China’s Rise in the Global South: The Middle East, Africa, and Beijing’s Alternative World Order by Dawn C. Murphy

Abstract

Professor Murphy has significantly advanced scholarship on post-Cold War Chinese foreign relations with this well-conceived and well-executed assessment of Chinese foreign relations with the Middle East, North Africa, and Sub-Saharan Africa. The study is theoretically informed, empirically based, and very relevant to policy. Notably, it provides clear evidence and a persuasive conclusion showing just how far President Xi Jinping’s China has come in its ambitions to change the existing international order in ways advantageous to China and detrimental to the United States and other developed countries. The book fills a gap in providing the best available scholarly review of recent Chinese relations with the Middle East. It is well-designed to be of use in undergraduate and graduate courses dealing with Chinese foreign relations and to inform journalists, policy-makers, and readers interested in China with a thorough and easily understood assessment. Clearly presented introductory chapters define the purpose and scope of the study and relevant theoretical perspectives. The volume then features chapters providing a thorough examination of Chinese behavior in the two leading Chinese-led regional groups involving Africa and the Middle East, a unique assessment of the roles of Chinese special envoys dealing with major regional conflicts, and individual chapters that respectively assess systematically Chinese behavior in economic, political, and military relations advancing Chinese influence. A final chapter before the conclusion demonstrates how Beijing employs the multifaceted activities of the Belt and Road Initiative to use economic, political, and security measures to its overall benefit in the Middle East and Africa.