China’s Three Level Game in the Middle East

Abstract How has China responded to regional tensions and conflicts in the Middle East? Broadly, it has done so in the form of a three-level game, at the global level (involving powerful outside parties like the US, Russia and the Europeans), at the regional level (and specifically the main regional powers like Saudi Arabia, Iran, Israel and Turkey) and at the sub-regional level where smaller and weaker states are based. The existence of this multipolar and competitive environment in which no one state or group of states is sufficiently capable to overcome another means that China’s relations with the region involve a range of sometimes contrary responses, including cooperation with these states while avoiding being caught up in their differences. This strategy may be summarised as ‘strategic ambiguity’ or ‘hedging’ and while it has served China well, it may be reaching the endpoint of its current utility.