Alterman (director of the Middle East Program, Center for Strategic and International Studies) and Garver (Sam Nunn School of International Affairs, Georgia Institute of Technology) explore the triangular relationship between the United States, the Middle East, and China. They are particularly concerned with potential sources of conflict and their implications for US policy. Chinese, Middle Eastern, and US perspectives are examined separately and policy recommendations are provided at the end. The report finds that China does not seek to be a rival to the US in the Middle East but that the Chinese think that US actions in the region have harmed stability and undermined Chinese interests and that there is ongoing temptation for China to deal directly with states the US is trying to isolate. Annotation ©2008 Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)
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The United States has been deeply involved in the Middle East for more than a half century and seized with China’s role in the world for a similar period of time. Up to now, the two issues have remained distinct. Increasingly, China’s growing thirst for energy has brought it to the Middle East, where governments are curious how the growing superpower might fit into their own strategic understanding of the world. China’s increasing role in the Middle East comes at a time when the United States is itself deeply enmeshed in the region, setting up the possibility of competition or even conflict between the two great powers.This volume explores the complex interrelationships among China, the United States, and the Middle East—what the authors call the “vital triangle.” There is surely much to be gained from continuing the conventional two-dimensional analysis—China and the United States, the United States and the Middle East, and China and the Middle East. Such scholarship has a long history and no doubt a long future. But it is the three-dimensional equation—which seeks to understand the effects of the China–Middle East relationship on the United States, the U.S.–Middle East relationship on China, and the Sino-American relationship on the Middle East—that draws the authors’ attention. This approach captures the true dynamics of change in world affairs and the spiraling up and down of national interests. Central to this analysis is a belief that if any one of the three sides of this triangular relationship is unhappy, it has the power to make the other two unhappy as well. The stakes and the intimacy of the interrelationship highlight not only the importance of reaching accommodation, but also the potential payoff of agreement on common purpose.
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