China's Foreign Policy in the Middle East and North Africa after the Arab Spring

Abstract

In the post-Arab Spring era, the most significant Chinese diplomatic and economic activity in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) is the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI). It is a sprawling framework of trade and commercial ties between China and various regions that have become Xi Jinping’s and the Chinese Communist Party’s flagship foreign policy. This chapter analyses China’s policy in response to the ongoing civil wars in Yemen, Libya and Syria and the growing threats to the BRI framework by examining how the post-Arab Spring era affected Beijing’s policy behaviour in MENA. It examines three conflict cases in the region since 2011 and China’s engagement with them in Libya, Syria, and Yemen. The civil wars present a formidable obstacle to the BRI’s strategic design, as it undermines connectivity, threatens infrastructure projects, and makes an economic corridor through the volatile MENA to the markets of developed Europe less viable.