Since the launch of the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) in 2013, China and the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region began a seemingly endless honeymoon, strengthening commercial ties, expanding investments, building mutual political convergence, and pursuing integration at an unprecedented pace. When Russia invaded Ukraine in February 2022, China was already a relevant part of the geopolitical equation for most Middle Eastern countries, as West Asia – with its political and economic core in the Persian Gulf – became a significant component for Beijing in crafting a response to the most disruptive event for the twenty-first-century global order after 9/11. The war in Ukraine has not changed the path of China-MENA relations. Instead, it has fast-paced them. A year and a half into the war, Beijing and the Middle East look more integrated than ever before: Iran’s oil exports to China surpassed pre-Joint Comprehensive Plan Of Action (JCPOA) levels,[i] while Xi Jinping was welcomed with all honors in Saudi Arabia in December 2022 in what turned into a grand celebration of Sino-Arab relations. Concurrently, 2023 has been the year in which the Chinese-led multilateral organizations and fora – the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) and the BRICS – made their way into the fabric of Middle Eastern politics with unprecedented depth and scope.
As said, the mindset for expanding economic integration and political cooperation between China and West Asia – as the Middle East is often identified in Beijing and increasingly in the region itself – was not ushered in by Russia’s imperialistic venture in Ukraine. Yet the war has opened up – or at least made more apparent – the season of multi-alignment.[ii] Most Middle Eastern countries preferred neutrality over rock-solid alignment with one side, maintaining their partnership with Washington and the European Union (EU) but refusing to alienate Russia completely. Unsurprisingly, in such a deep geopolitical shake-up, China was already in the region to offer a convenient third way: politically, a less demanding great power keener to understand that self-interests prevail over what, for most MENA countries, is a relatively distant and not-so-threatening fight between democracy and authoritarian imperialism; economically, a senior partner that, despite domestic turmoil,[iii] remains committed to expanding integration and continues to be the most critical market for the region’s oil and LNG. Russia’s war in Ukraine is accelerating a systemic shift that has at its core not just the potential redefinition of global polarity but especially the growing impatience of many actors toward the rigid schemes of polarization and alignment. This is more apparent than ever in the MENA region, and China exploits it.
Beijing’s emerging multilateralism gains traction in the MENA region
Historically, Beijing has crafted its penetration into the Middle East by developing bilateral relations with all the regional states. The strategy has been quite logical: identifying those countries that are the region’s indispensable partners due to their economic,[iv] political, and military strength and focusing on developing comprehensive strategic partnerships with them. Algeria, Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Iran, and the United Arab Emirates (UAE) sit at the core of China’s MENA politics, working as gatekeepers and cornerstones of a carefully crafted strategy of building partnerships with all regional states regardless of their pre-existing geopolitical alignments. Bilateral, business-oriented relationships lacking the defense commitments typical of alliances remain the trademark of China’s foreign relations, and the Middle East is no exception. Yet, since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, the consolidation of bilateral ties – notably, Xi’s December 2022 visit to Saudi Arabia was his third overseas trip since the Covid-19 pandemic hit in 2019, while the last regional leader to visit China was the Syrian autocrat Bashar al-Assad in September 2023 – proceeded hand in hand with a significant advancement in the MENA region’s integration into Beijing’s emerging multilateralism[v]
On July 4, 2023, Iran officially obtained full membership in the Shanghai Cooperation Organization, thus becoming the 9th member of the Chinese (and Russia)-led block and the first from the Middle East. If Teheran is at the forefront of the SCO’s MENA expansion, Saudi Arabia,[vi] Egypt, the UAE, and Qatar have joined Türkiye as dialogue partners of the organization. Although the SCO remains little more than a forum for discussion with limited institutional capacity and significant cleavages between its members, it is increasingly becoming China’s most apparent attempt to forge a cross-regional block that might become the foundation of an emerging Eurasian institutional architecture. In other words, the SCO is no NATO, but the traction it has lately gained in the Middle East is a sign that MENA countries do not want to be left out. Similarly, Iran, Saudi Arabia, the UAE, and Egypt were admitted to the BRICS at the 2023 Summit in Johannesburg, constituting the bulk of the first expansion of the informal block of non-Western states in thirteen years. Even less institutionalized and cohesive than the SCO, the BRICS group’s mission is, in the words of South African President Cyril Ramaphosa,[vii] the “effort to build a world that is fair, a world that is just, a world that is also inclusive and prosperous.” Those words certainly resonate in the MENA region. Therefore, it is unsurprising that, with the notable exception of Algeria, all of China’s comprehensive strategic partners in the Middle East joined the SCO and BRICS in 2023. The war in Ukraine has offered Beijing a window of opportunity to advance its goal of reshaping the global order, and expanding the non-Western fora it leads fits with such a strategy. Revisionist countries like Iran have naturally been enthusiastic and receptive to this project. At the same time, Egypt, Saudi Arabia, and the UAE see these as opportunities to consolidate their multi-alignment and prepare for a (still distant) global order transition.
The global dimension of China’s regional diplomacy
If expanding its multilateral organizations and fora in the MENA region fits with Beijing’s global ambitions, the Middle East has also offered the People’s Republic of China (PRC) the concrete opportunity to present itself as a mediator and a diplomatic powerhouse in the Global South at a time in which the war in Ukraine continues to monopolize global diplomacy. China has been a critical factor in one of the most notable developments in the MENA region since the outbreak of the war: the agreement between Saudi Arabia and Iran to restore diplomatic and economic ties signed in Beijing in March 2023. China – usually prudent in actively engaging in regional diplomacy – put itself in the front seat of a diplomatic breakthrough that ended a seven-year-long spat. This was the culmination of two years of bumpy talks between the two Gulf rivals facilitated by regional countries such as Iraq and Oman. The Chinese last-mile mediation was as decisive as it was convenient: Iran and Saudi Arabia were both interested in finding a solution to de-escalate a situation that was no longer sustainable for either party, and China had the credibility and solid enough relations[viii] with both rivals to make its good offices not only welcomed but also efficient. For Beijing, this was a win-win not just for its regional standing but even more for its global ambitions.
Rather than a sudden change in Beijing’s economy-first approach to the Middle East, China’s mediation effort in the Saudi-Iran agreement should be interpreted as part and parcel of its broader response to the war in Ukraine. On the sideline of the agreement signature ceremony, China’s Minister of Foreign Affairs, Wang Yi, emphasized that Beijing’s mediation effort is a practical application of the Global Security Initiative (GSI) – the programmatic document launched by the People’s Republic in February 2023 and presented as the expression of the foreign policy directly envisioned by Xi himself. Wang also added that China’s “new model of diplomacy” has the merit of recognizing that “there are other crises in the world besides the Ukrainian one that require the attention of the international community”.[ix] The target of such words stretches well beyond the MENA region to the broader Global South, making the Middle East – specifically the mediation in the Saudi-Iran rapprochement – a laboratory for China’s global diplomatic ambitions. Unsurprisingly, Chinese commentators have amplified the success of Beijing’s mediation,[x] comparing it with Washington’s inability to ease tensions in the Persian Gulf despite its long history of regional involvement and its role as Saudi Arabia’s primary security provider. In the grand scheme of the great power competition between China and the United States, the global dimension of the Saudi-Iran agreement assumes further relevance, projecting the MENA region closer to the center stage of the competition.
The MENA response: balancing, leveraging, and multi-alignment
The war in Ukraine has projected China’s relations with the MENA region onto the global stage, making the Middle East part of two distinct but overlapping dynamics of Beijing’s foreign policy. On one side, there is the PRC’s ambition to emerge as a third pole – in contrast with the West but not fully aligned with Russia – capable of attracting the large mass of countries in the Global South that responded to the war in Ukraine with various degrees of neutrality. On the other is China’s great power competition with the United States. The response by MENA countries could be summed up as comprising two clusters. In the first one, countries like Iran[xi] and Syria have fully embraced China’s revisionism, clearly siding with Beijing and using their partnership with the Asian giant as a source of political legitimacy and economic lifeline in the face of Western attempts to isolate them. Nevertheless, the most significant and intriguing cluster is the one that encompasses practically all the remaining regional countries, from Saudi Arabia and the UAE to Israel, Egypt, and Türkiye. These countries have rejected the zero-sum logic of the great power competition,[xii] choosing to maintain their historical relationships with Washington while not backing away from their lucrative partnership with China. Balancing between the two great powers appears to be the preferred strategy of most MENA countries, with the diplomatically bolder ones – such as the UAE and Saudi Arabia – actively using their ability to hedge as leverage. After almost two years of conflict in Ukraine, multi-alignment appears to be the diplomatic mindset of Middle Eastern countries, [xiii] which are increasingly looking to the East but are definitely not ready to abandon the West. Notably, China appears more comfortable than the United States with such a mindset, suggesting that Washington should put extra effort into finding a balance between its interests and ambition as a great power and the agency of its partners in the MENA region.
The recent launch at the G20 of the IMEC corridor – a connectivity project backed by the United States aimed at linking India, the Middle East, and Europe – offers new opportunities for Western players to regain ground in the MENA region while also moving the competition with China on a new stage:[xiv] after a decade of unchallenged predominance, the Belt and Road Initiative might finally have a direct competitor not just in terms of actual trade routes and economic integration but also in terms of connectivity and development narratives. As demonstrated by the UAE and Saudi Arabia, both part of the BRI and signatories of the IMEC, MENA countries are not interested in picking one project over the other, or in picking the West over the East. If this was true even before the war in Ukraine, almost two years after the Russian invasion China has successfully seized the opportunity of a chaotic international system to strengthen its footprint in the Middle East in an unprecedented manner.
[i] A. Lucente, “Iran’s oil exports to China hit 10-year high”, Al-Monitor, 16 August 2023.
[ii] J. Kavanagh and F. Wehrey “The Multialigned Middle East. How America Should Adapt to China’s Growing Influence in the Region”, Foreign Affairs, 17 July 2023.
[iii] R. Kapadia, “China Is in Trouble, but It’s No Disaster. Don’t Run Scared”, Barron’s, 21 September 2023.
[iv] D. Sun, “China’s partnership diplomacy in the Middle East”, University of Nottingham, 24 March 2020.
[v] J. Cash, “Syria’s Assad in China, seeks exit from diplomatic isolation”, Reuters, 21 September 2021.
[vi] E. Ardemagni, “Saudi Arabia Joins the SCO: It is not a Game-Changer for Saudi-US Relations”, Commentary, ISPI, 31 March 2023.
[vii] C. du Plessis, A. Miridzhanian, and B. Acharya, “BRICS welcomes new members in push to reshuffle world order”, Reuters, 25 August 2023.
[viii] “How Beijing Helped Riyadh and Tehran Reach a Détente”, International Crisis Group (ICG), 17 March 2023.
[ix] “China Denies Hidden Motives After Hosting Iran-Saudi Talks”, VOA, 11 March 2023.
[x] J. Mardell, “China-brokered Saudi-Iran Deal: Chinese Experts React”, Signification, 27 March 2023.
[xi] N. Hadian, “Iran & China: An Iranian View”, United States Institute of Peace, 28 June 2023.
[xii] J.-L. Samaan “The New Middle East is dismissing great power competition – for now”, Atlantic Council 18 October 2022.
[xiii] Kavanagh and Wehrey (2023).
[xiv] J. Barnes-Dacey and C. Bianco, “Intersections of influence: IMEC and Europe’s role in a multipolar Middle East”, European Council on Foreign Relations (ECFR), 15 September 2023.