The U.S. Has Nothing to Fear from China in the Middle East

Both developments have fueled the growing chorus of voices that, in the wake of the war in Gaza, have raised the alarm over China’s alleged desire to use the conflict to fundamentally challenge the U.S. role in the Middle East. Some claim Beijing is trying to “undermine the United States and promote its own global leadership,” while others point toward the recent Beijing summit as evidence of “the growing leadership role that China has sought to play in the Middle East.” Others have even tried to draw a direct link between China’s relationship with Iran and Hamas’ decision to launch its initial attack against Israel on Oct. 7.

However, it would be a mistake to perceive China as anything other than an opportunistic actor in the Middle East. The reality is that Beijing has neither the ability nor the desire to assert itself as the chief powerbroker across the region. Instead, China has sought to capitalize on relatively low‐​hanging fruit in the wake of the war in Gaza, primarily by criticizing the U.S., while continuing to compartmentalize its regional policies.

If anything, the current crisis exemplifies the various challenges and limitations facing China in the Middle East, namely its inability to forcefully shape regional developments.

After Hamas attacked Israel on Oct. 7, China’s Foreign Ministry issued a general statement calling on all “relevant parties to remain calm, exercise restraint, and immediately end the hostilities to protect civilians and avoid further deterioration of the situation.” This was followed by another statement affirming that China is “a friend to both Israel and Palestine,” while stressing that the path to peace “lies in the realization of the two‐​state solution and establishment of an independent State of Palestine.”

As the Israeli military campaign in Gaza escalated and the number of Palestinian civilians killed increased considerably, China’s rhetoric grew more critical of Israel. Yi condemned Israel for “going beyond self‐​defense” and called for an end to “collective punishment of the Gazan people.” China’s U.N. ambassador, Zhang Jun, stated that “China will continue to stand on the side of international fairness and justice, on the side of international law, and on the side of the legitimate aspirations of the Arab and Islamic world.” Chinese President Xi Jinping called for an immediate cease‐​fire and stressed the importance of a two‐​state solution as the “fundamental way out” of the conflict.

The shift in Beijing’s position can be seen as an attempt to leverage the growing outrage among the Global South toward what is seen as the West’s hypocrisy in condemning Russia for its indiscriminate bombings of Ukraine, while ignoring Israel’s use of similar tactics in Gaza.

But does this posturing amount to a fundamental departure by China from its regional strategy or represent a renewed desire by Beijing to position itself at the forefront of Middle East politics?

Not quite.

To be sure, China has considerably expanded its political, economic and security footprint across the Middle East. Economically, it has become a leading partner in terms of energy consumption, trade and investment across the region. Politically, China has increased its diplomatic engagement in the region, most notably with its recent assisted brokering of the Saudi‐​Iranian normalization deal and its invitation to several Middle Eastern states to join the BRICS grouping. In terms of security engagement, Beijing has considerably expanded arms sales to states across the Middle East, and there are reports of resumed construction at a suspected Chinese military site in the United Arab Emirates.

However, despite its expanding footprint, China is not capable of establishing a hegemonic presence in the region comparable to that of the U.S., nor does it desire to. Above all, China is an opportunist: It is neither able nor willing to build or uphold a new political and security order in the Middle East. Though China’s economic interests in the region have increased considerably, Beijing can’t project force in the Middle East even if it wanted to. Indeed, many of the advances China has made are due to its limited, compartmentalized approach to the region—namely by refraining from taking sides in the Middle East’s many geopolitical rivalries. As I have argued previously, China benefits from the U.S.-led security order in the region, for it has “provided the security umbrella for [Beijing] to become more involved in the region without having to assume the costs of physically protecting [its] interests.”

Despite these limitations, competition with China is now one of the most commonly cited justifications for Washington to remain deeply engaged in the Middle East. U.S. President Joe Biden himself stressed this point during his trip to Saudi Arabia and Israel in 2022, stating that the U.S. “will not walk away and leave a vacuum to be filled by China, Russia, or Iran.” However, by continuing to view all regional developments through the lens of great power competition, while ignoring the serious limitations Beijing faces in the Middle East, the United States risks falling into the “China trap,” to the detriment of regional stability and U.S. interests.

The U.S. has come to view Chinese encroachment in the Middle East as a serious national security threat, part of a broader “Cold War 2.0” framing that has begun to dominate U.S. foreign policy in general. However, regional actors do not view the return of global multipolarity through the same zero‐​sum lens as the United States. They are keenly aware of China’s limitations and lack of ability—and interest—to assume a dominant hegemonic position in the region.

States in the Middle East are therefore pursuing a two‐​tiered strategy to best advance their own short‐ and long‐​term interests. In the short term, they hope to manipulate the return of great power competition by playing on Washington’s fears of losing its position relative to Russia or China, creating “reverse leverage” to press for major policy concessions. In the long term, states across the Middle East recognize that the rise of non‐​Western powers and the return of global multipolarity is a reality, and they are therefore positioning themselves accordingly.

As of now, such strategies appear to be working, particularly with regard to “reverse leverage,” as Washington grows increasingly obsessed with countering what it perceives as a rising China in the Middle East. The epitome of this dynamic is the negotiations between Saudi Arabia and the U.S. over whether Riyadh will join the so‐​called Abraham Accords, which saw Israel normalize relations with Bahrain and the UAE in 2020. Since the accords’ introduction by then‑U.S. President Donald Trump, they have become the new “lodestar” of U.S. foreign policy in the Middle East, with U.S. and Israeli officials determined to add Saudi Arabia to the mix.

For the U.S., the goal is to create a more formal coalition through which it believes it can maintain its regional influence amid Chinese “encroachment,” while also allocating more attention to other global theaters, such as Eastern Europe and the Indo‐​Pacific.

However, this is not how regional actors interpret the Abraham Accords. They view them as a way to keep the U.S. deeply engaged in the region. This is most visible in Riyadh’s demands that Washington provide the kingdom with a formal security guarantee and assistance for its civilian nuclear program in return for Saudi Arabia normalizing relations with Israel.

Even amid the ongoing war in Gaza, the Biden administration appears wedded to this plan, with broad support from the U.S. foreign policy establishment. A litany of commentary has emerged since Oct. 7 arguing that the Saudi‐​Israeli normalization deal remains the best path forward for countering Chinese ambitions in the region. Others have cited the war as an example of what a “post‐​American Middle East” would look like, despite the fact that this conflict erupted under a policy of deep U.S. engagement in the region.

And yet, the U.S. has very little to gain and much to lose from proceeding with such a deal with Saudi Arabia, and the war in Gaza has not changed this.

By viewing every development in the Middle East through the framework of zero‐​sum competition with China, the U.S. is operating on faulty assumptions that result in counterproductive policies. Such an approach also neglects how, if navigated correctly, the return of multipolarity to the Middle East could be a net benefit for the United States.

Despite the alarm bells in Washington, China will continue to play a backseat role, even if it does seize this moment to bash the U.S. rhetorically while presenting itself as an unbiased mediator. Still, such a strategy is not totally risk‐​free for Beijing. China has already alienated Israel with its repeated calls for Palestinian statehood combined with its pointed criticisms of the Israeli military campaign in Gaza. And it will be even harder for China to maintain its balancing act in the Middle East if the war in Gaza continues to worsen, or if it escalates into a region‐​wide war.

While Beijing undoubtedly enjoys seeing the U.S. having to devote time and resources to the Middle East, and therefore away from the Indo‐​Pacific, China’s interests in the region would be equally jeopardized by serious escalation. In the meantime, Beijing’s strategy in the Middle East will remain purely opportunistic.