Gulf Turns to China as Iran War Shakes US Security Pact
SkimNews Take
The erosion of regional stability, rather than specific geopolitical events, appears to be the primary driver for Gulf nations seeking new economic and strategic alignments.
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- The Iran war struck all Gulf states with missile and drone attacks over nearly two months, materially weakening both the region's stability-based economic model and the decades-old US oil-for-security architecture, the article argues.
- China-GCC trade reached approximately $300 billion in the year following Xi Jinping's 2023 Riyadh GCC Summit visit, cementing Beijing as the region's primary trading partner and launching a comprehensive strategic alignment.
- Green energy is the first pillar of deeper integration, with China holding over 80% of global solar manufacturing capacity, 70% of global EV production, and roughly 50% growth in wind turbine exports in 2025.
- The mBridge project, a digital currency platform between the central banks of China and the UAE, is testing cross-border settlement without Western intermediary banks as part of BRICS+ financial integration efforts.
- The China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC), a roughly $62 billion investment including Gwadar Port, offers Gulf states a way to integrate maritime routes with land corridors into Central Asia while helping China bypass the Malacca Strait, through which 80% of its oil imports transit.
- Military asymmetry caps the partnership: the US maintains 40,000-50,000 troops across roughly ten regional countries — including over 10,000 at Qatar's Al Udeid Air Base — while China operates only one logistical base in Djibouti.
- SIPRI data shows the US captured 54% of Middle East arms imports from 2021-2025, with Saudi Arabia taking 12% of total US exports, while Chinese arms to the region from 2016-2025 totaled just $732 million TIV against $19.5 billion TIV from the US.
Why it matters: By deepening a $300 billion trade relationship with China while still hosting 40,000-50,000 US troops, Gulf states are building a multipolar insurance policy — diversifying economic dependence on Beijing without surrendering Washington's security umbrella. The mBridge digital currency experiment and CPEC corridor integration now test whether the petrodollar system can coexist with parallel financial rails.
