Whether or not China is able to avoid the "Malacca trap" by building pipeline and railways across Central Asia to the Middle East, it will still need Dubai as its hub for its growing reach into the Middle East and Africa.
We owned no car and Paddy had been driving me in a horse and trap to the Loreto convent, a red-brick building on a hill overlooking Youghal bay, where the nuns were slowly teaching me to read and write.