Guy Burton:
In December 2021, United States intelligence claimed China was helping Saudi Arabia develop ballistic missiles. Washington feared the Saudis were abandoning them in pursuit of a closer partnership with China. For some US policymakers, this pointed to the growing threat of China displacing the United States as the principal external power in the Middle East.
Such fears were — and still are — overblown. Saudi Arabia and other Arab Gulf states account for a larger proportion of China’s economic relations in the Middle East than Iran. In 2020, China’s trade with Saudi Arabia was worth US$65.2 billion — compared to its trade with Iran of US$14.36 billion — and that gap is growing. But this has not led to any change in Chinese efforts to displace the United States as the dominant global power in the region.
China in the middle ground between Middle Eastern rivals | East Asia Forum
