Focusing on China’s relations with the Middle East and North Africa (MENA), this Companion provides essential analysis of a complex region which threatens to become the battleground for rival powers in the future. The Routledge Companion to China and the Middle East and North Africa brings together China scholars from around the world, including from China, the MENA region, the United States, Asia, and Europe. The contributors, experts in their respective areas––which range from politics, military and nuclear power to economics, energy, and tourism––use different methodologies to understand China’s policies in the MENA. Topics analyzed include Chinese investment in infrastructure, the COVID-19 pandemic and the Belt and Road Initiative. Divided into three Parts, the book addresses China’s multidimensional presence in the MENA and its impact on the region while also explicating the MENA’s relations with its traditional Western allies. Bilateral relations and people-to-people interactions are also explored and provide in-depth context to the areas of cooperation that are part of China’s dealings with its partners in the region. Combining contemporary analysis with accessible prose, the book will be of interest to students, scholars, and policy-makers active in international relations, security studies, and economics, as well to general audiences interested in the MENA region.

In a world witnessing the transformative rise of China, the intricate dynamics of its soft power diplomacy have become a focal point of global attention. As geopolitical landscapes shift, the need to understand how China crafts its foreign policy, especially through the strategic use of soft power, becomes imperative. Soft Power and Diplomatic Strategies in Asia and the Middle East is a crucial resource to unraveling these complexities. The book addresses the post-COVID-19 changes in China's soft power application, providing an in-depth, comparative analysis of its diplomatic endeavors in the Middle East and East Asia. By exploring cultural exchanges, economic collaborations, and religious engagements, the book offers nuanced insights into China's strategies, making it an indispensable tool for academics, policymakers, diplomats, and those intrigued by contemporary geopolitics. This book aims to dissect the multifaceted approaches China employs to achieve its diplomatic objectives. From cultural initiatives to economic partnerships and religious engagements, the book unravels the adaptability and complexity of China's foreign policy mechanisms. Its primary objective is to provide a comparative framework for studying China's soft power diplomacy, filling a notable gap in existing scholarship. The interdisciplinary approach ensures rich, diverse analyses, fostering dialogues across international relations, Asian studies, and political science. By offering new theories, methodologies, and empirical data, the book not only challenges existing notions but also sparks further academic inquiry into the strategic use of soft power in foreign policy.

This comprehensive Routledge Handbook on the Modern Maghrib introduces and analyses the region in its full complexity, focusing on the countries of Morocco, Tunisia, Algeria, and Libya, as well as the northern and western Sahara. In addition to country studies that provide historical and geopolitical background, a series of thematic explorations engage with a range of social, linguistic, cultural and economic aspects, providing a rich mosaic of current scholarship on the region. Addressing important debates such as the volatile international relations among constituent states, the role of women in society, and the environmental impact of climate change, the book considers natural resources, music, media and language, and revisits the history of borders and social tribal structures. What emerges is not only a variegated picture of the Maghrib as a complex and rapidly changing region, but one marked by stark contrasts and divergences among its constituent states based on their Ottoman and colonial experiences, their relationships with their Saharan and Mediterranean neighbours, and their own political trajectories. This Handbook fills an important gap in knowledge on a region increasingly significant in European and American affairs, and will appeal to anyone interested in the history, economies and societies of North Africa.

Global and Regional Strategies in the Middle East explores hegemony in the Middle East through understanding different dimensions of power politics and the consequences of the hegemonic ambitions of both global and regional powers. The book adds new aspects to the extensive literature on grand strategies in the Middle East by exploring and evaluating competing strategies from an "insider" perspective. First, it highlights the main determinants of Global powers' grand strategies, assesses the ones applied in the Middle East, and forecasts future strategies after the Ukraine war in alignment with other rival states' capabilities and goals. It then underlines regional dynamics and the hegemonic quest of regional powers and their power politics' determinants since the "War on terror," the Arab Spring, and, more recently, the Russian intervention in Ukraine and Israel-Gaza conflict. The book broadens readers' perspectives by clarifying the region's dynamics that shaped the global and regional power rivalries, where security concerns, economic interests, oil supplies, and hegemonic ambitions make it complicated for the US to keep influence and the total control it had during the late 20th century. This book will be of great interest to scholars and students of the MENA region, International Relations and Strategic Studies.

This book provides a critical insight into China's evolving socio-cultural relations with Islamic countries in the face of growing geopolitical uncertainty. It considers both the historical and socioeconomic aspects of China-Islamic countries relations to present a balanced analysis of the effectiveness of the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) plan and the current and future evolution of cooperation. The book also sheds new light of the impact on individual economic sectors, considering both the micro- and macro-effects on various stakeholders as the global community navigates an increasingly precarious power struggle between dominant world powers. The book presents contributions from a variety of fields to provide a multi-faceted breakdown of the challenges that remain for the myriad of relationships in the years to come.

This is a collection of essays marking the 30th anniversary of the historic Cold War’s formal conclusion in 1991. It enriches Cold War studies—a field dominated by Political Science, International Relations, and History—with insights from Sociology, Anthropology, Cultural Studies, and Film and Media Studies. Through critical analysis of newspaper and magazine articles, films, novels, art exhibits, museums, and other commemorative sites that engage with the themes of conflict, violence, trauma, displacement, marginalization, ecology, and identity, the book provides rich and diverse perspectives on the complex relationship between the historic Cold War and its legacies on the one hand and, on the other, their impact on Asia, its plural histories and peoples, and their shifting identities, ideological beliefs, and lived experiences. Today, we often speak of an ‘Asian century’ and witness intensifying concerns over ‘new cold wars’ or ‘Cold War 2.0’. A United States in decline and a China on the rise create conditions for a new superpower rivalry, with a trade war already being fought between the two competitors. Russia continues to flex its geopolitical muscles, launching a full-scale invasion of neighbouring Ukraine in 2022, as its strongman leadership yearns nostalgically for the good old days of the USSR. As grand narratives and strategies of the Cold War jostle to make sense of high-level geopolitical events, this book descends to the level of lived experience, zooming in on ordinary and marginalized peoples, whose lives and livelihoods have been affected over the decades by the Cold War and its legacies.

The last decade or so has seen US-China relations enter a negative spiral. The evolution of this complex relationship has triggered a fast-growing debate on whether this is a New Cold War. Building on a deconstruction of concepts such as cold wars and Cold War, this book illustrates how the relationship between the US and China has been a "marriage of convenience" - with both cooperation and competition - for years, but also that we might be close to the end of it. The US and China, it is argued, are locked in a "new type of cold war" where mechanisms of deterrence and competition differ compared to those of the Cold War, and which makes the return of bloc politics possible.

This companion provides the most comprehensive and up-to-date comparative overview of the cyber-security strategies and doctrines of the major states and actors in Europe, North America, South America, Africa, and Asia. The volume offers an introduction to each nation’s cyber-security strategy and policy, along with a list of resources in English that may be consulted for those wishing to go into greater depth. Each chapter is written by a leading academic or policy specialist, and contains the following sections: overview of national cyber-security strategy; concepts and definitions; exploration of cyber-security issues as they relate to international law and governance; critical examinations of cyber partners at home and abroad; legislative developments and processes; dimensions of cybercrime and cyberterrorism; implications of cyber-security policies and strategies. This book will be of much interest to students and practitioners in the fields of cyber-security, national security, strategic studies, foreign policy, and international relations.

The Routledge Handbook on Tourism in the Middle East and North Africa examines the importance of tourism as a historical, economic, social, environmental, religious and political force in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA). It highlights the ecological and resource challenges related to water, desert environments, climate change and oil. It provides an in-depth analysis of the geopolitical conditions that have long determined the patterns of tourism demand and supply throughout the region and how these play out in the everyday lives of residents and destinations as they attempt to grow tourism or ignore it entirely. While cultural heritage remains the primary tourism asset for the region as a whole, many new types of tourisms are emerging, especially in the Arabian Gulf region, where hyper-development is closely associated with the increasingly prominent role of luxury real estate and shopping, retail, medical tourism, cruises and transit tourism. The growing phenomenon of an expatriate workforce, and how its segregation from the citizenry creates a dual socio-economic system in several countries, is unmatched by other regions of the world. Many indigenous people of MENA keep themselves apart from other dominant groups in the region, although these social boundaries are becoming increasingly blurred as tourism, being one socio-economic force for change, has inspired many nomadic peoples to settle into towns and villages and rely more on tourists for their livelihoods. All of these issues and more shape the foundations of this book. This Handbook is the first of its kind to examine tourism from a broad regional and inclusive perspective, surveying a broad range of social, cultural, heritage, ecological and political matters in a single volume. With a wide range of contributors, many of whom are natives of the Middle East and North Africa, this Handbook is a vital resource for students and scholars interested in Tourism, Middle East Studies and Geography.

The Routledge Companion to Medieval English Literature offers a new, inclusive, and comprehensive context to the study of medieval literature written in the English language from the Norman Conquest to the end of the Middle Ages. Utilising a Trans-European context, this volume includes essays from leading academics in the field across linguistic and geographic divides. Extending beyond the traditional scholarly discussions of insularity in relation to Middle English literature and ‘isolationism’, this volume: Oversees a variety of genres and topics, including cultural identity, insular borders, linguistic interactions, literary gateways, Middle English texts and traditions, and modern interpretations such as race, gender studies, ecocriticism, and postcolonialism. Draws on the combined extensive experience of teaching and research in medieval English and comparative literature within and outside of anglophone higher education and looks to the future of this fast-paced area of literary culture. Contains an indispensable section on theoretical approaches to the study of literary texts. This Companion provides the reader with practical insights into the methods and approaches that can be applied to medieval literature and serves as an important reference work for upper-level students and researchers working on English literature.