China’s global policy expansion preceded its Middle East engagement

Evidence

Another Asian contestant is China, which in recent years has for the first time begun to evolve a world-wide and not merely a Far Eastern foreign policy and has already shown many signs of an active and growing interest in the Middle East. It may be noted that Colonel Nasser’s dalliance with Moscow was preceded and perhaps prepared by his meeting with Chou En-lai at Bandung. — Bernard Lewis, From Babel to Dragomans, 1182

Categorization

• XREF: China signaling global intent at Bandung echoes the reputation-signaling mechanisms in the trust and signal-detection literature. — connects to: The Vietnam War’s real stake was integrating China into world order — Jean Baudrillard, Simulacra and Simulation, 131
• QUESTION: A useful later thread to trace: how did the Bandung-Chou-Nasser pipeline develop after this book’s writing, given how the Cold War alignment picture shifted?