Benjamin Houghton is an al-Sabah doctoral fellow and teaching associate at Durham University, where he researches China’s relations with the Middle East. He is the co-editor of two forthcoming volumes, "China Moves West: The Evolving Strategies of the Belt and Road Initiative" (Lynne Rienner Publishers) and "The Contest for Supremacy: China, Russia, and the USA in the Middle East" (Routledge). He has been published in Asian Affairs and Orient.