China began building a global Middle East policy in the late 1950s

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: connects to: The region called the Middle East was invented by imperial and Cold War interests; China’s global policy expansion preceded its Middle East engagement — Bernard Lewis, From Babel to Dragomans: Interpreting…, 1182
• yield-rescued: below the book’s yield-target cutoff, included anyway for connecting to: The region called the Middle East was invented by imperial and Cold War interests; China’s global policy expansion preceded its Middle East engagement — Bernard Lewis, From Babel to Dragomans: Interpreting…, 1182