China has had historical relations with MENA region, though selective and limited to economic needs and interests. China’s foreign policy and economic diplomacy activism under Xi Jinping has ushered a new era of multidirectional engagement. China’s rise has made it a major actor of the international politics that has now global interests and role. This newly founded engagement in the MENA is mainly based on the Chinese compulsions of maintaining stability in the region. It includes ensuring the undisrupted supplies of energy vital for Chinese economic growth, desire of the regional partner for more financial and developmental investment. This paper endeavours to explore the recent engagement of China in the MENA region. It defines its new partnership discourse and initiatives under the Xi Jinping rule. It explains the nature, dynamics and Challenges to the Chinese ambitions and interests in the region. It concludes that China under Xi has a vision and policy to comprehensively establish relationship with the regional states on bilateral and multilateral levels but challenges to its role in the region loom large. Unless until it manages these challenges, there would be a question mark on the fulfilment of MENA dream

The Islamic Revolution, as one of the greatest political developments in thetwentieth century - caused a radical change in the Iranian political system.Consequently, it has posed a tough challenge for the American politics inprotecting its significant interests in the region. Since then, the US hasemployed multiple methods to contain the growing influence of Iran which hasleft the tremendous impact on its interests in the region. Similar, approacheshave been used against many other countries of the world where the Americaninterests have been affected. Thus, understanding the US tools and strategiesused against the Islamic Republic of Iran would help independent countriesbetter to confront with the similar problems. This research tries to respondthis question that what were the US strategies to control and contain theIslamic Republic in the last four decades? Mearsheimer's offensive realismhas been used to answer that question. The offensive realist approach hasbeen extensively discussed to find out the similar patterns in the US strategytowards Iran. The results of this article clearly point to the several USstrategies to control the power and maintain an influence of the IslamicRepublic of Iran in the Middle East which has posed the potential challengesto the American interests in the said region.

ASEAN is widely praised for its establishing regional cooperation among countries of Southeast Asia and attracting countries from rest of the world too because of its core objective of bringing peace and stability in the region. Promotion of regional trade and investment followed by unprecedented economic growth is the major credit of ASEAN which is widely appreciated. Nevertheless, despite 50 years of its age, it hasn’t been fully successful in managing internal conflicts among its member states and conflicts with external states. Its ineffectiveness to manage conflicts have raised concerns over the relevance of ASEAN in 21st century where Asian continent is said to be playground for major powers because of shifting of epicenter of International Politics from America and Europe to Asia. ASEAN’s role is limited by its charter of Non-interference into the internal affairs of its member states. This article looks into the basic weaknesses in ASEAN as an organization thus providing recommendation to overcome its shortcomings and improve its performance. The article concludes that ASEAN, because of increasing demands of amendments in conflict management techniques due to changes in the nature of conflict, needs to transform from its modest goals and principles to deal with conflict to new trends of conflict management, perhaps from soft mediation to hard mediation in near future.

China and ASEAN have established cooperation since 1990 for the pursuit of their respective strategic and economic interests. They have achieved unprecendented heights in their cooperation covering various fields. As a result of the strong relations between China and ASEAN the influence and presence of China in the region has increased manifold. As a consequence of China’s growing influence and presence in the South East Asian region, the US, Japan and India appear worried as their strategic and economic interests in the region seem to be threatened by China. They perceive China as an emerging threat to their interests in the region. Thus, the US, Japan and India have designed counter strategies to check the influence of China and protect their interests in the region. This paper attempts to summarise the findings of a doctoral study by Behan, which studies the relations between China and ASEAN and the perpection and counter strategies of the US, Japan, and India.

Recent border skirmishes between China and India are the new episode in the competitive relationship between the two. Competitive relationship comes out of divergences between the on various fronts especially their rise in power potentials and desire to become regional hegemons. Though Sino-Indian relationship has been cooperative-competitive since the first India-China border war in 1962, today it is considered as the most complex, competitive, and conflict-prone. Their border issues, trade competition and political influence in the South Asia and Indian Ocean region are the crucial factors in the cooperative-competitive relationship. Chinese massive naval build-up and assertiveness in the south and East China Sea and India’s strategic partnerships with the extra-regional powers have made the relationship more complicated. This paper tries to dissect the complex nature and dynamics of the competitive-cooperative Sino-India relationship. It explains the pattern of China-India bilateral relations with specific focus on competition, conflict, and cooperation. Effort has also been made to evaluate the impact of the conflict or cooperation cycles on their nature and development of bilateral ties.