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The Chinese MENA Narrative: Peace with Development via the Belt and Road Initiative

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Abstract

This chapter addresses China’s strategic narrative with regard to MENA and its increasing regional role via the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI). After decades of democracy promotion and violent regime change to enlarge the US-led liberal order, China sees the Western MENA narrative as the principal cause of state failure, rising terrorism and regional disorder. In response, Beijing offers an alternative “peace with development” narrative as a more sustainable security concept promoting MENA connectivity and economic integration to achieve regional stability. As China is strengthening its diplomatic and security postures, partnering with local actors in new geopolitical alignments and building new institutions to implement the BRI, a new MENA regional security architecture appears to be arising and slowly paving the way for a post-western, multi-order world.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    As leading proponent of Democratic Peace Theory (DPT) Rudolph Rummel stated in 1999: “Democracy is a general cure for political or collective violence of any kind.” According to DPT, democratic leaders are restrained by the resistance of their people to carrying the costs of war-related deaths, and democracies are therefore less likely than autocratic regimes to go to war against each other.

  2. 2.

    More generally, Khaleeji (Arab Gulf) regimes tend to use two other main narratives: the Ikhwani (Muslim Brotherhood) threat and “Iranian interference”, which relates to Shia Muslims on the peninsula opposing the status quo of Sunni dominance.

  3. 3.

    China does not disregard domestic components of discontent in social protests and uprisings, but it is against external interference that fuels, hijacks and militarises protests turning them into a violent proxy fight for dominance. It supports the principle of national sovereignty and believes reforms should be implemented domestically within a country’s existing governance structure—whether autocratic, democratic, or a hybrid system—and should not be forced by external powers to convert to a democratic structure as a panacea for all domestic grievances.

  4. 4.

    The book was translated into English in 2015.

  5. 5.

    The Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO) is a Russia-led military alliance consisting of Russia, Armenia, Belarus, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan, with Afghanistan and Serbia as observer states. The Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) is a China-led Eurasian security bloc consisting of China, Russia, Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, India and Pakistan, with Afghanistan, Belarus, Iran and Mongolia as observer states.

  6. 6.

    China’s security budget was $87 billion in 2010, and the defence budget was $84.6 billion: the corresponding figures were $99 billion and $95.6 billion in 2011; $111.4 and $106.4 billion in 2012; and $123.6 billion and $119 billion in 2013. The Chinese government has withheld full disclosure of the security budget since 2014 given its sensitive nature: defence was $131.57 billion. Defence was budgeted at $141 billion in 2015, a 10% increase from 2014, whereas the security budget increased by 11%. However, the overall internal security budget was probably higher than the defence budget based on past trends. Defence was budgeted at $146 billion in 2016, and $151.43 billion in 2017, when the estimated security budget was $196 billion. The corresponding figures for 2018 are $175 billion (defence) and $210 billion (estimated security).

  7. 7.

    The map merely depicts the general connectivity of the Central Asia and West Asia regions, the BRI being open to additional participation from the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC).

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Correspondence to Christina Lin .

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Lin, C. (2020). The Chinese MENA Narrative: Peace with Development via the Belt and Road Initiative. In: Mühlberger, W., Alaranta, T. (eds) Political Narratives in the Middle East and North Africa. Perspectives on Development in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) Region. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-35217-2_7

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