China’s Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) took the developing world by storm and its rivals by surprise. In just a decade, Xi Jinping’s flagship foreign policy initiative expanded to 150 countries and surpassed 1 trillion dollars in cumulative engagement. Originally conceived as a means to export China’s domestic overcapacity in construction, the BRI has since evolved into a sprawling network of infrastructure projects, trade agreements, and financial partnerships. The initiative has successfully strengthened China’s global influence and positioned it as a formidable economic and diplomatic power. Today, China is no longer just an emerging power; it is regarded as a “near-peer soft power competitor” with the US. However, as the BRI enters its second decade, China’s approach is undergoing a major transformation. Faced with domestic economic challenges, Beijing is recalibrating its strategy, but this will only highlight deeper structural flaws within the initiative. Corruption scandals, project failures, and the growing cost of restructuring loans for partner nations have damaged Beijing’s reputation and placed an unsustainable burden on China’s already strained finances. Whilst Beijing remains committed to the BRI, its execution has shifted, creating opportunities for some nations but leaving others behind. This article examines how China is reshaping the BRI in response to domestic economic challenges. It will also assess China’s evolving role as a development partner, highlighting how its economic priorities impact its overseas commitments.

Until the 1990s the United Arab Emirates’ (UAE) national security policy was traditionally conservative, focused primarily on state survival and territorial unity. However the invasion of Kuwait forced the UAE to reassess its vulnerabilities as a small state. Under the leadership of Mohamed bin Zayed (MBZ), the son of Sheikh Zayed, the UAE has revamped its national security policy to one of ambition. Emirati national security policy was shifted to focus on self-sufficiency, economic diversification, containing threats such as the Axis of Resistance & Islamism, projecting regional influence and ensuring good relations with global powers by having them have a stake in Emirati security. However the last point has failed to fully guarantee the UAE's security, prompting a need for greater independence in defense.‍A new critical pillar of the UAE’s national security strategy centres around its creation of an indigenous military industrial complex (MIC). Anticipated to exceed $129 billion in cumulative defence investment within 3 years, this commitment underscores the UAE’s shift in strategic priorities in a quickly changing Gulf. Factors driving this transformation include the diminishing role of the U.S. as the Gulf’s security guarantor post-Arab Spring, the pivot away from hydrocarbons, and the rising threat of Iranian militias.‍Whilst the UAE has a long history of purchasing arms from larger powers, this trend has now begun to shift, with Emirati defence strategy now looking to create its own vertical domestic defence industry, including R&D, production and maintenance. By creating its own domestic military industrial complex (MIC), the UAE seeks to enhance resilience and safeguard its autonomy whilst bolstering its capacity projecting regional influence. ‍To achieve this, the UAE employs a variety of diverse strategies, from strategically hedging itself between the US, Russia and China, to securing its long-term knowledge capital via its upcoming academic sector. The UAE has begun to rapidly develop its newest domestic industry – defence. This article examines how the creation of an indigenous MIC is critical for its national security strategy by reducing the UAE’s and explores the key methods to facilitate this shift.‍

Green transition is the topic of the time in the west. Both the United States, United Kingdom and European Union have pushed renewable energy, electric vehicles and net zero at the top of their agendas in the last five years, with resolutions made at COP28 tripling down upon commitments made during the Paris agreement further exemplifying this global transition. Despite this global initiative being largely diplomatically led by the west, the real victor in this transition is China. China has become “the green dragon” a manufacturing powerhouse supplying the vast majority of the world’s newfound demand for renewables, furthering its economic growth and increasing global reliance on Chinese trade in the backdrop of the US-China trade war. By accepting China as the “green hegemon” the west would be left at the mercy of Chinese trade becoming reliant on Chinese technology to build and maintain a net zero economy and by extension have to make geopolitical concessions in order to maintain good trade relations. In this article our analysts assess the extent of Chinese dominance of the green industrial sector, the consequences of said dominance and policy options that could be explored by western governments to mitigate the resulting political and economic risks.