1st Edition
China and Middle East Conflicts Responding to War and Rivalry from the Cold War to the Present
How do aspiring and established rising global powers respond to conflict? Using China, the book studies its response to wars and rivalries in the Middle East from the Cold War to the present.
Since the People’s Republic was established in 1949, China has long been involved in the Middle East and its conflicts, from exploiting or avoiding them to their management, containment or resolution. Using a conflict and peace studies angle, Burton adopts a broad perspective on Chinese engagement by looking at its involvement in the region’s conflicts including Israel/Palestine, Iraq before and after 2003, Sudan and the Darfur crisis, the Iranian nuclear deal, the Gulf crisis and the wars in Syria, Libya and Yemen. The book reveals how a rising global and non-Western power handles the challenges associated with both violent and nonviolent conflict and the differences between limiting and reducing violence alongside other ways to eliminate the causes of conflict and grievance.
Contributing to the wider discipline of International Relations and peace and conflict studies, this book will be of interest to students and scholars of peace and conflict studies, Chinese foreign policy and the politics and international relations of the Middle East.
Chapter 1 – Introduction
Chapter 2 – Conflict and its Management
Chapter 3 – China, Algeria and Egypt: The War of Independence and the Suez Crisis to Camp David
Chapter 4 – China and the Palestinian Liberation Organisation: From People’s War to the Algiers Declaration, 1967-1988
Chapter 5 – China, the Horn of Africa and the Arabian Peninsula: From Militancy to Diplomacy during the Cold War
Chapter 6 – China and the Iran-Iraq War
Chapter 7 – China and Iraq: The Gulf Wars and the War against ISIS
Chapter 8 – China and the Palestinian-Israeli Conflict since Oslo
Chapter 9 – China and the Darfur Crisis in Sudan
Chapter 10 – China and Libya: From Gaddafi to the Uprising and After
Chapter 11 – China and the Syrian Civil War
Chapter 12 – China and Contemporary Conflict in Yemen and the Horn of Africa
Chapter 13 – China and the Iran Nuclear Deal
Chapter 14 – China and the Gulf Crisis
Conclusion
Biography
Guy Burton is Adjunct Professor at Vesalius College, Brussels. He has previously held research and teaching appointments at the Mohammed Bin Rashid School of Government in Dubai, Nottingham University’s Malaysian campus, the University of Kurdistan-Hewler in northern Iraq and Birzeit University in occupied Palestine. His research interests concern the role of rising powers, conflict management and the politics and international relations of the Middle East. He is the author of Rising Powers and the Arab–Israeli Conflict since 1947 (2018).
"…explicitly addresses China’s influence on the systemic aspects of international politics, pointing to signs of change in norms and expectations about great power rivalries and spheres of influence. With clarity and balance, he weighs the multiple roles Beijing has played over time: disrupter, bystander, patron, mediator, and, most consistently, patient opportunist."
Robert R. Bianchi, The Middle East Journal, Volume 74, Number 4, Winter 2020, pp. 631-634
