Dale Aluf is the founder of Political Mind. He is also a research fellow at SIGNAL Group, for which he served as Research Director from 2017 to 2024. His research examines the impact of China’s rise on the Middle East and North Africa.

This is a preprint of an article whose final and definitive form has been published in Survival: Global Politics and Strategy © 2024 The International Institute for Strategic Studies; Survival: Global Politics and Strategy is available online at: https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/00396338.2024.2403227.

Contact Dale Aluf at [email protected]

Cover photo by EPA- JADE GAO