Unlikely, wary ... and yet coordinated: the “Innovative Conservatism” of Russia and China in the Middle East and North Africa

Owing to its strategic location, resource endowment and high frequency of armed conflicts out of political fragmentation, the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) have been central to the dynamics of international relations before and after the Cold War: direct or indirect control over the region granted world powers a large asset in their international competition or rivalry. As a consequence, Russia and China’s recent engagement with the region has sparked a great deal of debate among scholars and politicians as evidence of multipolarity in the making and the relative decline of US and EU influence abroad. The chapter reviews and compares the assets and rationales of Moscow and Beijing in the region since the 1990s and argues that their engagement is innovative because it has provided an effective opportunity for MENA elites first to diversify their international relations and distance themselves from the USA and the European Union (EU), and second to reassert the relevance of central state institutions in the politics and economics of the region. However, their presence is conservative in so far as it builds on and does not change the fragmented structure of MENA regional relations as well as current politics of development.