ABSTRACT
This chapter investigates China's investments in the Middle East. China's Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) involves risky bets across a swath of land populated by civilizational, illiberal, and/or autocratic governments exercising power without independent checks and balances. Those bets are no riskier than in the greater Middle East, even if the policies of China and key Middle Eastern states are aligned in opposing popular revolts that are likely to remain part of the region's political landscape. In the last decade, uprisings have affected 12 of the Arab League's 22 members, toppled eight leaders, and sparked counterrevolutions and civil wars. China's bets have so far paid off. Harsh repression coupled with delivery, or the promise of delivery, of public goods and services in the Gulf coupled with a combination of repressive measures and accommodation, for now, have kept autocrats in power. Increasingly, Saudi Arabia and other Gulf states are tying financial and military support for embattled regimes to economic reforms in an effort to more sustainably counter potential unrest.
