Between 7-12 July 2019 I attended the inaugural ‘China and the Middle East/Mediterranean (“Mid-Med”): Contemporary Perspectives’ conference and workshop at the Tel Aviv University in Israel.

This event was borne out of the fruitful and effective cooperation between the Department of East Asian Studies, Tel Aviv University; the TOChina Hub’s China Med Research Program; the Center for Mediterranean Area Studies (CMAS), Peking University; and, The Moshe Dayan Center for Middle Eastern and African Studies, Tel Aviv University.

‌On 7 July, after brief opening remarks by Matan Vilnai (Israel Ambassador to China), Ori Sela (Associate Professor and Chair, Department of East Asian Studies, Tel Aviv University) and Aron Shai (Professor for East Asian Affairs and Pro-Rector), experts and scholars from all over the world shared their research and discussed four key topics: “Great Power Competition in the New Era,” “China and the Middle East,” “China and the Mediterranean Region,” and “China and the Belt and Road’s Functional Infrastructure.” The experts included diplomats, government representatives and military officials. After an intensive day of conference proceedings, all the participants (speakers and PhD students) gathered for a lovely barbecue dinner in a University restaurant.

The following day we visited the Port of Haifa. The visit was made possible thanks to the support of the Israeli Administration of Shipping and Ports. In the afternoon, we visited the charming city of Acre, a historic walled port-city with continuous settlement from the Phoenician period. The Old City of Acre is one of the UNESCO World Heritage Sites, in recognition of the remains of the Crusader town both above and below street level. Moreover, the city is one of the region’s few surviving Ottoman walled towns with citadels, mosques, khans and baths.

9-10 July, we held lectures and round-table discussions, and on 11 July we held a scenario-building exercise. Finally, during the morning of 12 July, I and the other thirteen PhD student participants presented the previously assigned draft of our reports on the panels/lectures. I critiqued and analysed the presentation of Mr Alessandro Fernani (Scenario Building Workshop: The Futures of China in the Middle East). Alessandro is the head of scenario consulting at the strategic foresight web-based consultancy Shaping Tomorrow. Finally, in the afternoon we visited the Old City of Jaffa, where we had a short tour, the closing ceremony, and final dinner.

The conference served to support my research and life-long learning about China as well as gaining on-the-ground knowledge about the transformative dynamics of the of the Belt and Road Initiative. It was also important to gain theoretically informed knowledge, policy relevant insights and practical know-how on China’s evolving identities, socio-economic structures, institutions and policies from the practitioners and expert scholars. More important still were the insights into a high-level scientific analysis of the Mediterranean dynamics and their growing interconnections with the Chinese sphere of interests.