Abstract

The “Middle East” was a term that became common during the first half of the twentieth-century in the context of the European competition for empire. Today, the region is increasingly referred to as “West Asia.” The much talked of “Easternization” of international politics stands not only to affect the terminology we use in the in the region, but also our orientations to the world. This talk examined the scope of emerging relations between the “East” and the “Middle East,” from Middle Eastern perspectives, and with a particular emphasis on highlighting the similarities and differences between the West’s early encounters with the region in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries and the East’s growing interconnectedness with the region during the first two decades of the twenty-first century, whether it’s One Belt One Road (OBOR), radicalized Muslims eager to fight for the Islamic State, energy interdependence, or the millions of Indian nationals living in the United Arab Emirates and elsewhere in the Gulf.