China, smart cities and the Middle East

The United States is engaged in a strategic competition with China over the nature of the global system, and the Middle East has emerged as a central site of great power competition: The United States, China, and Russia are all active there.

At the heart of this competition is technology. Middle Eastern countries have been developing strong technology links with China while maintaining their security and economic relations with the United States.

Smart cities present a valuable case study of this competition. A smart city is a city that addresses public issues with solutions based on information and communication technology–enabled use of large-scale data available from the Internet of Things.

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