From April 25-26, 2024, the International Symposium The Belt and Road Initiative Ten Years On: Challenges, Opportunities, and Prospects for China-Middle East Cooperation was successfully convened. The symposium was jointly organized by the Middle East Council on Global Affairs and Shanghai Academy of Social Sciences, and hosted by the Institute of International Relations at SASS. This marked the third session of a series of international symposiums focusing on China-Middle East cooperation under the framework of the Belt and Road Initiative, following previous events held in Shanghai in 2018 and Doha in 2019. Wang Dezhong, President of SASS, attended the opening ceremony and delivered remarks alongside Tarik Yousef, representing the organizing entities, and exchanged a memorandum of cooperation.
Over the course of a day and a half, the symposium saw participation of 18 foreign scholars from Qatar, Egypt, UAE, Saudi Arabia, Turkey, Iran, Lebanon, Palestine, Algeria, Morocco, Tunisia, Sudan, Kuwait, the United States, and the European Union, as well as domestic experts and scholars from Beijing, Xi'an, and Shanghai.
Discussions focused on six main topics: Future Cooperation in a New Geopolitical Environment, Evolving Geopolitics and Security in the Middle East, BRI Cooperation on Investment, Trade, Energy, and Finance, ; Technological and Infrastructure Cooperation in Belt and Road Projects; Future of the Middle East: Society, Culture, and Climate Change; and New Challenges and China's Role in the Middle East.
Participants engaged in in-depth exchanges and discussions, addressing practical concerns and theoretical perspectives, while also providing forward- looking insights into the prospects and challenges of cooperation between China and Middle Eastern countries. At the conclusion of the conference, Shanghai Academy of Social Sciences and the Middle East Council on Global Affairs expressed their commitment to further deepen and expand cooperation, including regular symposiums, exchange programs for visiting scholars, and collaborative research projects. Both sides tentatively agreed to hold the fourth international symposium in Doha in April 2025.
