ABSTRACT
As an emerging economic superpower, post-Mao China’s global imprint has attracted much scholarly attention. Focus on China has spun much interest in China’s global role and economic, political, and cultural footprint. Studies of China’s presence in the Middle East remain far outweighed by the literature on Chinese engagement with Africa, Latin America, Central, South, and Southeast Asia. The end of the Cold War and China’s increasingly acute energy dependency in the twenty-first century have played a significant role in shaping China’s approach to the Middle East and North Africa region. While China established diplomatic relations with Libya only in 1978, it had enthusiastically supported the Algerian Front de Liberation Nationale struggle against French colonial rule earlier on. China’s growing reliance on Mideast energy sources is becoming more akin to that of the Japanese and South Korean post-War economic trajectory.
