For many years, China has been expanding its influence to every corner of the globe. And while its strategic priorities remain anchored in the Western Pacific—where it faces great-power rivalry with the United States, myriad territorial disputes, tensions on the Korean Peninsula and the potential for military conflict over the Taiwan Strait—its steadily growing presence in regions like the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) has produced strategic interests that cannot be treated lightly. Nonetheless, in the midst of significant turmoil in the region that could threaten Chinese interests, Beijing remains overly cautious and largely ineffective in shaping a more stable and peaceful outcome. While there are various interpretations for this, including ones that see Chinese policy evolving to be more assertive in regional affairs, the temptation to maintain a risk-averse approach that has proven beneficial over many years may be difficult to overcome in spite of the opportunities it may present.
Growing Influence
Today, China is a major economic partner for most of the region, with China-MENA trade registering an impressive $368 billion in 2022, compared to $144 billion between the U.S. and the region in the same year. Accumulated Chinese investment and development finance in MENA between 2013 and 2021 reached $152 billion. China has been actively involved in the region’s infrastructure and green transition projects through, and in addition to, its Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), including joint technological development with Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates. In 2023, the region supplied almost half of China’s total crude oil imports.
While commercial interests still dominate, China’s regional engagement has increasingly—albeit still cautiously—extended to diplomacy and security. China appointed its first special envoy to the Middle East in 2002 and released its first Arab Policy Paper in 2016. In September 2022, Beijing announced the New Security Architecture for the Middle East—a framework promoting common, comprehensive, cooperative and sustainable security and advocating for regional actors to exercise greater agency over their affairs. Chinese President Xi Jinping visited the region in late 2022, when the first China-Arab States and China-Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) summits were held in Saudi Arabia; and in 2023, Beijing presided over the restoration of diplomatic ties between arch rivals Saudi Arabia and Iran—two of its largest economic partners.
In light of these growing interests, it is natural to project China playing a more active role in helping manage regional instability and mediate various conflicts. That is especially true given Beijing does not have the historic baggage of its Western peers, and as U.S. influence suffers from association with the dramatically unpopular Israeli response to the October 7, 2023 attack by Hamas.
Nevertheless, a year has gone by without any effective Chinese intervention. Granted, Beijing has put forth proposals for ending the Gaza conflict; brought Hamas and Fatah—the two opposing Palestinian factions—together; called for the UN Security Council to de-escalate the conflict; and used the occasions of its meetings with Arab and GCC foreign ministers to reiterate several peace plans it has proposed in the past. Yet there has been no serious attempt to secure a suspension of Israeli military operations or introduce concrete and actionable proposals for a long-term solution.
Schools of Interpretation
There is an apparent gap between the optics that Beijing seeks to project—it being a serious, responsible rising power deeply committed to peace, including in the Middle East—and its ambivalent, cautious approach to the conflict in the region. This, however, is both a reflection of its diplomatic style and is informed by careful, strategic thinking regarding the region and any practical role it can play at the moment. There are at least four schools of thought interpreting Chinese policy and how it may evolve.
The first school suggests that despite the expansion of trade and investment, and its growing diplomatic profile in the MENA region, Beijing remains content with keeping a low profile and “free riding” to avoid entanglement in complex regional conflicts. Its focus remains on building economic ties with all parties based on the principles of neutrality and non-interference. There is clearly recognition of the inherent risks of getting entrapped in the region’s problems and little desire to replace the U.S. as the dominant, albeit weakened, external power. In fact, Chinese analysts from this school argue against the misplaced notion that China can effectively influence developments in the region, which remains secondary to Beijing’s geostrategic priorities—the Taiwan Strait, South China Sea and U.S.-China strategic rivalry in the Indo-Pacific.
The second school highlights the region’s vital importance to China’s energy mix and its geostrategic location for maritime trade with Europe and Africa to explain why MENA is getting more attention from the country’s top leadership. As a result, Beijing is being more proactive in its engagement with the region, including participating in UN peacekeeping operations, sending envoys to the region, proposing peace plans for conflicts, and establishing the first permanent military logistics support base in Djibouti, at the mouth of one of MENA’s most important waterways.
While limited capacity determines that Beijing uphold its principle of overall detachment, it has steadily expanded its influence on the region’s economic development through growing bilateral trade and investments, infrastructure construction projects and technological cooperation. The latter involves access by Chinese tech companies such as Huawei, allowing them to play a dominant role in the region’s digital infrastructure. Likewise, there is growing security and defense cooperation between China and a number of Middle Eastern countries, including joint development of unmanned aerial vehicles between China North Industries Corporation (NORINCO) and the UAE’s International Golden Group; ballistic missile production with Saudi Arabia, and joint military exercises and training programs with Saudi Arabia, the UAE and Qatar. Both the growing geo-economic and security ties are enough to trigger alarm in Washington.
The third school argues that China’s continued adherence to policies of neutrality and non-interference no longer serves its growing interests in the region or its status as a rising great power. Such analysts point out that the Arab Spring and the subsequent turmoil should convince Beijing that diplomatic passivity and reactivity to events can leave Chinese interests vulnerable. As a result, more proactive diplomacy, including mediation in the Palestine-Israel conflict, are important even if solutions remain light on specifics. China’s various peace plans and its security architecture for the Middle East are captured in this interpretation. This point of view emphasizes how Beijing exercises its influence and offers incentives to the region through the multilateral institutions in which it is a key player. These include the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) and the BRICS+, with both attracting several MENA countries in recent years. Iran has been granted full SCO membership while Egypt, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, the UAE and Bahrain have become dialogue partners. Meanwhile, Egypt, Iran, and the UAE have joined BRICS.
The fourth school of thought focuses on the significant constraints Beijing faces in the MENA region if, and when, it seeks to challenge the United States’ position. There is little doubt that after October 7, opportunities have emerged for China to engage in strategic competition with the U.S. and further expand its influence and project power in a region critical to its economic interests, energy security and geostrategic ambitions. Nevertheless, Beijing remains careful to strike a proper balance between its long-held principles of respect for sovereignty and non-interference and the need for more active involvement in regional diplomacy—where solutions to conflicts appear elusive if not totally non-existent. China has chosen to exercise only a limited role as a facilitator of dialogues and, occasionally, a mediator between conflicting parties—such as Saudi Arabia and Iran and Palestine’s Hamas and Fatah factions—increasingly motivated more by safeguarding its regional interests than developing specific plans for conflict resolution.
While the temptation to seize the opportunity and be more assertive is compelling, China is ultimately a cautious power that has made great strides through its low-profile, commercially-driven approach to the region. That is likely to keep it leaning away from challenging the U.S. in the Middle East. Moreover, as long as Beijing’s priorities and core interests remain in the Western Pacific, its posture in MENA will likely favor a long-term, patient and carefully calibrated approach that relies on the BRI and multilateral institutions like SCO and BRICS+ to make steady gains.