China invests in Arab countries

China tries to play a leading role in international politics by making substantial economic aid available to some Arab countries and the Middle East. It is a scheme usually used by Beijing to establish good political relations with other countries, which can assure the Chinese power first of all good commercial prospects and also excellent developments in diplomatic relations. Until now, this method had been used in such a masked manner with the African states and in a less accentuated manner with the European states; entry into Arab and Middle Eastern countries is new and signals the Chinese will to broaden its range of action, even in potential conflict with the United States, which, traditionally, have strategic interests in these areas of the planet. Moreover, the isolationist will of Trump represents an opportunity to favor the Chinese plans to exercise a sort of soft power conducted through the financial means. Beijing's investment is expected to be around seventeen billion euros, designed to support industrialization and infrastructure construction projects, which will be the driving force for the economies of the financed states. The goals, in fact, concern the creation of jobs, which must have the dual purpose of increasing the spread of wealth and, through this, ensure social stability, with the ultimate goal of arriving at a solution to the security problems of these territories . It is significant that the first tranche of this aid goes to Palestine with 12.8 million euro, while 77 million will be divided between Jordan, Lebanon, Syria and Yemen. These are countries where conflicts are taking place or, in any case, they present situations of high instability and which, often, have constituted recruitment ground for terrorist groups of Islamic fundamentalism. It will be interesting to verify what will be, also the reactions of Tel Aviv and Washington to the financing to Palestine, which represents the entrance, for now indirect, of Beijing in the Israeli-Palestinian dispute; It is easy to foresee that the reactions of Tel Aviv and Washington will not be positive for funding for Palestine, but China has never shown interest in entering the purely political issue, but it is clear that such an act can make it become potentially a new actor in the dispute. If one wants to enter the hypothesis it can be assumed that funding is the first approach for a direct commitment by Beijing to resolve the age-old problem between Israelis and Palestinians, to increase its international prestige. Chinese investment in the Arab area was preceded by growing economic relations, as bilateral trade growth increased by almost 12% in thirteen years and where Chinese companies in the power; in addition, in Djibouti, the People's Republic of China installed the first military base outside its territory. In the Chinese strategy, the centrality is occupied by the construction and growth of the Silk Road, which aims to trace the ancient route that extended from China to the rest of the world and was the most important route for trade. To implement this project, the Chinese plan envisages the construction of a series of different infrastructures: pipelines in Burma, motorways in Pakistan, railway lines in Kenya and ports in Greece and Sri Lanka, but the centrality of the Arab states, and their energy availability, puts them in a prominent position in the Beijing project and the intention is to involve the Arab League to support Chinese intentions. But China also has a second goal, in addition to the commercial one, which concerns the aspect of security, intended as prevention of possible attacks against the infrastructures under construction, defined as maintaining stability; Beijing is worried by the high rate of radicalization in the area and will allocate around 130 million euros for security forces and surveillance systems. One of the reasons for concern is that of a possible weld between Uyghur extremism, a Muslim population living in the Xinjiang region of China, often subjected to harsh repression by Beijing and radical Islamic Islamic movements, a merger that could jeopardize or alter Chinese investments in Middle Eastern countries.