For 12 years, the United States has been trying to disengage from the Middle East. Regional powers, including Iran, Israel, Russia, Saudi Arabia, and Turkey, have responded by seeking new allies and competing more fiercely with one another. But beyond the headlines, China has been the biggest winner in the post-U.S. Middle East. Beijing was already the largest buyer of the region’s oil. Now, without fanfare, it has become the only outside power that has strong political and trading ties with every major country there.
For Washington, this means the Middle East is reemerging as an arena of great-power competition. China’s growing influence in the Middle East does not yet directly threaten any vital U.S. interests. Yet China’s deepening alignment with Iran and friendly links to anti-American Shiite militia groups is concerning and poses long-term risks to U.S. forces, partnerships, and commercial access. The Biden administration should impose costs on China and Iran to keep their budding strategic partnership from growing unchecked. It should also recognize that most of its Middle Eastern allies and partners—including Israel and the Gulf states—are determined not to take sides in a U.S.-Chinese geopolitical rivalry.
