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Belt and Road Initiative: China’s Diplomatic-Security Tool in the Gulf?

Abstract The focus of the first five years of the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) was on the economic dimensions, laced with a tinge of politics. It is likely that the next five years of this ambitious project – whilst making headway in the economic domain and acquiring a greater political flavour – would also attain a security dynamic that could become the basis of a future global security system, with ramifications for the Gulf region. This paper focuses on two interconnected issues: one, the already-evident traces of the BRI’s economic-political-security linkages; and two, how this security feature expands to fit into China’s wider diplomatic and defence policy, which includes a naval plan extending into the Indian Ocean, and how this could impact Gulf security.