Routledge Handbook of Persian Gulf Politics


Book Description

The Routledge Handbook of Persian Gulf Politics provides a comprehensive and up-to-date analysis of Persian Gulf politics, history, economics, and society. The volume begins its examination of Ottoman rule in the Arabian Peninsula, exploring other dimensions of the region’s history up until and after independence in the 1960s and 1970s. Featuring scholars from a range of disciplines, the book demonstrates how the Persian Gulf’s current, complex politics is a product of interwoven dynamics rooted in historical developments and memories, profound social, cultural, and economic changes underway since the 1980s and the 1990s, and inter-state and international relations among both regional actors and between them and the rest of the world. The book comprises a total of 36 individual chapters divided into the following six sections: Historical Context Society and Culture Economic Development Domestic Politics Regional Security Dynamics The Persian Gulf and the World Examining the Persian Gulf’s increasing importance in regional politics, diplomacy, economics, and security issues, the volume is a valuable resource for scholars, students, and policy makers interested in political science, history, Gulf studies, and the Middle East.




China and the Persian Gulf


Book Description

Since China announced the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) in 2013, the Gulf States have regarded it as a means for diversifying their national economies in order to reduce dependence on oil revenues and to achieve their national development strategy. The Persian Gulf region has a significant role in the successful implementation of BRI. Emerging strategic, diplomatic and financial partnerships will enable China to control the flow of its exports to world markets. The BRI has five major goals: Policy coordination, facilities connectivity, free trade, financial integration, and people-to-people bonds. Facilities connectivity, which focuses on transportation and energy infrastructure, is the initiatives priority. The integration between the national development plans of Gulf monarchies, the economic reconstruction plans of Iraq and Iran, and the new economic goals of Saudi Arabia, with Chinas Belt and Road vision have converged to bring forward opportunities. The implementation of the new Silk Road strategy will unleash a regional infrastructure boom by connecting China with Asia, Europe, and Africa by land and sea, boosting renminbi internationalization. Nevertheless, there are challenges that could complicate the envisaged bilateral partnerships. Saudi Arabia: The strategic synergy between the BRI and Saudi Vision 2030 has forged a joint economic development path, but external conflicts (Yemen, Iran) could derail plans. Iran: While Tehran has a special geographical status in West Asia, Washingtons decision to withdraw from the Iran nuclear agreement might create Sino-Iranian trade barriers. The UAE: In July 2018 bilateral relations were elevated to a comprehensive strategic partnership. The synergy between the BRI and UAE Vision 2021 is multifaceted trade, energy, infrastructure and logistics, financial services, military ties, tourism and cultural cooperation but very complex. Most of the Gulf States are governed by monarchies, are at the primary stage of industrialization, and are susceptible to US and European influence. The challenges Chinas ascendancy poses for the US, and the inevitable geopolitical fight back, in conjunction with Gulf regional turbulence, mean that the BRI project will face substantive challenges in the years ahead.




Aspects of the Maritime Silk Road


Book Description

In the recent years, trade, cultural exchange and transfer of knowledge in the Indian Ocean have come increasingly into the scope of various scholarly disciplines. The previous perception that the exploitation of this sea did only start with the European colonial expansion at the end of the 15th century had to be abandoned: The Europeans absorbed the long existing structures rather than creating new ones. This concept of the Indian Ocean as a coherent space of transfer is also adopted in this volume. Some of the articles were presented at a conference held in Vienna, while the others were supplied independently. The contributions are arranged around the two "poles", represented by the western and the eastern part of the Indian Ocean, especially Iran and China, but also other cultures and the manifold relations with the land-based Silk Road are discussed. The time frame ranges from the 14th to the 17th century.




The Vital Triangle


Book Description

The United States has been deeply involved in the Middle East for more than a half century and seized with China's role in the world for a similar period of time. Up to now, the two issues have remained distinct. Increasingly, China's growing thirst for energy has brought it to the Middle East, where governments are curious how the growing superpower might fit into their own strategic understanding of the world. China's increasing role in the Middle East comes at a time when the United States is itself deeply enmeshed in the region, setting up the possibility of competition or even conflict between the two great powers. This volume explores the complex interrelationships among China, the United States, and the Middle East-what the authors call the "vital triangle." There is surely much to be gained from continuing the conventional two-dimensional analysis-China and the United States, the United States and the Middle East, and China and the Middle East. Such scholarship has a long history and no doubt a long future. But it is the three-dimensional equation-which seeks to understand the effects of the China-Middle East relationship on the United States, the U.S.-Middle East relationship on China, and the Sino-American relationship on the Middle East-that draws the authors' attention here. This approach captures the true dynamics of change in world affairs and the spiraling up and down of national interests. Central to this analysis is a belief that if any one of the three sides of this triangular relationship is unhappy, it has the power to make the other two unhappy as well. The stakes and the intimacy of the interrelationship highlight not only the importance of reaching accommodation, but also the potential payoff of agreement on common purpose.




Persian Gulf States


Book Description

Research completed January 1993.




China's Presence in the Middle East


Book Description

Chinese President Xi Jinping’s “One Belt, One Road” (OBOR) vision, heralded as an attempt to revive the pre-modern Silk Route, is intended to strengthen West Asia’s economic links with China through ambitious infrastructural projects. Central to this are fast-track rail links, funded by the newly-established Asia Infrastructure and Investment Bank (AIIB), which has its headquarters in Beijing. This book explores the implications of OBOR and the AIIB for the Middle East/West Asia, and addresses a number of key strategic questions arising from China’s new initiatives. These include: how far are the strategic imperatives underpinning China’s policies connected to the political dynamics of Xinjiang and the spread of radical Islam in Central Asia? How are Middle Eastern stakeholders’ views of China affected by the new initiatives? How does China’s increasing involvement in the Middle East/West Asia affect other regional powers with ambitions in the region, notably Russia? The book also considers the impact of China’s increasing presence on individual countries, including Saudi Arabia and Israel.




The Persian Gulf and Pacific Asia


Book Description

A perfect storm of economic, diplomatic, and cultural concerns have brought about the Asianization of Asia, uniting the continent's many countries under a dominant framework of interests and trends. Pushing Asia's domain even further is a new and abiding relationship between Asia's three most industrialized economies and the Persian Gulf's six monoarchies. What began as a basic, twentieth-century marriage of convenience, founded on the trading of hydrocarbon, has now evolved into a complex, long-term commitment guaranteeing continuous exchange of resources and need. This bond has also strengthened the non-hydrocarbon, bilateral trade that facilitates wealth investments on both sides, building lucrative opportunities for Pacific-Asian contruction and, in China's case, its vast forces of labor. Christopher Davidson, an acclaimed expert on the Middle East's rapidly changing economy, details the eastern and western factors that have brought Asia and the Gulf closer together. Athough this relationship has yet to include military arrangements, evidence suggests that the two regions have bolstered other noneconomic ties.Davidson unravels the confusing links between these emerging powers and shows how their unique economic, political, geographical, and cultural identities both strengthen and threaten their future partnership.




The International Relations of the Persian Gulf


Book Description

Gregory Gause's masterful book is the first to offer a comprehensive account of the international politics in the Persian Gulf across nearly four decades. The story begins in 1971 when Great Britain ended its protectorate relations with the smaller states of the lower Gulf. It traces developments in the region from the oil 'revolution' of 1973–4 through the Iranian revolution, the Iran-Iraq war and the Gulf war of 1990–1 to the toppling of Saddam Hussein in the American-led invasion of Iraq in 2003, bringing the story of Gulf regional politics up to 2008. The book highlights transnational identity issues, regime security and the politics of the world oil market, and charts the changing mix of interests and ambitions driving American policy. The author brings his experience as a scholar and commentator on the Gulf to this riveting account of one of the most politically volatile regions on earth.




Dynamics of Change in the Persian Gulf


Book Description

The Persian Gulf has come to represent one of the most strategically significant waterways of the world. In terms of geography, geopolitics, resources, global political economy, and regional influence, the Gulf is perhaps home to the world’s most significant group of countries. Focusing on the complexities of the interplay between domestic-level changes and region-wide interactions, this book presents the reader with the first comprehensive survey of the dynamics of change in this crucial area. Systemic-oriented in its approach, the impact of war and revolution on the countries of the sub-region is discussed, and the ways in which these factors have shaped the security dilemmas and responses of the Gulf States is also explored. The role of oil is examined in terms of the impact of its income on these states and societies, and the manner in which oil has shaped the integration of these states into the global system. Oil has shrunk developmental time in these countries, and has accelerated generational shift. At the same time, it has created the dialectical relationship which now characterizes the difficult balance between prosperity and instability which is at the heart of the sub-region. Casting new light on the workings of a strategically significant part of the international system, this book will be an essential resource for students and scholars of international relations, international security and Middle Eastern politics.




China's Middle East Diplomacy


Book Description

The Peoples Republic of China (PRC) diplomatic engagement with the Middle East spans multiple dimensions, including trade and investment, the energy sector, and military cooperation. Connecting China through the Suez Canal to the Mediterranean and Europe, the Middle East is a unique geostrategic location for Beijing, a critical source of energy resources, and an area of expanding economic ties. The Middle East geographical and political area is subject to different country inclusion interpretations that have changed over time and reflect complex and multifaceted circumstances involving conflict, religion, ethnicity, and language. China considers most Arab League member countries (as well as Israel, Turkey, and Iran) as representing the Middle East. The Ministry of Foreign Affairs and official Chinese publications refer to this region as Xiya beifei (West Asia and North Africa). China sees the Middle East as an intrinsic part of its Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), and has ramped up investment in the