China

For many at present, the phrase “China and Islam” connotes conflict and oppression. This is due to a preponderant focus on the security situation in the Muslim-majority northwestern province of Xinjiang. Chinese policies in Xinjiang—particularly restrictions placed on Xinjiang’s Turkic Uighurs regarding beards, veils, and fasting during Ramadan—have been perceived as targeting Muslims as Muslims, exacerbating the security concerns they were meant to address. Moreover, the pursuit of stability in Xinjiang has led the Chinese government to adopt an anti-terrorism rhetoric reminiscent of its American counterpart.

As a result of the growth of its comprehensive power, China today has two frontiers. One is the natural frontier of its sovereign territory; the other is an artificial frontier created by its overseas interests. By deploying a “soft” military presence overseas, specifically in the Middle East, China can protect its commercial interests while also providing public goods for the international community and minimizing the risk of damage to multilateral relations.

Muslims in imperial China did not necessarily have to worship at the altars of Chinese gods to exert their identities as upstanding local inhabitants, obedient subjects, or agreeable neighbors. As any child brought up on the story of God’s sparing of Ibrahim’s son knows, the followers of any god who pulls his weight in this world or the next are sometimes in need of a lamb or two ...

China is steadily reshaping the world’s political and economic landscape by connecting Europe and the Pacific through a series of transcontinental and transoceanic networks that will run across the major Islamic countries of Asia and Africa. The slogan that Beijing uses to promote these projects—“One Belt, One Road”—is a shorthand reference to the Silk Road Economic Belt (the overland routes through Central Asia and the Middle East) and the Maritime Silk Road (the sea lanes joining the Pacific and Indian Oceans with the Mediterranean). In fact, even these grandiose labels understate the true magnitude of China’s ambitions; the total number of planned mega-networks is not two, but seven—and still counting.

Thanks to unprecedented current account surpluses, the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) countries are investing billions abroad and looking more toward the East. The GCC’s growing trade ties with China have been accompanied by encouraging development in investment relations. For these countries, investment projects in China promise access not only to large and rapidly growing energy markets, but also to other booming sectors.

This essay explores recent GCC investment in sectors of the Chinese economy other than the petrochemicals industry and examines the challenges confronted by Gulf investors.

China, “a quarter of mankind,” can no longer be ignored.[1] Economic reform is not the essence of Deng Xiaoping’s revolution; opening China to the outside world is. Israel is part of this phenomenon. After thirty years of no relations (and even mutual hostility); ten years of unofficial relations; and more than twenty years of official relations, both countries have managed to overcome their earlier illusions and to come to terms with the limits of their bilateral relations.

The water harvesting and underground transmission system called a karez in the Uygur language, or kan er jing in Mandarin, has provided sustainable water supplies in some communities of the Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region (Xinjiang), China for over 2,000 years. These water systems have also been used in countries in North Africa and West Asia, as well as other Asian countries, including Afghanistan, Iran, and Pakistan.