The US and China in the Middle East: Rivals or Partners?
ROYAL UNITED SERVICES INSTITUTE
The US bridles at China’s growing Middle East footprint. But the two are not necessarily doomed to be regional rivals.
Last month the Wall Street Journal reported that a planned sale of F-35 fighter aircraft and Reaper drones by the US to the UAE might fall through. The story was prompted by the arrival of two Chinese People’s Liberation Army aircraft at an airport in the country, where unidentified material was carried off. The newspaper also recalled that Chinese military interest in the UAE was not new. Last year, the Pentagon published a report which claimed that China was looking to increase its military presence in the Middle East and establish an additional logistics and operational base to add to its current one in Djibouti, perhaps in the UAE.
A week after the release of that Pentagon report, Dana Stroul, the US Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for the Middle East, was asked about China’s presence during a Middle East Institute (MEI) webinar. She said that the US was in competition with China globally and that this could have regional repercussions. And she warned some countries in the region against trying to hedge between the US and China. Admitting that some of these US allies and partners were keen to build their economic and cyber relationships with Beijing, Stroul said that the development of such ties could be risky. Chinese investments might not only expose those countries to security threats, but also the US as well. This point was made in the more recent Wall Street Journal article, where US officials expressed their concern that the Chinese might gain access to the F-35 technology through the Emiratis.
