Cheng Li-wen (Zheng Liwen), the newly elected firebrand chair of the opposition Kuomintang (KMT) — the largest pro-China political party in Taiwan — will be travelling to Beijing this month. As head of the KMT delegation, she is likely to meet with President Xi Jinping as she has repeatedly vowed to do this year. Explaining her decision, she stated that “we want to prove to the people of Taiwan and the entire world that conflict between the two sides of the strait is not inevitable.”
Mainland China claims Taiwan as its own territory and wants it back under its control. A majority of the people of Taiwan, on the other hand, prefer maintaining the status quo in some form. So, whither Taiwan? What is the island’s ultimate fate and destiny: absorption back into China or going its own way as a free, independent, and democratic country? The answer to this question depends largely on to whom it is addressed. Mainland Chinese will say that Taiwan belongs to China and will share the same fate as China, while a majority of native-born Taiwanese will opt for the status quo’s de facto independence.1This article is a conflation of two papers I read in April 2025, one on 1 April 2025 in Ottawa at Carleton University (“Taiwan and Canada: Domestic Politics and International Relations“) and the other to four Chinese community associations on 27 April 2025 in Calgary: the Canadian Chinese Association for Public Engagement 楓華公益促進會, the Chinese Freemasons National Headquarters of Canada 全加洪門民治黨, the Calgary Chinese Dongbei Association 卡爾加里東北同鄉會, and the Northwestern China Community Association of Alberta 卡城西北同鄉會.
But this is more than a matter of contrasting public opinion. It is a grave matter of life and death and of national rejuvenation versus national ruin. Recent developments in the potentially deadly and existential impasse between Taiwan and mainland China have made it, and the attendant cause for peace in the Taiwan Strait, more topical and pressing. There are now some encouraging signs that tensions between Taiwan and mainland China might be on the way down. Zhou Bo, a retired Senior Colonel in the People’s Liberation Army, observed that mainland China will not attack Taiwan as long as it still believes there is a possibility of recovering Taiwan peacefully.2Zhou Bo, Should the World Fear China? (London: Hurst & Company, 2025), pp. 257, 356 Thus, Cheng’s upcoming journey to mainland China is an endeavour for peace.
Preceding Cheng’s first-time visit across the strait, the Communist Party-Kuomintang Forum in Beijing was reactivated and convened this past February, ending a decade-long suspension. KMT Vice-Chairman Hsiao Hsu-tsen (Xiao Xucen) met with Wang Huining, mainland China’s top official on Taiwan affairs. There, Hsiao stated that those on either side of the strait “share a common bloodline, culture, history, and emotional bond.” Recent developments represent hopeful signs that tensions between the two sides may be easing, and that politicians in Taiwan are thinking realistically about its future.
Cheng recently made it abundantly clear that she relishes no confrontation between the two sides, saying “the mainland is our family, and we won’t be involved in an internecine struggle. We don’t need to pick a side between the United States and China. Cross-strait reconciliation can bring about cooperation between the U.S. and China.”
She also sees no net benefit for Taiwan in being at loggerheads with mainland China, telling The Economist that “Taiwan and China should not be set up as opposites; it brings no benefit to the Taiwanese people.” Cheng added that “the most important task of my tenure is to advance peace across the Taiwan Strait. We must stop deliberately vilifying everything related to China.” She and her new leadership of the Kuomintang represent a welcome breath of fresh air, pragmatic peaceability, and stability in cross-Strait relations.
The issue of the territorial disposition of Taiwan is the incubus on the chest of peace and stability in the East Asian body politic. It is a much larger and potentially more volatile flashpoint in the region than the Korean Peninsula. Canada and the rest of the West should stay out of any pending fight with China over Taiwan. Getting involved in a contest of arms with China over Taiwan would be sheer folly. Western militaries know how catastrophic an all-out war with China over Taiwan would be, but they have not levelled with their publics about it, and neither have Western political leaders. War with China would cost ghastly, gargantuan amounts of blood and treasure. Western publics are by any measure quite unprepared to accept the apocalyptic costs of war with China. The West, including Canada, should opt to steer wide and clear of this potential East Asian cataclysm.
Was Taiwan ever part of China? Of course it was — from 1683 to 1895. Much of the public commentariat frequently discusses the history of Taiwan without being inconvenienced by historical fact, knowledge, and reasoning. Claims to the contrary of the historical record tend towards interpreting the past through present-day political preferences rather than serious and objective scholarly engagement with the past.
Taiwan’s first sedentary government that managed agricultural society and collected agricultural taxes was constituted by the Dutch in the early seventeenth century, during the Ming dynasty. The Spanish also controlled portions of northern Taiwan during the 17th century. In 1644, the new Qing dynasty overthrew the Ming on mainland China, but a group of Ming loyalists under Zheng Chenggong relocated to Taiwan and continued to resist the Qing. In Taiwan, Zheng prevailed over the Dutch in the first defeat of an imperial European military force in modern East Asian history.
The new Qing dynasty tolerated the Ming loyalists in Taiwan for a time, but as attacks on the mainland by the latter grew more menacing, the Kangxi Emperor in 1683 mounted a major invasion of the island and captured it, expelling the remnants of the Ming loyalist forces. Thereafter, there was a debate about whether to keep or abandon Taiwan. The keep Taiwan camp won out by arguing successfully that Taiwan under foreign control was a security threat to mainland China. Alan M. Wachman insightfully labels this the “Shi Lang Doctrine” and argues that it has been operative in China ever since.3Alan M. Wachman, Why Taiwan? Geostrategic Rationales for China’s Territorial Integrity (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2007), p. 112.
The Qing then incorporated Taiwan as an administrative unit of Fujian province across the water. The Manchus did not administer the island under the Court of Colonial Affairs (Lifan Yuan), the way Mongolia, Xinjiang, and Tibet were in the mid and late eighteenth century. Taiwan was not simply appended to the Manchu empire, but also to what Westerners used to call ‘China Proper,’ or the eighteen provinces of Qing China that had majority Han Chinese populations. Taiwan was made part of a Chinese province and was not a frontier dependency.4During the Manchu Qing, what the West called “China Proper” was known in Chinese as the neidi shiba sheng 內地十八省, or “the eighteen interior [and majority Han] provinces.” The Manchus were an empire, but they were also the one and only government of China by the late seventeenth century. As such, the government of China joined Taiwan and mainland China together in 1683.
For the next two hundred years, Taiwan remained Qing territory. Waves of immigration, legal and otherwise, from Fujian province across the Strait led to the sustained expansion of lands under Chinese-style cultivation and subject to Qing taxation. Taiwan was eventually made a province of China in its own right in 1887.
Then in 1894, China and Japan fought the First Sino-Japanese War, which Japan won decisively. The subsequent Treaty of Shimonoseki between Qing China and Meiji Japan ceded Taiwan to Japan. What the Qing dynasty joined together in 1683, it put asunder in 1895. Taiwan was Japan’s first colony, and with its conquest, Japan became the first non-European empire in modern East Asia.5The American empire began three years later in 1898, in the wake of the Spanish-American War — which the U.S. won decisively — and the acquisition of Spanish territories, particularly the Philippines. Tokyo imposed colonial rule on Taiwan until Japan’s defeat and surrender in the Second World War in August 1945. Japan formally renounced any claim on Taiwan in the 1952 Treaty of San Francisco. This was the beginning of the Taiwan issue as we have it today.
There is credence to the argument that Japan’s annexation of Taiwan in 1895 was illegitimate because it was an unequal treaty imposed upon a weak China by Japan and that post-1945, Taiwan reverted to Chinese control. Still, the territorial disposition of Taiwan after 1945 should not be viewed as primarily a historical issue, but as a political and military one. The most rigorous and historical analyses will convince neither the people who want China to retake Taiwan nor the people who want full and formal Taiwan independence to abandon their positions. Proponents on both sides of the Taiwan issue appeal to history with a conclusion already in mind. As such, their historical reasoning is excessively deductive, representing conclusions in search of evidence.
The adamantine fact remains that China wants Taiwan back. From the Chinese point of view, Taiwan was stolen by Japan in the wake of a war of aggression against China, and China is bound and determined to recover the island once and for all, regardless of the ultimate cost and by whatever means necessary. There should be no misunderstanding in Western capitals: China treats Taiwan as a matter of core national interest. It is several orders of magnitude more committed to recovering Taiwan than Western states — or Taiwan itself, for that matter — are to defending it.
Canada and China negotiated formal diplomatic recognition of each other in Sweden in 1970. One major sticking point was the territorial disposition of Taiwan, as Ottawa was reluctant to appear to be completely abandoning the island. Both sides arrived at a compromise solution: the government of China would state its claim to Taiwan, and the government of Canada would then “take note” of this position of China. “Takes note” meant and still means neither to recognize nor to deny, and it was a formula that other countries such as Japan used as they subsequently established official diplomatic relations with China.
Canada’s neutrality on Beijing’s territorial claims to Taiwan has been the bedrock of Canada-China relations since 1970. Canada does not recognize an independent Taiwan, with Global Affairs Canada stating that:
Canada is represented in Taiwan by the Canadian Trade Office in Taipei [CTOT]. This is a locally-incorporated entity staffed by Canadian and local Taiwanese personnel. Consistent with its One China policy, Canada maintains unofficial but valuable economic, cultural, and people-to-people ties with Taiwan.
In other words, Ottawa is careful not to say that the headquarters of CTOT that was founded in 1986 is an embassy, or that relations between Canada and Taiwan are official diplomatic relations. Today, the Canadian government affords Taiwan representatives some diplomatic privileges, but not all that are normally extended to diplomats from foreign countries with which Canada has official diplomatic relations.
Taiwan currently has official diplomatic relations with only twelve small countries, but this does not mean that Taiwan is not represented abroad. Taiwan is represented in Canada by the Taiwan Economic and Cultural Office (TECO), which has four locations in Ottawa, Toronto, Vancouver, and Montreal. TECO was first established in October 1991, and in 2023 its fourth and newest office was established in Montreal. TECO Ottawa acts as the de facto embassy of Taiwan in Canada, and the other TECO offices as de facto consulates.
For Canada to go to war with China over Taiwan would entail Canada abandoning its longstanding “takes note” formula, since Canada would no longer be “taking note” of Beijing’s stance on Taiwan, but actively and militarily fighting against it.
In 2023, the U.S.-based Center for Strategic and International Studies war-gamed scenarios of conflict over Taiwan, and their conclusions were sobering: mainland China would not succeed in taking Taiwan, but Taiwan would be almost completely destroyed. Meanwhile the U.S. would suffer high casualties the likes of which it had not seen since the Second World War. Washington would lose carrier battle groups, and Guam, Saipan, and Tinian would all be wrecked.
In the West, it is worth asking, in practical terms, how prepared Taiwan and what is called the Strawberry Generation are able and willing to fight a defensive war.6The term “Strawberry Generation” is a neologism in Taiwan describing millennials and post-millennials, drawing on the tendency of strawberries to bruise easily as a metaphor for perceived fragility under pressure. To what extent can Taiwanese soldiers, who until recently have required only four months of military service, actually withstand a large-scale conflict with the People’s Liberation Army? This would represent a hopeless and reckless cause.7In Chinese, it would be as hopeless as the proverbial “praying mantis attempting to impede [the forward momentum of] a rolling cart 螳臂當車”; author’s translation. As Confucius observes in the Analects, “putting untrained civilians into battle — that is called throwing them away.”8Analects, Zilu 30: 以不教民戰是謂棄之; author’s translation. Any discussion of defence must therefore be grounded not only in resolve, but in a sound and sober assessment of what such a struggle would demand of Taiwanese society.
Younger generations in Taiwan may increasingly be recognizing the gravity and potential costs of a direct military confrontation. Former cabinet minister and public intellectual Lung Yingtai observed in the New York Times that when questioned about what they would do if China attacked, the majority of Taiwanese college and university students now say they would surrender rather than resist.
Survey data from recent years demonstrate a tangible decline in Taiwanese confidence in U.S. reliability, especially under a second Trump administration. Academia Sinica polling in 2026 indicates that 57.4% of the Taiwanese public disagrees with the proposition that the U.S. is a trustworthy country.
The Taiwan-based and publicly-funded Institute for National Defense and Security Research published 2025 survey data in which only 14% of Taiwanese believed Washington “will definitely intervene militarily” in a military conflict. The American public is war-weary, with a poll by the Chicago Council on Global Affairs in 2024 revealing that only 36% of Americans supported “committing to defend Taiwan from Chinese invasion.”
As far as the current American president is concerned, it is not beyond the realm of possibility that he could end up using Taiwan as a bargaining chip in trade negotiations with Xi Jinping. 59% of the Taiwanese public surveyed last year were “concerned that the United States and China might reach an agreement that harms our national interests.”
In the run-up to his second term, the U.S. President stated that “Taiwan should pay us for defence. You know, we’re no different than an insurance company. Taiwan doesn’t give us anything.” What is more, Trump might well be capable of doing just about anything to get a good trade deal with China, and if he ever figures out that Taiwan was on the wrong side of the Pacific War (1941-1945), he could end up concluding that Taiwan never really was America’s friend.9Trump did something similar to the Syrian Kurds during his first term as president, and he could do it with Taiwan. On Trump’s betrayal of the Syrian Kurds in 2019 see, inter alia, Ted Galen Carpenter, Yes, Donald Trump Dumped the Kurds (And We Should Not Be Shocked), Cato Institute, https://www.cato.org/commentary/yes-donald-trump-dumped-kurds-we-should-not-be-shocked# Trump is an irascible man, while Xi Jinping is, in the words of Kevin Rudd, former Prime Minister of Australia, “a man in a hurry when it comes to Taiwan.”10Kevin Rudd, The Avoidable War: The Dangers of a Catastrophic Conflict between the U.S. and Xi Jinping’s China (New York: PublicAffairs, 2022), p. 99. Xi’s determination will trump Trump’s volatility and mercuriality. Taiwan should beware of Trump and his reliability, let alone whether he truly believes that Taiwan is a friend.
Let there be peace in the Taiwan Strait. The costs of a gargantuan military struggle across the Strait are unthinkable. Taiwan should not stare into that abyss. The West must choose its interests and battles wisely. It cannot defend every liberal democracy that comes under threat by authoritarian governments, and it cannot and should not aspire to be all things to all liberal democracies.
Taiwan is not the West’s fight — it is an intra-regional fight, and a nasty one at that. The situation in the Taiwan Strait today is not like Europe in the late 1930s, when an entire continent was in grave danger of being overrun by Germany. The Taiwan issue today is about one relatively small island off the coast of mainland China. In the West, there is grossly inadequate public understanding of the Taiwan issue, so wisdom dictates that the West should stay out of it. In Taoist terms, when it comes to Taiwan, it is better to do too little than do too much.
The West has natural sympathy with liberal democracies — and make no mistake: Taiwan is a democracy, if a flawed and imperfect one in some ways. The Taiwanese feel passionate about democratic societies maintaining their free and democratic way of life in the face of threats from authoritarian governments. But the West must also realize and remember that, like it or not, the overwhelming majority of mainland Chinese are every bit as passionate and committed to the defence of what they see as the territorial integrity of their country robbed from it in 1895. The West ignores or downplays these harsh and disagreeable facts at its own peril.
As harsh and bleak as it might seem, it looks increasingly like Taiwan must choose between the lesser of two unattractive visions of its future. To choose the path of war will entail devastation the likes of which no culturally Chinese region on earth, including Taiwan, has seen in living memory. For Canada and the rest of the West, to choose the path of peace will mean that the people of Taiwan — and of the West, for that matter — can live another day and hope for the betterment of the island. Taiwan is worth preserving and not worth destroying. It would be wise to recall a passage in Sunzi’s Art of War on the wisdom of choosing peace over war:
怒可以復喜
慍可以復悅
亡國不可以復存
死者不可以復生
For wrath can turn again to bliss,
And grudge can turn again to mirth,
But kingdoms lost no more exist,
And war dead see no second birth.11Sunzi Bingfa, Huogong. Author’s translation.
The views expressed in this article are those of the author alone and do not reflect the views or positions of the Institute for Peace & Diplomacy.
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The Institute for Peace & Diplomacy is an independent, non-partisan foreign policy think tank that serves as an open and inclusive platform for a wide range of perspectives and does not adopt institutional positions on policy matters.
The Western powers have failed to effectively manage the increasing threat of proliferation in the Middle East. While the international community is concerned with Iran’s nuclear program, Saudi Arabia has moved forward with developing its own nuclear program, and independent studies show that Israel has longed possessed dozens of nuclear warheads. The former is a member of the treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons (NPT), while the latter has refused to sign the international agreement.
On Middle East policy, the Biden campaign had staunchly criticized the Trump administration’s unilateral withdrawal from the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), more commonly known as the Iran Nuclear Deal and it has begun re-engaging Iran on the nuclear dossier since assuming office in January 2021. However, serious obstacles remain for responsible actors in expanding non-proliferation efforts toward a nuclear-free zone in the Middle East.
This panel will discuss how Western powers and multilateral institutions, such as the IAEA, can play a more effective role in managing non-proliferation efforts in the Middle East.
Panelists:
– Peggy Mason: Canada’s former Ambassador to the UN for Disarmament
– Mark Fitzpatrick: Associate Fellow & Former Executive Director, International Institute for Strategic Studies (IISS)
– Ali Vaez: Iran Project Director, International Crisis Group
– Negar Mortazavi: Journalist and Political Analyst, Host of Iran Podcast
– David Albright: Founder and President of the Institute for Science and International Security
Closing (5:45 PM – 6:00 PM ET)
What is the current economic landscape in the Middle East? While global foreign direct investment is expected to fall drastically in the post-COVID era, the World Bank reported a 5% contraction in the economic output of the Middle East and North African (MENA) countries in 2020 due to the pandemic. While oil prices are expected to rebound with normalization in demand, political instability, regional and geopolitical tensions, domestic corruption, and a volatile regulatory and legal environment all threaten economic recovery in the Middle East. What is the prospect for economic growth and development in the region post-pandemic, and how could MENA nations promote sustainable growth and regional trade moving forward?
At the same time, Middle Eastern diaspora communities have become financially successful and can help promote trade between North America and the region. In this respect, the diaspora can become vital intermediaries for advancing U.S. and Canada’s business interests abroad. Promoting business diplomacy can both benefit the MENA region and be an effective and positive way to advance engagement and achieve foreign policy goals of the North Atlantic.
This panel will investigate the trade and investment opportunities in the Middle East, discuss how facilitating economic engagement with the region can benefit Canadian and American national interests, and explore relevant policy prescriptions.
Panelists:
– Hon. Sergio Marchi: Canada’s Former Minister of International Trade
– Scott Jolliffe: Chairperson, Canada Arab Business Council
– Esfandyar Batmanghelidj: Founder and Publisher of Bourse & Bazaar
– Nizar Ghanem: Director of Research and Co-founder at Triangle
– Nicki Siamaki: Researcher at Control Risks
The Middle East continues to grapple with violence and instability, particularly in Yemen, Syria and Iraq. Fueled by government incompetence and foreign interventions, terrorist insurgencies have imposed severe humanitarian and economic costs on the region. Meanwhile, regional actors have engaged in an unprecedented pursuit of arms accumulation. Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates have imported billions of both Western and Russian-made weapons and funded militant groups across the region, intending to contain their regional adversaries, particularly Iran. Tehran has also provided sophisticated weaponry to various militia groups across the region to strengthen its geopolitical position against Saudi Arabia, UAE, and Israel.
On the other hand, with international terrorist networks and intense regional rivalry in the Middle East, it is impractical to discuss peace and security without addressing terrorism and the arms race in the region. This panel will primarily discuss the implications of the ongoing arms race in the region and the role of Western powers and multilateral organizations in facilitating trust-building security arrangements among regional stakeholders to limit the proliferation of arms across the Middle East.
Panelists:
Luciano Zaccara: Assistant Professor, Qatar University
Dania Thafer: Executive Director, Gulf International Forum
Kayhan Barzegar: Professor and Chair of the Department of Political Science and International Relations at the Science and Research Branch of Azad University
Barbara Slavin: Director of Iran Initiative, Atlantic Council
Sanam Shantyaei: Senior Journalist at France24 & host of Middle East Matters
The emerging regional order in West Asia will have wide-ranging implications for global security. The Biden administration has begun re-engaging Iran on the nuclear dossier, an initiative staunchly opposed by Israel, while also taking a harder line on Saudi Arabia’s intervention in Yemen. Meanwhile, key regional actors, including Qatar, Iraq, and Oman, have engaged in backchannel efforts to bring Iran and Saudi Arabia to the negotiating table. From a broader geopolitical perspective, with the need to secure its energy imports, China is also expected to increase its footprint in the region and influence the mentioned challenges.
In this evolving landscape, Western powers will be compelled to redefine their strategic priorities and adjust their policies with the new realities in the region. In this panel, we will discuss how the West, including the United States and its allies, can utilize multilateral diplomacy with its adversaries to prevent military escalation in the region. Most importantly, the panel will discuss if a multilateral security dialogue in the Persian Gulf region, proposed by some regional actors, can help reduce tensions among regional foes and produce sustainable peace and development for the region.
Panelists:
– Abdullah Baabood: Academic Researcher and Former Director of the Centre for Gulf Studies, Qatar University
– Trita Parsi: Executive Vice-President, Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft
– Ebtesam Al-Ketbi: President, Emirates Policy Centre
– Jon Allen: Canada’s Former Ambassador to Israel
– Elizabeth Hagedorn: Washington correspondent for Al-Monitor
Military interventions, political and economic instabilities, and civil unrest in the Middle East have led to a global refugee crisis with an increasing wave of refugees and asylum seekers to Europe and Canada. Moreover, the COVID-19 pandemic has, in myriad ways, exacerbated and contributed to the ongoing security threats and destabilization of the region.
While these challenges pose serious risks to Canadian security, Ottawa will also have the opportunity to limit such risks and prevent a spillover effect vis-à-vis effective humanitarian initiatives in the region. In this panel, we will primarily investigate Canada’s Middle East Strategy’s degree of success in providing humanitarian aid to the region. Secondly, the panel will discuss what programs and initiatives Canada can introduce to further build on the renewed strategy. and more specifically, how Canada can utilize its policy instruments to more effectively deal with the increasing influx of refugees from the Middle East.
Panelists:
Erica Di Ruggiero: Director of Centre for Global Health, University of Toronto
Reyhana Patel: Head of Communications & Government Relations, Islamic Relief Canada
Amir Barmaki: Former Head of UN OCHA in Iran
Catherine Gribbin: Senior Legal Advisor for International and Humanitarian Law, Canadian Red Cross
In 2016, Canada launched an ambitious five-year “Middle East Engagement Strategy” (2016-2021), committing to investing CA$3.5 billion over five years to help establish the necessary conditions for security and stability, alleviate human suffering and enable stabilization programs in the region. In the latest development, during the meeting of the Global Coalition against ISIS, Minister of Foreign Affairs Marc Garneau announced more than $43.6 million in Peace and Stabilization Operations Program funding for 11 projects in Syria and Iraq.
With Canada’s Middle East Engagement Strategy expiring this year, it is time to examine and evaluate this massive investment in the Middle East region in the past five years. More importantly, the panel will discuss a principled and strategic roadmap for the future of Canada’s short-term and long-term engagement in the Middle East.
Panelists:
– Ferry de Kerckhove: Canada’s Former Ambassador to Egypt
– Dennis Horak: Canada’s Former Ambassador to Saudi Arabia
– Chris Kilford: Former Canadian Defence Attaché in Turkey, member of the national board of the Canadian International Council (CIC)
– David Dewitt: University Professor Emeritus, York University
While the United States continues to pull back from certain regional conflicts, reflected by the Biden administration’s decision to halt American backing for Saudi Arabia’s intervention in Yemen and the expected withdrawal from Afghanistan, US troops continue to be stationed across the region. Meanwhile, Russia and China have significantly maintained and even expanded their regional activities. On one hand, the Kremlin has maintained its military presence in Syria, and on the other hand, China has signed an unprecedented 25-year strategic agreement with Iran.
As the global power structure continues to shift, it is essential to analyze the future of the US regional presence under the Biden administration, explore the emerging global rivalry with Russia and China, and at last, investigate the implications of such competition for peace and security in the Middle East.
Panelists:
– Dmitri Trenin: Director of Carnegie Moscow Center
– Joost R. Hiltermann: Director of MENA Programme, International Crisis Group
– Roxane Farmanfarmaian: Affiliated Lecturer in International Relations of the Middle East and North Africa, University of Cambridge
– Andrew A. Michta: Dean of the College of International and Security Studies at Marshall Center
– Kelley Vlahos: Senior Advisor, Quincy Institute
The security architecture of the Middle East has undergone rapid transformations in an exceptionally short period. Notable developments include the United States gradual withdrawal from the region, rapprochement between Israel and some GCC states through the Abraham Accords and the rise of Chinese and Russian regional engagement.
With these new trends in the Middle East, it is timely to investigate the security implications of the Biden administration’s Middle East policy. In this respect, we will discuss the Biden team’s new approach vis-à-vis Iran, Yemen, Saudi Arabia, and Israel. The panel will also discuss the role of other major powers, including China and Russia in shaping this new security environment in the region, and how the Biden administration will respond to these powers’ increasing regional presence.
Panelists:
– Sanam Vakil: Deputy Director of MENA Programme at Chatham House
– Denise Natali: Acting Director, Institute for National Strategic Studies & Director of the Center for Strategic Research, National Defense University
– Hassan Ahmadian: Professor of the Middle East and North Africa Studies, University of Tehran
– Abdulaziz Sagar: Chairman, Gulf Research Center
– Andrew Parasiliti: President, Al-Monitor
