The New Silk Road: How a Rising Arab World is Turning Away from the West and Rediscovering China

Ben Simpfendorfer currently works for Global Strategic Associates, LLC, (GSA), an international advisory firm. He is focused on assisting a small group of prestigious international clients to explore cross border business opportunities and investments between China and the Middle East. Simpfendorfer was previously the chief China Economist at the Royal Bank of Scotland and the Senior China Economist at JPMorgan. He has lived in Beijing, Beirut, Damascus, and is currently based in Hong Kong. He appears regularly on Bloomberg and CNBC and is quoted in such major publications as the Financial Times and the New York Times. Simpfendorfer speaks Arabic and Chinese and has spent fifteen years reading local newspapers, speaking and working with the everyday person on the streets of Beirut to Beijing, and assessing economic data from the two regions. He has immersed himself in the two cultures and has personally observed many of the watershed events that have unfolded in the Arab world and China during that time.