A polylog: critical readings of Chinese as a third language in the Arabian Gulf

In this polylog to the special issue on The rise of Chinese language education policies in the oil-rich Arabian Gulf: New players, discourses and linguistic markets, three researchers with different personal and professional connections to the three languages 'at play' in the region – English, Chinese, and Arabic – offer their assessments of both the current and future status of Chinese in the region. Using language and political economy as their methodological compass, they grapple with three key questions: (i) How Chinese as a third language is conceived and enacted?, (ii) How may the Chinese language shift power relations among languages in the Gulf?, and (iii) Would the Chinese language carry similar ideological, colonial and neoliberal undercurrents that are being voiced in critical applied linguistics about English? As a polyphonous text, disagreements among the contributors are allowed to stand and there is not an attempt to reach consensus. Nonetheless, they unanimously argue that moves towards introducing Chinese as a third language in the Arabian Gulf reveal much about the political, economic, and social drivers of change in the region.