The Middle East: Testing the Boundaries of Non-interference

Abstract

Chinese denials notwithstanding, Beijing’s insistence on non-interference in the domestic affairs of others is a de facto policy akin to the United States’ emphasis on stability in the Middle East and North Africa at the expense of liberal American values. It is a policy for which the United States, Europe, and the international community have paid dearly given that it enabled the violent and often brutal undercurrents of change that are sweeping the Middle East and North Africa as well as the emergence of jihadism, forces that increasingly also threaten Chinese interests.