Diplomacy by Design

Analysis of China's Belt and Road Initiative in the Middle East

This book offers a critical and original analysis of how China’s Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) is actively reshaping the geopolitical architecture of the Middle East. Far from being a neutral economic enterprise, the BRI is conceptualized here as a deliberate and strategic modality of power—what the book terms “diplomacy by design”—through which China is redrawing regional alignments, recalibrating state relations, and subtly displacing long-standing Western influence.

Drawing on case studies from key Middle Eastern states—including the Gulf monarchies, Iran, Saudi Arabia, and some part of the Levant—the book situates China’s infrastructural diplomacy within the broader context of regional fragmentation, post-American recalibration, and the emergence of multipolar diplomacy. It engages critically with concepts such as sovereignty, strategic autonomy, and the infrastructure-security nexus, arguing that the BRI constitutes a new grammar of international engagement that departs from traditional Western models.