ABSTRACT
This introduction presents an overview of the key concepts covered in the subsequent chapters of this book. The book explores the implications of One Belt, One Road (OBOR) and the Asia Infrastructure and Investment Bank (AIIB) for the Middle East and West Asia as a whole. It highlights the early origins of what would later become OBOR in domestic considerations, namely, China's wish to advance its economically laggard Western provinces by tying them with the outer Asian rim and by directing excess industrial capacity to infrastructural projects overseas. The book also attempts to find out whether China's growing energy trade with Saudi Arabia will alter US security commitments in the Gulf. It also explains how, following the establishment of diplomatic relations in 1992, China sedulously courted Israel for military know-how, thus arousing American wrath. It then underscores how far Sino-Israeli economic relations have progressed over the last decade in the face of lingering mutual suspicion and initial setbacks.
