China and Middle East Conflicts

How do aspiring and established rising global powers respond to conflict? Using China, the book studies its response to wars and rivalries in the Middle East from the Cold War to the present.Since the People’s Republic was established in 1949, China has long been involved in the Middle East and its conflicts, from exploiting or avoiding them to their management, containment or resolution. Using a conflict and peace studies angle, Burton adopts a broad perspective on Chinese engagement by looking at its involvement in the region’s conflicts including Israel/Palestine, Iraq before and after 2003, Sudan and the Darfur crisis, the Iranian nuclear deal, the Gulf crisis and the wars in Syria, Libya and Yemen. The book reveals how a rising global and non-Western power handles the challenges associated with both violent and nonviolent conflict and the differences between limiting and reducing violence alongside other ways to eliminate the causes of conflict and grievance. Contributing to the wider discipline of International Relations and peace and conflict studies, this book will be of interest to students and scholars of peace and conflict studies, Chinese foreign policy and the politics and international relations of the Middle East.

"…explicitly addresses China’s influence on the systemic aspects of international politics, pointing to signs of change in norms and expectations about great power rivalries and spheres of influence. With clarity and balance, he weighs the multiple roles Beijing has played over time: disrupter, bystander, patron, mediator, and, most consistently, patient opportunist." Robert R. Bianchi, The Middle East Journal, Volume 74, Number 4, Winter 2020, pp. 631-634

Guy Burton is Adjunct Professor at Vesalius College, Brussels. He has previously held research and teaching appointments at the Mohammed Bin Rashid School of Government in Dubai, Nottingham University’s Malaysian campus, the University of Kurdistan-Hewler in northern Iraq and Birzeit University in occupied Palestine. His research interests concern the role of rising powers, conflict management and the politics and international relations of the Middle East. He is the author of Rising Powers and the Arab–Israeli Conflict since 1947 (2018).