For much of the past thirty years, since the end of the Cold War, the United States has been largely unrivaled in its power in the Middle East and the Persian Gulf. Today, that is no longer the case as the U.S. faces new challenges both from regional powers like Iran and Saudi Arabia as well as international competitors, including China and Russia.

This transition to multipolarity is transforming the region and served as the thesis of a special edition of the academic journal Middle East Policy that came out earlier this year.

Three of the journal's editors on this project, Andrea Ghiselli from Fudan University in Shanghai, University of Naples China scholar Enrico Fardella, and Durham University international relations professor Anoushiravan Ehteshami, join Eric to discuss how the different countries in the region are adapting to the Sino-U.S. rivalry.

SHOW NOTES: Download the Spring 2024 edition of Middle East Policy (you'll need institutional access or have to pay a small fee): https://bit.ly/3XvvLUm

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2024 has been a pivotal year for Brazil-China relations. Last month marked 50 years of diplomatic ties between the two nations, and in celebration of this milestone, President Xi Jinping is expected to visit Brazil by the end of the year.

This visit comes as economic ties between the two countries are booming. Bilateral trade is on track to surpass last year’s $157 billion, and recent data shows Chinese investment in Brazil jumped by 33% in 2023.

Beyond economics, Presidents Xi Jinping and Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva share similar ideological views on key global issues, posing a growing challenge to U.S. influence in the Western Hemisphere.

This week, South China Morning Post correspondent Igor Patrick and Thiago Bessimo, co-founder of the Portuguese-language site Observa China, join Eric to unpack the deepening Brazil-China relationship and its global implications.

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U.S. officials have spoken at length about the urgent need to end their country's dependency on China for the critical resources needed to power next-generation mobility and technology.

Part of the solution, they say, is to compete directly with the Chinese for lithium, cobalt, and other critical mineral mining rights around the world. The problem is few U.S. mining companies today do that kind of work in Africa, South America and Southeast Asia where these resources are found.

But the U.S. is geologically endowed, prompting loud calls to mine these resources at home — which raises another problem.

In his new book "The War Below," Reuters correspondent Ernest Scheyder explains how powerful stakeholders have made it very difficult for U.S. mining companies to operate domestically. Ernest joins Eric & Géraud to explain why the politics of mining make it nearly impossible for the U.S. to compete with China for critical resources.

PURCHASE THE WAR BELOW ON AMAZON: https://tinyurl.com/24ng24tm

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In September 2023, just weeks before Hamas' devastating terrorist attack on October 7th, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his foreign policy advisors were preparing for a summit meeting in China with President Xi Jinping. There were even whispers Beijing would help facilitate a rapprochement between Israel and Saudi Arabia much as it did between Riyadh and Tehran.

Now, almost a year later, everything has changed. Sino-Israeli political ties have soured as China aligned with the Arab world and the rest of the Global South in opposition to Israel's war on Gaza. However, while China's standing in Israel has fallen since October 7th, it surged across the rest of the Middle East as more countries in the region regard Beijing as an emerging alternative to the United States.

Gedaliah Afterman, head of the Asia Policy Program at the Abba Eban Institute for Diplomacy and Foreign Relations at Reichman University, and Research Analyst Allie Weinberger, tracked China's Mideast power trajectory in a new article published by the Australian Security Policy Institute. Gedaliah and Allie join Eric to discuss what's behind China's growing influence in the Mideast.

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Many small and middle-power countries are finding it increasingly difficult to navigate the contentious Great Power rivalry between China and the United States. Even though both Beijing and Washington repeatedly state that they don't want to force other countries to choose one side or the other, it isn't always that simple.

Vietnam, however, stands apart from other developing countries in its ability to effectively manage relations with the major powers, including Russia. The main architect of that strategy, known as "bamboo diplomacy," was Nguyen Phu Trong — the long-serving Communist Party General Secretary who passed away last month.

Phan Xuan Dung, a research officer in the Vietnamese program at the Institute of Southeast Asian Studies (ISEAS), joins Eric to discuss Trong's legacy and the lessons bamboo diplomacy offers other developing countries.

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Chinese President Xi Jinping has long touted the East's rise and the West's decline, the kind of thinking that's triggered his supporters to fantasize about a post-Western geopolitical order.

While it's indisputable that U.S. and European countries, which represent the foundational pillars of the Western system, have seen their power diminish in the post-Cold War era, there's little credible evidence of a full-blown collapse of Western influence.

Instead, King's College scholar Samir Puri argues in his new book "Westlessness," that the role of the West in the international system is changing and not going away.

Samir joins Eric & Cobus from London to discuss the emergence of a new, less Western global order.

Show Notes:

• Order "Westlessness" on Amazon.co.uk

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The foreign ministers from China, the U.S., Japan, and Russia, among others, all passed through the Laotian capital, Vientiane, over the past several days, ostensibly for an ASEAN gathering. But the real action took place on the sidelines of the meeting, where the ministers held a series of bilaterals that revealed the hardening battle lines among the major powers.

The tense discussions highlight the frontline role that Southeast Asia now plays in this burgeoning geopolitical competition that appears to be intensifying over disputes related to Taiwan, the South China Sea, and surging Chinese influence in the region.

Prashanth Paramaswaran, writer and creator of the popular ASEAN Wonk Substack newsletter, joins Eric to discuss what happened in Vientiane and the latest on the stand-off between Beijing and Manila over territorial rights in the South China Sea.

SHOW NOTES:

• ASEAN Wonk: Why New Japan-Philippines Reciprocal Access Agreement Matters
• ASEAN Wonk: China Crisis Rocks Philippines Second Thomas Shoal Strategy
• ASEAN Wonk: Vietnam Foreign Policy Futures After Nguyen Phu Trong Passing

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The violent confrontation between China and the Philippines on June 17th near the Second Thomas Shoal marked a sharp escalation in tensions between the two countries over their rival territorial claims in the South China Sea.

After the melee that severely injured one Filipino sailor, the two countries engaged in a second battle, this time in the media, to shape the narrative of what happened and where this burgeoning crisis goes from here.

Alex Vuving, a professor at the Pentagon-backed think tank Asia-Pacific Security Studies Center in Honolulu, joins Eric to discuss why the events of June 17th have prompted Ferdinand Marcos, Jr. to recalibrate his strategy.

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