GEOPOLITICS/ China and Turkey’s plan to take the Middle East

The Arab Spring has not only called into question, as is now well known, the internal balance of many countries of the Mediterranean and the Middle East but, and perhaps involving the West even more, it has reopened a game of which we thought we already knew the outcome. This is the game for control of the Mediterranean and its resources (energy in particular). The regime changes in the area, and the riots that are still going on, are inevitably reshaping the balance of partnerships that had seemed to be consolidated, decomposing and recomposing the complex puzzle of the Middle East at great speed.

In the battle for the Mediterranean, therefore, new players are ready to take the field, with the risk of relegating the older players to the bench. To put it another way, the U.S. and the EU in particular, will have to implement a deep “restyling”, if not a real reform of their Mediterranean policies in order not to leave the game defeated. It remains to be understood what the best strategy to put into place might be.

It is obvious that the most important game is the political, social and economic reconstruction of many countries of the area, a challenge that, it is useless to deny it, is played to the tune of financial aid. It is not difficult to understand the reason. The recent estimates of IMF have worrying numbers for some of the “core” countries of the Arab revolutions: Syria; Libya; Egypt; and Tunisia. It is true that immediate economic recoveries rarely correspond to political revolutions, but it is also true that one cannot remain indifferent to the IMF data. In 2011, Tunisia had zero growth (compared to three percentage points in 2010). The Egyptian GDP suffered the same fate with a value of around 1%, a very small number compared to 5.3% last year. It was no better for Libya, where they are talking of a possible contraction in GDP of more than 50%, and certainly just as dire predictions for Assad’s regime, though more difficult to determine given the uncertainty of the political situation. The economic downturn could be around 2 percentage points, not counting the potential additional setbacks due to possible restrictive measures on the part of the international community.

In such a scenario, it is plausible to believe that the resources that international bodies will be able to put into play will be the deciding factor in future regional partnerships.