China’s model of power projection in the Middle East

China’s expanding role in the Middle East is often framed as geopolitical rivalry with other global powers, including the United States, Russia, India, and others; but this lens obscures the strategic subtlety of Beijing’s approach. Rather than seeking territorial or military primacy, China cultivates influence through economic interdependence, institutional embedding, technological integration, diplomatic positioning, and selective security engagement. Its goal is not to replace the US as the region’s main security guarantor but to construct a system where networked influence and economic leverage complement — and in some cases partially substitute for — traditional alliance-based power, even as growing exposure tests the model’s scalability.

The ongoing US-Israeli war against Iran has put this model under its sharpest test yet: Despite massive economic stakes in the region and a so-called Comprehensive Strategic Partnership with Tehran, Beijing has conspicuously refrained from any military intervention, offering only limited diplomatic gestures at the United Nations. China’s restraint underscores both the logic and the limits of its non-military approach.

China’s conception of power and its multilayered expansion of influence

These mutually reinforcing dimensions allow China to expand its footprint while avoiding the political and financial costs of large-scale military commitments.

Through infrastructure, industrial investment, and long-term financing, Chinese firms and policy banks have become indispensable partners in regional development. China’s Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) projects include port modernization in the United Arab Emirates, industrial zones along Egypt’s Suez Canal corridor, rail and telecom upgrades across Gulf and North African states, and engineering, procurement, and construction (EPC) contracts by state-owned enterprises. Beyond returns, these projects embed Chinese firms in logistics, transport, and industrial networks, creating durable dependencies that extend influence.

Energy cooperation forms a second pillar. As the world’s largest crude importer, China has developed long-term relationships with Saudi Arabia, Iraq, the UAE, Kuwait, and Oman, while investing in refining, petrochemicals, and downstream industries. Joint ventures with Gulf national oil companies create reciprocal dependencies, securing energy flows and market access. Partnerships increasingly extend to hydrogen, renewables, and integrated petrochemical complexes, anchoring long-term ties through the energy transition.

Diplomatic positioning adds another layer. China cultivates relations with all regional actors, including rivals, and notably leveraged this neutrality to facilitate the 2023 Saudi-Iran normalization deal. Platforms such as the China-Arab States Cooperation Forum (CASCF) and expansion of the BRICS (a loose grouping of major developing powers, originally composed of Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa) provide structured channels for economic coordination, development financing, and political engagement, enhancing Beijing’s convening role.

Technological engagement is increasingly significant. Chinese telecom firms supply 5G infrastructure, smart-city platforms, artificial intelligence (AI) partnerships, digital payment systems, and BeiDou satellite navigation integration. These projects embed Chinese standards in national digital systems. Although switching costs are not insurmountable, they nonetheless can produce technological lock-in — including through large-scale surveillance infrastructure and, in some cases, alleged back-door access to the data flowing through these systems — that can rival the influence of physical infrastructure.

Hard security engagement, meanwhile, remains limited and focused on protecting China’s own overseas interests. China has expanded arms sales, though it remains a minor player in a regional arms market dominated by the US, Russia, and France. It has also conducted joint exercises with Middle Eastern partners, including Egypt, the UAE, and Saudi Arabia, as well as annual naval exercises with Iran and Russia. These exercises are markedly more limited in scale, frequency, and integration than comparable activities by the US, which maintains permanent basing, exercises standing combined commands, and conducts dozens of bilateral and multilateral drills annually across the region.

China’s exercises tend to be bilateral, episodic, and focused on narrower tasks such as counter-terrorism, maritime patrol, or search-and-rescue, rather than the full-spectrum joint operations that characterize US-led exercises. Finally, China has maintained continuous anti-piracy operations in the Gulf of Aden since 2008, and participates in United Nations peacekeeping missions across the region, including, notably, the UN Interim Force in Lebanon (UNIFIL).

Beijing has experimented with private security companies (PSC) to protect BRI assets in unstable regions, most notably within the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC), but there is little evidence of comparable PSC use in the Middle East to date. Chinese firms in the Gulf states and Egypt largely rely on host-government security and the regional stability underpinned by the US military presence. This restraint reinforces the light-footprint approach.

Reconstruction and post-conflict development represent an emerging frontier. In fragile states such as Iraq, Chinese firms are positioned to participate in infrastructure rebuilding, energy rehabilitation, and industrial redevelopment through oil-for-infrastructure agreements and construction contracts — helping convert instability into long-term economic opportunity while reinforcing Beijing’s development-oriented narrative.

Together, these layers form a strategy of gradual structural leverage rather than rapid displacement of the United States as primary regional security provider. Economic projects enable technology deployment, energy partnerships support diplomacy, institutional forums reinforce legitimacy, and selective security engagement protects interests. The resulting architecture is network- rather than alliance-based, relying on interdependence instead of formal guarantees.

From military primacy to economic centrality

For decades, external influence in the Middle East rested largely on military presence, defense partnerships, and security guarantees, with the US building a regional architecture centered on forward deployment, arms sales, and alliance relationships. China has instead pursued economic primacy without security dominance. Its influence stems from its role as the region’s largest trading partner, a major energy consumer, a leading infrastructure financier, and an expanding actor in digital and industrial ecosystems.

Through the BRI, Chinese state-owned enterprises (SOEs) and financial institutions have embedded themselves in ports, logistics corridors, industrial zones, telecommunications networks, and energy infrastructure across the Gulf, North Africa, and the Levant. These investments generate not only commercial returns but also growing forms of structural interdependence that link regional economies to Chinese supply chains, technological standards, and financing systems.

China’s approach also lowers the political costs of overt geopolitical alignment. Many Middle Eastern governments, seeking to diversify partnerships, view Chinese economic engagement as compatible with their hedging strategies. Beijing’s focus on infrastructure, trade, and industrial cooperation enables regional states to deepen ties with China without formally altering their security alignments.

Why China avoids military primacy: Strategic rationale and constraints

Beijing’s restraint in deploying military power to the Middle East reflects multiple converging factors. First, China lacks the expeditionary capabilities required for sustained power projection. The People’s Liberation Army (PLA) remains optimized for Taiwan contingencies, and its anti-piracy operations and Djibouti logistics hub, while significant as precedents, represent modest reach relative to US force posture.

Yet trajectory matters as much as current position. China has three carriers operational and a fourth, which will be nuclear-powered, under construction — likely redundant in a Taiwan conflict, but well-suited to the Indian Ocean and Persian Gulf. If Chinese power projection into the region matures over the next decade, the preferences and constraints described below may prove less like independent explanations and more like rationalizations of a capability gap that no longer exists.

Second, Taiwan remains the PLA’s paramount focus. Committing forces to the Middle East could weaken readiness for reunification scenarios and expose critical military assets to attrition or unintended confrontation with the US.

Third, China likely has internalized lessons from US experiences in Iraq and Afghanistan, namely the risks of far-off quagmires, the costs of occupation, and the difficulty of translating military intervention into durable influence. Beijing’s leadership views large-scale foreign military commitments as inconsistent with its non-interventionist self-presentation.

Fourth, the economic-first model aligns with elite incentives. State-owned enterprises, policy banks, and provincial governments benefit directly from BRI contracts, energy deals, and technology exports. Military deployments offer fewer rent-extraction opportunities.

Finally, China limits its military role where rivals dominate, relying on economic leverage instead. It defers to Russian security in Central Asia and balances South China Sea assertiveness with diplomacy in Southeast Asia, adapting its approach to local power dynamics and contestability.

These factors are mutually reinforcing. Capability constraints make economic statecraft necessary; strategic priorities make it prudent; and elite incentives make it profitable. This pattern is not unique to the Middle East. It reflects a broader global approach with regional adaptations. It also produces a peculiar dependence on the United States; China benefits when American power eliminates threats to regional stability, as in 1990-91, yet has no means of restraining Washington when it generates instability of its own, as the current Iran conflict illustrates.

In Africa, Central Asia, and South Asia, it prioritizes economic leverage while limiting military involvement, often deferring to other powers for security. Only in its near abroad, especially the South China Sea, does China deploy sustained coercive power — and even there, not exclusively. The Middle East exemplifies its preferred model: economic entrenchment without direct military entanglement, enabled by another power’s stabilization role.

Strategic risk externalization

A defining feature of China’s regional strategy is the deliberate separation of economic expansion from security responsibility. Unlike Western powers, which tie investment to military protection, Beijing largely avoids deploying forces, instead relying on host governments, private contractors, or existing Western-led frameworks. This externalizes the costs of stability while allowing China to benefit economically.

China’s Djibouti base, established in 2017, shows its limited approach in the wider Middle East. A logistics hub for anti-piracy and peacekeeping, it offers little basing support for power projection.

Plans for a UAE facility suggest expansion, but US influence and Emirati reliance on Washington constrain development. The pattern reflects Beijing’s focus on safeguarding commercial interests over combat operations and underscores both the gap between its economic footprint and military commitments and Washington’s sway in the region.

Yet the strategy carries inherent tension. As economic stakes rise, the gap between exposure and protection widens. The 2023-24 Red Sea shipping disruptions by the Yemeni Houthis highlighted this: Despite massive commercial interests, Beijing refrained from military action, negotiating instead with the militia.

During the May 2025 Israel-Iran war, China remained largely on the sidelines, offering minimal UN diplomacy and no military support, despite threats to the Strait of Hormuz. The episode revealed the limits of Beijing’s role as a security partner, while Iran’s reported post-conflict purchases of precursor chemicals to rebuild its missile inventory illustrated China’s careful, transactional approach. Today, amidst the ongoing Israeli-US war against Iran, Beijing is again taking much the same, restrained tack, not only due to the transactional nature of the relationship it has with Tehran but also out a recognition of its limited ability to affect the situation through hard power means.

Institutional and diplomatic hedging

China’s diplomatic posture complements its economic-first strategy. Rather than building rigid alliances, Beijing cultivates simultaneous partnerships with rival regional actors — Iran, Saudi Arabia, Israel, the UAE, and Turkey — allowing flexibility, reducing entanglement, and positioning itself as an acceptable partner across competing blocs.

The 2023 China-brokered Saudi-Iran rapprochement demonstrated the dividends of this approach. While it did not reshape regional security, it signaled Beijing’s capacity to act as a convening power whose neutrality is credible. Unlike Western initiatives filtered through alliances, China’s cultivated non-alignment enables engagement with mutually distrustful states.

Yet maintaining equidistance grows harder as commitments deepen. China’s strategic partnership with Iran, including military cooperation and technology transfers, co-exists with similar ties to Saudi Arabia and the UAE, which are states that view Iran as a threat. Conflicts like Yemen illustrate this bind, as Chinese firms operate in Saudi Arabia while Beijing maintains ties with Houthi-aligned actors. The ongoing Israeli-US-Iranian conflict has sharpened this tension considerably. Beijing has so far managed to avoid taking sides; sustaining that equidistance, however, will become increasingly difficult if the conflict deepens or if partners in Riyadh, Abu Dhabi, or Tehran begin demanding clearer alignment. China’s balancing act remains viable for now — but its durability is contingent on the conflict not escalating to a point where neutrality becomes untenable.

Institutionally, China has expanded engagement via forums, strategic partnerships, and multilateral economic mechanisms that embed regional actors into Chinese-centered commercial and technological networks without requiring formal security commitments. Amid the current period of US withdrawal from international agreements and institutions, as well as Washington’s unpredictable policy shifts and unilateral offensive military campaigns, Beijing has portrayed itself as a stable defender of multilateralism. In the Middle East, however, this resonates only to a limited degree, as regional governments prioritize tangible economic benefits and remain cautious of China’s intentions.

Technology, standards, and long-term leverage

Telecoms equipment, smart-city platforms, surveillance systems, renewable-energy technologies, and digital payment infrastructures supplied by Chinese firms — including Huawei’s 5G rollout in Saudi Arabia and the UAE, Hikvision surveillance systems deployed in Egypt, Ant Group’s digital payment partnerships in the Gulf, and Longi Solar’s renewable-energy projects across North Africa — are gradually shaping the technological architecture of multiple regional economies. These systems generate long-term forms of dependency not easily reversed, particularly when switching costs are high and interoperability with existing Chinese-supplied networks becomes essential.

Control over technological standards can provide strategic leverage. States reliant on Chinese digital, logistics, or energy systems become embedded in its supply chains and regulatory frameworks, giving Beijing sustained, indirect influence. This network-based power operates quietly but can shape long-term strategic alignments.

The limits of the “great-power competition” paradigm

Great-power narratives persist because traditional frameworks emphasize territorial control, military rivalry, and alliances. Applied to China’s Middle East strategy, however, they risk misreading Beijing’s aims. China is not replicating Western security architectures but building a parallel system of influence where economic networks, infrastructure connectivity, and technological integration serve as the primary levers of power.

This distinction matters analytically and strategically. If China’s influence grows primarily through economic embedding rather than military displacement, traditional American containment strategies centered on defense competition may prove insufficient to hold Beijing at bay. Influence exercised through trade networks, investment flows, and technological ecosystems is diffuse, incremental, and difficult to counter through conventional security instruments alone. Matching China ship-for-ship or base-for-base in the Middle East addresses a competition that is largely not taking place, while leaving largely uncontested the one that is.

US initiatives like the India-Middle East-Europe Economic Corridor (IMEC) and I2U2 — a quadrilateral grouping of India, Israel, the UAE, and the United States, launched in 2021 to promote joint investment in infrastructure, clean energy, and food security across South Asia and the Middle East — aim to counter this leverage through infrastructure, financing, and interoperable standards. But progress stalled after the October 7, 2023, Hamas attack on Israel, illustrating how regional crises can disrupt efforts to build credible alternatives to Beijing’s networked approach.

The resulting competitive landscape is less a contest for territorial dominance than a contest over the institutional and economic frameworks through which regional states organize their development. Yet economic frameworks have limits that hard power does not. When regional states face direct security threats, China has proven largely absent — unable to deter conflict or reassure partners when it matters most, as last year’s Israeli-Iranian 12-day war and current Iran conflict illustrate. Beijing may judge this acceptable so long as Washington preserves regional stability, allowing China to free ride on American security while deepening its economic position. That calculus becomes precarious, however, when Washington turns from guarantor of stability into a source of disruption, which is a risk recent events have made difficult to dismiss.

Regional agency and the multipolar Middle East

China’s growing presence also reflects the agency of Middle Eastern states. Governments increasingly pursue multi-vector foreign policies, diversifying economic and diplomatic partnerships rather than aligning exclusively with any external power. Engagement with China provides access to infrastructure financing, industrial cooperation, and technology transfer without the political conditionality often associated with Western assistance, enhancing strategic autonomy and bargaining power.

This dynamic produces functional multipolarity whereby different external actors play complementary roles rather than zero-sum competition. The US remains the primary security provider, Europe a key regulatory and commercial actor, and China a financier, technology supplier, and trade hub. Beijing positions itself as an indispensable component of the region’s evolving external engagement architecture.

Yet regional agency also generates resistance. Chinese projects can spark political friction when they affect sovereignty, employment, or environmental standards. In Iraq, protests and attacks targeted Chinese oil companies in 2021 after firms failed to meet local hiring requirements. Egypt’s mounting debt to China has raised concerns about repayment and fiscal autonomy, even as Cairo continues borrowing. Under US pressure, Israel scaled back Chinese involvement in ports, 5G, and light rail. China’s “no political strings” approach works best in authoritarian settings but faces limits where civil society, democratic oversight, or Western pressure are strong.

Model sustainability: Trajectories and stress tests

China’s post-hegemonic model faces three key sustainability challenges.

Protection gap

As investments and personnel grow, reliance on host governments or US-maintained stability becomes riskier. State collapse or large-scale threats to Chinese nationals could force intervention, thus contradicting non-interference principles, or abandonment, which would undermine credibility. China’s Djibouti base offers minimal contingency capacity.

Red Sea shipping disruptions and the war in Iran have been testing this model under real-world conditions. In both cases, China’s economic interests faced threats it could neither deter nor neutralize militarily, relying instead on negotiation and remaining largely absent during the Iran conflict. These episodes suggest the strategy’s durability is contingent on regional actors accommodating Chinese interests; when escalation prevails, Beijing’s influence quickly narrows, forcing a choice between absorbing economic losses or assuming security commitments that contradict its stated principles.

Economic returns

Some BRI projects face debt sustainability concerns, delays, or low utilization. If host states perceive terms as disproportionately favoring China, political backlash may lead to renegotiation, project delays, or cancelations. Maintaining the perception of mutual benefit is critical.

External influence

US economic containment or security-linked trade-offs could constrain China’s hedging space. For instance, US pressure on UAE port operations in 2021 illustrated this dynamic: Beijing assumes simultaneous partnerships across rival blocs, but coercive choices by partners may force alignment.

Optimistically, China can build durable influence through interdependence while avoiding overextension. Pessimistically, widening protection gaps, faltering economic returns, or geopolitical polarization could force costly security commitments.

Structural implications and conclusion

China’s engagement in the Middle East reflects a shift in global power dynamics. Rather than relying on military primacy or formal alliances, Beijing builds influence through interdependent economic, technological, and institutional systems that shape partner states’ choices. Competition now revolves less around bases and troops than infrastructure corridors, financial networks, technological platforms, and supply chains, granting enduring leverage often invisible as conventional hegemony.

The Middle East — strategically located, infrastructure rich, and seeking diversified partnerships — serves as a laboratory for this post-hegemonic model, where economic centrality, technological embedding, diplomatic flexibility, and externalized security costs create influence without coercion. Yet tensions between expanding interests and limited protection, neutrality and rival partnerships, and promises versus implementation challenges highlight the model’s potential limits.

For US policymakers, the lessons are clear: Influence is increasingly networked and multidimensional, and military presence alone is insufficient. Effective engagement requires attention to economic interdependence, technological standards, infrastructure, and institutions — the very channels through which Beijing projects power. Because regional actors exercise agency and hedge across multiple partners, US strategy must promote transparency, resilient systems, and open markets to preserve flexibility. Technology and finance are now strategic levers, making investment in interoperable, competitive systems essential to counter structural dependence on China.