around tariffs, but much more broadly on other issues it’s higher. That said, on some of the most contentious issues, I still think it’s hard to know. For example, Chuchu brought up Taiwan, and this is something that I think it’s way too early to tell, but obviously there’s a lot of reporting that potentially Trump himself, from a viewing the situation in Asia, he may not put as much emphasis on Taiwan.
Eric: But he’s made that clear, by the way, so far.
Dawn: He’s make clear, right?
Eric: In interviews this year, he said going to war with Taiwan is not his priority. And then let’s not forget that in his acceptance speech, he made it clear that he wants to stop wars, not start wars. And I think that was a signal he was also sending, but sorry to interrupt you, but please continue.
Dawn: Fair. And so this highlights one of the tensions that I see, right? That what Trump is envisioning versus his team that he’s bringing in, I think there will be those potential tensions. I do think that if you have a number of hawkish individuals, which appears likely, it will speed up the competitive dynamic, and it could result in this more countries needing to choose sides or being forced to choose sides in a broad range of issues. It also could put more of an emphasis on thinking about in a wartime scenario in the future of what is the role of the Middle East, right? Because I think a lot of the current approaches thinking about the Middle East in peace time, but if you start to have more of a focus on what the Middle East could mean in if we had an outbreak of conflict regarding South China Sea or East China Sea, territorial disputes, that could result in the administration putting more pressure on countries to choose between the U.S. and China.
I think that is a dynamic. One thing I did want to speak to quickly on the question regarding Israel and some of the changing approach over the last couple months, I think in an ideal world, China would want to see relations with Israel go back to pre-October 7th dynamics. And I also think that in the longer term, their goal is resolution of the Palestinian-Israeli conflict and preventing further escalation of regional war. I think what’s been happening over the last few months in relation to changing a bit of the terminology in framing things in relation with Israel, I think that makes perfect sense. And I don’t think that’s surprising at all. But I don’t think it’s any sort of broad shift in China’s approach. I think it’s this much longer. They, they want to have positive relations with Israel and probably are concerned regarding the degree to which those have deteriorated over the last year.
Eric: Yeah. Chuchu, I want to come to you, and one of the questions that comes up a lot in Washington, and you hear this quite a bit, particularly from Republicans, is that China wants to displace the United States as the global hegemonic power. You never hear that in China, certainly in the Middle East. We’ve heard from Jonathan and from Ahmed, who said China will never be the security guarantor in the Middle East. That’s for a lot of different reasons. One, it’s capability isn’t there to do that. Two, it’s not part of its foreign policy doctrine to do so. And three, as Jonathan pointed out, its economic and geopolitical interests just aren’t sufficient to do that. And as you pointed out, Chuchu, the main priority for Chinese foreign policy is here in Southeast Asia where I am, in the South China Sea in Taiwan in what we would probably call the near abroad.
The Middle East does not qualify for that as well. So, I guess when you hear that rhetoric coming from people saying that, and, and you hear this oftentimes from people in the Middle East who are looking to China to be some kind of alternative to the United States because they don’t like U.S. policy in Israel, they’re fed up of the moralizing, they’re fed up of the human rights sermonizing. There are so many reasons why people in the Gulf and the Middle East are tired of U.S. power. But China, as we know, is not going to be a one for one replacement for it. But when you hear this rhetoric coming from people in the Middle East and in the United States, how do you explain China’s view of the international system that it wants to adjust to better suit its interest, but potentially not overwhelm because it doesn’t want to replace the United States as a hegemonic power? What’s your response to that, Chuchu?
Chuchu: Sure. Okay. Actually, so first of all, I totally agree with you that if you just talk about China’s foreign policy, then, obviously, so China is always an inward-looking power, although it is like a big power right now — China is not like the European powers or the American powers. And the Middle East is not its core interest because it is not somewhere very close to China and that have territorial disputes and has something to do with our sovereignty, for instance. So it’s not the priority. And secondly, actually, I think there is always a different understanding of the issue because actually a more popular way of framing things is that people often talk that discuss that actually there is a competition between the so-called China’s model and nice model in the Middle, for instance.
But actually, I was saying China does not have the so-called China model because if we talk about China model, actually Andrea is here, we often say it’s the Chinese model with Chinese characteristics. We often hear something like that. And when we say Chinese characteristics, it means that it only fits into China situation. But actually China always believes that different countries have their different culture, their different situation. So, actually China does not think that you can simply apply China’s experience in the other countries. When we talk about why the Middle East is trying to, for instance, look east, it’s not because they want to choose China and to replace the United States, but just that they want to have a break or they want to have like more independence for their own interests.
In other words, they’re not just going to work with China, but instead they’re going to diversify their relations with many countries so as to do the hedging between different powers. In that sense, I would say that if there is a China’s model, then it is that China does not want to isolate the others. It’s not like, okay, so only me, I can work with you, but if there are others, we kick them out. It’s not like that. China just want to be part of it. And actually the interesting part is that when we talk about multilateralism, we encourage the regional actors to modify their relationship. And actually, sometimes it’s not always in China’s interest. For instance, actually we have more competitors. Our companies are not just competing with local companies or western companies, but also, for instance, there are a lot of companies from India, from South Korea, from Japan, they’re also competing with Chinese companies.
But this is like very normal competition in economic terms. So China, actually, is not saying that we can’t allow this to happen, but actually if it is something very multilateral, China would say, “Yes, this is what the global South is in need of.” And the last point is that if we talk about the BRICS or the SCO, or etc., all these kind of global south things, right? How China defines the global South is not that it is a China-led and dominated organization, but instead what China believes that if you include, of course, if you include more partners, then, of course, it may be China’s voices even going down. But for China, the only purpose is that the global south somewhere that has been marginalized and its voice has not been heard enough, so the purpose is to give them more platform to express themselves. I’ll stop here.
Eric: Okay. So just as I did in the previous panel, we have five minutes left. So, I’m going to ask that each of our panelists keep it very, very short so we can end on time. I’d like each of you to help our audience to better understand what’s ahead. Again, these are forecasts, these are your predictions, these are speculation. This is not grounded in anything more than just your educated guesses. So, we’re not going to hold this to you. Mohammed, I’d like to come to you, then Dawn, and then Chuchu, I’ll give you the last word. So, Mohammed, your final thoughts on what people should look forward to in the next six to 12 months?
Mohammed: Oh, no, I’m not going to pontificate on that. God knows. Maybe God knows in his prophet [Foreign 1:52:59]. But I will say that the three maybe key points that I would leave people with is to drill into their minds that China treats the Middle East as a sideshow, not as an important theater of strategic operation. The U.S. aspires to treat the Middle East as a sideshow, but is ultimately structurally wedded to the region because of its, you could call it imperial geopolitical choices is always dragged back into the region, its stance on Israel, its stands on Iran, its stance on regional security and prosperity. And then in terms of the Middle East itself, the U.S.-China competition is overplayed. And building on what Chuchu had mentioned, the Middle East now is increasingly a very crowded space.
When people just simply zoom in on a focus on the U.S.-China competition, they’ve missed actually that there is India, there is Russia, there is South Korea, there is Turkey, there are many, many different actors. And I think ultimately the Middle East is a local story, right? with a lot of local dynamics. And no one is really talking there about a transition from American unipolarity to a Pax Sinica, right? I mean, the book that I’m working on, and hopefully will be published with Andrea Ghiselli, doesn’t at all show that, for example, the Gulf elites, particularly the Saudi elites, talk about China as a security guarantor. So, this image of U.S.-China competition is really an effective imaginary in the minds of beltway analysts. Not a reflection of the real world, but they have a lot of fictions beyond that issue alone.
Eric: They do.
Mohammed: I’ll stop there.
Eric: Okay. Thank you, Mohammed. Dawn, as someone who lives very close to the beltway, can you share your final thoughts?
Dawn: Yeah, so what I would emphasize, I think it’s likely that, as we discussed before with the economic actions, the U.S. may be taking broadly that you would see stronger economic relations between China and the Middle East. Each country looking a little bit differently, but broadly, I think you could see much strengthening in economic relations. And I do think China’s political role for a number of reasons, with a focus on multilateral organizations. And the way in which it portrays itself as a balanced actor supporting the Palestinians, many different factors I think could really increase the, the positive perceptions of China in this region as well as the rest of the global south. And I do think probably the most important thing to keep in mind, mind, I agree with Mohammed that the great power competition aspect is way overplayed, but I think the most important story is going to be what do U.S.-China relations look like six months from now? And how much does that start to bleed over into other regions in the way that the U.S. or China approaches those regions? Because, to your point, there is potential for relations to get much, much worse.
Eric: Yes. And I mean, the forecast is cloudy on that one, no doubt. Chuchu, you’re going to get the last word today. And again, we’re running out of time, so if you could keep your remarks short, that would be great.
Chuchu: Okay. Thank you so much. I just want to emphasize two points. The first one is actually no matter who becomes the U.S. president, and we all know that right now the relationship between China and the United States is very worrisome because it is very likely that a lot of politicians clearly see China as an enemy. But the difference is that different president can have different self-style. And we often say that Trump is someone that is transactional, right? So if you are transactional, then what we should wait and see is that what exactly you want in order to do the transaction. And the second issue is what we should wait and see, especially when it comes to the Middle East, is whether Trump can actually stop the war both in the Middle East and regarding the war between Russia and Ukraine.
Because he always say that he is like stronger and more hotline than and, and more competence, right? Than Biden. And is he going to do so? So that is also going to become a very crucial variable that can also affect the relationship. And last but not least, if he wants to stop the war, and actually that is also in China’s interest, then is there any space of cooperation or negotiation? So I’ll stop there.
Eric: Okay. Zhang Chuchu is an associate professor of international relations in the School of International Relations and Public Affairs at Fudan University in Shanghai, and also the Deputy Director of the Center for Middle Eastern Studies, also at Fudan. Dawn Murphy is an associate professor of National Security Strategy at the U.S. National War College. And Mohammed Alsudairi is a lecture in politics and international relations of the Arabic-speaking world at the Australian National University. Dawn, Chuchu, Muhammed, thank you all for your time today and your insights. Dawn, a special thank you for you for winning the prize for getting up at an absurdly early hour to join us on this. So, lots of gratitude and depreciation there.
Just very quickly now, before we go, I want to bring Enrico and Andrea, the organizers of this conference, and a whole series of discussions that have led up to this conference in this seminar that we’ve had today to give us, again, a bigger picture of what you’ve heard over the past two hours, and then maybe since we weren’t able to attend all of the previous conversations that you had, some reflections on that. Just bearing in mind, too, that were extremely short on time. Enrico, let’s go to you.
Enrico: Thank you, Eric. Well, I’ll keep it very short because we really had so many very interesting point and inputs that can be discussed. But what is emerging, at least on my side, is clearly this kind of mutual adversarial perception between China and the U.S., that is influencing the evolution of the of also the way how regional actors are shaping their choices. Mohammed is great always to remind us the importance of agency. I don’t get there because, yeah, he’s absolutely one of the best expert in doing this. And so agency is certainly super important, but we need to also to consider the fact that us general relations and the structural importance of this relationship, like overall for the world, is also another element that has to be seen in perspective vis-à-vis agency. And so agency needs to somehow localize this very relevant friction.
I see the region acting more and more as a proxy of this structural clash. And unfortunately, of the prospect are not very good. I know Mohammed disagrees, but so we have more space for more seminars and discuss about this. Thank you.
Eric: Andrea, you are going to get the last word today.
Andrea: I think I’m not capable to say anything much more insightful than what had been said so far. It seems to me that it was very dense discussion, lot of details and information. And at the same time, on the one hand, if feel like, okay, I learned a lot, there’s so much going on, even if they’re just for speculation, there’s so much. But at the same time, there’s so much that we do not know. It seems to me, on the one hand, all the different actors know what they want, contain China, survive the Trump administration, get the investments, get technology, and so forth and so. But at the same time, no one really knows how to do that. And so I don’t know. I think that this would be a very interesting period to see.
I agree only on the fact it’d definitely would be a very turbulent one, that there’s no doubt about that. I would just add that there is one thing that we never really mentioned, but I think is a big factor. Although I’m not a fan at all of the axis of evil or anything like that. Russia is really missing, has been missing, not because… I think mostly the issue of time, of course. But I really think that how the situation will evolve in Ukraine. Again, I’ll go back to one of my other questions, the role that Iran plays in Ukraine indirectly and this special relationship in a way with China. I think this, to me, really is the thing to watch in a way — this and what will happen with, with Saudi Arabia. I think those are the two really key things that I will be watching in the month to follow. And of course, listening to you, Eric, and your podcast, as well as reading the work of the other scholars in the two amazing panels. Thanks, again, everyone, for accepting our invitation for really contributing to it.
Eric: Well, thank you Andrea, and thank you Enrico and the entire ChinaMed team. I want to thank all the panelists. Also, I want to thank Lucy and Kevin at the China Global South Project for their help in supporting this event in the background, but you don’t see them. But it wouldn’t have been possible today to do this. Of course, if you’d like to follow the work that we’re doing at the China Global South Project, go to chinaglobalsouth.com. Everybody who’s been on this panel has been featured prominently and frequently on our platform, and so we’re grateful to all of them for coming back again. Chuchu, we still need to have you on, though, so that would be wonderful to have the chance to speak with you. But on behalf of everybody at ChinaMed and the China Global South Project, and all of our panelists, I want to thank you all and thank all of our attendees for your questions.
Unfortunately, we didn’t have time to get to all of the questions but please stay tuned. We’re going to continue this conversation with the ChinaMed Project and to see how the Trump administration unfolds and the relationship with China in the Middle East and the Persian Gulf. So for everybody here, thank you so much for joining us.
