In recent years, China has dipped its toes into the waters of the Middle East and has not been put off from having a swim—but is yet to dive in. On 21 September 2022, just over a year before the region changed so suddenly and fundamentally on 7 October 2023, China’s Foreign Minister Wang Yi addressed a forum and spoke about a New Security Architecture for the Middle East. This built upon Chinese President Xi Jinping’s Global Security Initiative unveiled in April 2022 and highlighted how Beijing would help the Middle East unravel its problems in a non-interventionist manner.
Six months later, senior representatives of Saudi Arabia and Iran were shaking hands in Beijing after Chinese-facilitated talks ushered in a surprising détente between these two seemingly implacable regional foes. Buoyed by that success, China has put forward a four-step proposal for the political settlement of the Syrian issue and a three-point vision for implementing the ‘two-state solution’ between Palestine and Israel.
Mediation credentials
Today, the escalating Iran-Israel conflict challenges China’s newfound status as a Middle East peacemaker. China has cordial relations with both Tehran and Tel Aviv, but the extent of its influence in either capital is limited. Still, alongside its undoubted economic clout, it remains a geopolitical player, not least for its demonstrable ability to mediate. In July 2024, Wang Yi hosted 14 Palestinian factions—including Hamas and Fatah—who signed an historic reconciliation agreement known as the Beijing Declaration.
Bi Haibo, a spokesperson for China’s foreign ministry, was less than subtle in his reference to the different Chinese and American approaches, saying: “When some other countries add oil to the fire, we try our best to bring peace.”
As a growing power, China's vital economic and security interests are inextricably intertwined with the fate of the Middle East, a region to which it is no stranger—China has been doing business with Eurasia for almost 2,000 years.
China established diplomatic relations with Saudi Arabia in 1990 and with Israel in 1992, while it was among the first countries to recognise the new Iranian government after the Islamic Revolution in 1979.
In the early 1990s, China became a net energy importer. Over the next three decades, it gobbled up the Middle East's oil and gas. Bilateral trade with the Gulf states and Iran in 2023 stood at over $300bn, a 48% increase from pre-Covid levels. Despite the massive expansion of renewable energy capacity, China will remain the world's largest fossil fuel importer for the foreseeable future. A fifth of its carbon imports come from Saudi Arabia.
Economic relations go deeper than trade in commodities. Over the past decade, China has become the region's largest infrastructure investor. It builds, finances, and manages ports, roads, industrial parks, free trade zones, and even new cities.
It has also become a multi-dimensional digital infrastructure provider, from the 5G/5.5G networks, submarine cables, surveillance technologies, cloud services, satellite imagery, and joint space exploration programmes. China aims to support the national development visions of regional countries, such as Saudi Arabia or Egypt, most notably the former's Vision 2030. China is also the largest foreign direct investor in the region's renewable energy capacity.
