A contender state’s multiscalar mediation of transnational capital: the belt and road in the Middle East

Abstract

ABSTRACT The article assesses trans-scalar drivers of Belt and Road initiative’s (BRI) activities in the Middle East. It engages critically with the concepts of territorial and capitalist logics of power based on the contender state-society complex’s concept. The imprints of China’s contender state are identifiable in its peculiar mode of mediation of transnational capital both in terms of the state ownership-leadership of BRI projects’ and of their effective and potential outcomes. While BRI fixes over-accumulated capital through valorisation in external geographies, it is modulated to respond to a set of multi-scalar political and economic imperatives. Studied activities in the Middle East contribute to China’s energy security in terms of direct access to oil, trade routes, and oil invoicing practices. Transports and logistics investments strategically integrate the mainland’s underdeveloped regions as central nodes in the BRI’s transnational capital flows to dynamise their economies and ensure political stability. Beijing seems to be conducting a territorially embedded strategy to restructure the international monetary system through new oil-related financial and monetary arrangements with Middle East producers. Geopolitically, BRI reduces dependence on US-dominated global connectivity networks, thus increasing Beijing political autonomy.