Region to play ‘key role in Belt and Road Initiative’

At the Concluding Plenary Session of Manama Dialogue 2018 which was held under the banner ‘Navigating Geo-Political Change: The Middle East in the Global Context’, David Gordon, Senior Adviser for Geo-Economics and Strategy, IISS, stated that the Middle East will play a key role as Beijing has begun looking for new partnerships and will be looking to Gulf region as a potential partner in a new phase of the initiative.

“There are three topics that I want to touch on the Asia-Middle East relations, the first is the US-China trade war, second is the shifting attitudes in East Asia towards the Middle East and the third is some thoughts on the evolution of China’s strategy in the Belt and Road Initiative.”

“The US-China trade relationship has definitely become more competitive, but that doesn’t mean it will be naturally or inherently conflicted, but is certainly the case in the last six months that the US-China trade relationship has become more conflicted. “With regard to the efforts by the Trump and the Trump Administration to reset the commercial relationship between China and the USA, there are two views within the administration. First is that you put trade pressure on China in order to get to a new more balanced relation with China.