US-China competition in the Middle East (2010-2022)

The Middle East region has always been the scene of conflict between great powers. This conflict has been considered due to the importance of this region from the point of view of energy supply and geopolitical equations for these powers. With the passing of the Cold War and the arrival of the digital age, the arenas of competition between the great powers also underwent a transformation, however, the competition between the great powers, especially the US and China, in this region has received little attention despite its high importance. In order to determine the status of this competition, we had to survey the development process of the region during the period of 2010 to 2022 to find various aspects of this competition. Here, the main question of our research is, to what extent has the competition between US and China been pursued in the Middle East? The hypothesis is that the competition between these two powers in the Middle East region was not limited to one dimension, and for this reason, in order to achieve a more comprehensive view, in this paper, we discussed the three basic dimensions of this competition such as political/ diplomatic, economic and military/ security competition. Our findings indicated the expansion of the fields of competition in all three sectors. Competition in economic dimensions for China and competition in military and security fields were more important for the United States. In this research, a descriptive-analytical method has been used, relying on documentary-library data.