China-MENA in October 2024
This monthly recap is something I’m going to be doing regularly from now. I find it helps me notice patterns in bits of news that otherwise might look like unconnected. I’m making this one available for everyone but starting next month it will be for paid subscribers only.
In October I made more use of the video post feature, with 8 podcast-like posts. I had book/research discussions with Yuting Wang, Camille Lons, and Dawn Murphy, and spoke with Niloufar Bagernia, Sara Bazoobandi, Mehran Kamrava, Anoush Ehteshami, and Jonathan Panikoff about different facets of the China-Iran relationship. I really enjoy doing these, mostly because they give me a chance to catch up with friends that I don’t get to see enough, but also because I always learn something from talking with these people. I’m not sure, however, how they resonate with you, so a quick poll:
October was a dramatic month in the Middle East. On September 27 Hassan Nasrallah, the leader of Hezbollah, was killed, and Iran responded on October 1st with an unprecedented strike against Israel, launching approximately 200 missiles. On October 16 Yahya Sinwar, the Hamas leader who planned the October 7th attack on Israel, was killed. (This August New Yorker profile of Sinwar by David Remnick is a good starting point if you’re looking to learn more about Sinwar’s role in Hamas). On October 25th, Israel responded to the Iranian attack, hitting missile manufacturing sites and aerial defense systems. All of this is to say that tracking regional affairs has been exhausting, depressing, and - from a political scientist’s perspective - fascinating.
Diplomacy
Chinese responses have shown the difficulties Beijing faces in trying to play a political and diplomatic role in a region where it’s interests are primarily economic and it tries to maintain strong ties with competing rivals.
The escalation in Lebanon was exhibit A. At the start of the month China’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs spokesperson said:
China is deeply concerned over the turmoil in the Middle East. We oppose the violation of Lebanon’s sovereignty, security and territorial integrity and oppose moves that fuel antagonism and escalate tensions. China calls on the international community, especially major countries with influence, to play a constructive role and avoid further turmoil. China believes that the protracted fighting in Gaza is the root cause of this round of turmoil in the Middle East, and all parties need to work urgently for a comprehensive and lasting ceasefire.
China had to evacuate over 200 citizens from Lebanon, and messaging from Foreign Minister Wang Yi down was critical of Israeli violation of Lebanese security. However, starting on October 7th we saw changes in Chinese official talking points. China Daily published an op-ed that acknowledged that the current war was triggered by the Hamas attack, an obvious point that hadn’t been made over the previous year:
After the Oct 7 Hamas attacks on Israel last year, Israeli leader Benjamin Netanyahu vowed to eliminate the threat of terrorism.
At first, it was a war on Hamas, which killed 1,200 Israelis and took 250 others hostage in those attacks. Then, as the war in the Gaza Strip expanded, Israeli offensives have invoked counterattacks from Hezbollah in Lebanon, Houthis in Yemen, militia forces in Iraq, and finally Iran.
On October 8th, MOFA spokeswoman Mao Ning said in a press conference “the legitimate national rights of the Palestinian people need to be realized and the reasonable security concerns of Israel also need to be paid attention to. It has been China’s consistent position.” It wasn’t an especially bold statement, but represented a break from PRC official talking points over the previous year which had ignored Hamas and its role in the conflict. On October 14th Wang and Israeli Foreign Minister Israel Katz had a phone call, the first conversation between Wang and and Israeli official since the October 7th attack.
Taken together, it appears that China has re-calibrated its position somewhat, looking to salvage some kind of relationship with Israel while still leaning heavily toward Palestine. To me, this signals that Beijing has realized the limits of a policy that leaves no space to work with Israel. After the past year, Israeli officials will no doubt enter any talks with China with a healthy degree of skepticism, but there were likely predisposed to that anyway; I don’t know anyone in Israel who genuinely thought of China as a reliable partner before last October.
The BRICS summit was held in Kazan, Russia from October 22-24, and it provided an opportunity for Xi Jinping and Iranian President Pezeshkian to meet in person for the first time since the Iranian election. Xi was unequivocal in his support for Iran, pledging
“unwaveringly develop cooperation with Iran” amid growing fear of an all-out war in the Middle East.
“Regardless of changes in the international and regional situation, China will unwaveringly develop cooperation with Iran,” Xi told Pezeshkian on the sidelines of a Brics summit in Russia’s southwestern Kazan, according to a statement by China’s foreign ministry.
“China supports Iran in safeguarding its national sovereignty, security and dignity, steadily advancing its economic and social development, and improving and deepening its good-neighbourly relations with neighbouring countries.”
There was a series of meetings between China and Iran under the Joint Economic Committee framework in mid-October, during which the focus was implementation of MoUs related to their strategic partnership. The content of the MoUs wasn’t specified, but this does show how the partnership agreement is being formalized.
Other diplomatic news, China announced plans to re-open its embassy in Libya. This comes after signing a strategic partnership agreement with Libya at FOCAC in September.
Military/Security
I didn’t see many developments in security ties between China and regional countries this month. On October 17th Algerian Minister of Industry Ali Aoun met with Li Li Gong, CEO of ELINC, a Chinese defense software and cyber security company and discussed ways to enhance bilateral cooperation in the industrial sector, particularly in basic electronic industries and communication technologies. ELINC is very active in the region. According to the link above,
The minister also called for expanding the company’s activities in Algeria and to progress towards manufacturing “everything the Algerian market needs” in the electronic field, in addition to establishing industrial partnerships according to the win-win principle.
This is more a Russia story but there is a China angle, as ‘state-of-the-art’ Russian weapons were found in Hezbollah bases:
The Washington Post, quoting Israeli officials, has reported that Russian and Chinese anti-tank weapons had been found in Israel’s raids inside Lebanon since it escalated its conflict with the Iran-backed Hezbollah last month.
Energy
As one would expect, there was a fair bit of news on the energy front. As the war between Israel and Hamas and Hezbollah intensified, Iran’s sanctions evading oil sales drew more scrutiny. This has been ongoing throughout most of the Biden administration and China’s ability to purchase Iranian oil through third parties and move it to teapot refineries that aren’t connected to SWIFT is well-documented. However, Iranian access to oil money that supports its proxies has become a bigger issue and there was a fair bit of reporting on it this past month, with a deep dive into its Ghost Fleet from The Times, an Economist report on Iran’s oil trade and war, and US moves to enforce sanctions on Iranian oil - all of which is very much a China energy story.
Beyond Iran, there was movement in China-Iraq energy cooperation. On October 28 Iraq announced that it had signed oil concession agreements with 6 Chinese firms:
Iraqi Oil Minister Hayyan Abdul Ghani Al-Suwayd said after the signing in Baghdad that such projects would boost Iraq’s oil and gas production by 750,000 barrels per day and 800-850 million cubic feet per day respectively.
The Arab Gulf Institute in Washington released a report on China-Iraq energy cooperation as well.
Saudi Aramco CEO Amin Nasser gave an interview that was published on October 21 in which he explained why they remain optimistic about the Chinese market long-term:
We see more demand for jet fuel and naphtha especially for liquid-to-chemical projects," Aramco CEO Amin Nasser said on the sidelines of the Singapore International Energy Week conference.
"A lot of it is happening in China mainly because of the growth in chemical needs. Especially for the transition, for the electric vehicles, for the solar panels, they need more chemicals. So that's huge growth there," Nasser said.
And finally, a delegation from China National Nuclear Corporation was in Algeria last week to discuss nuclear cooperation:
A delegation from the China National Nuclear Corporation (CNNC), led by the company’s Vice-President Qiao Gang was received at the Algerian Ministry of Energy and Mines to discuss prospects of the development of Algeria-China cooperation in nuclear technologies used in medicine, said the Ministry in a statement.
Contracting and Investment
There was lots of movement here as well. On October 15 the KSA-Sino Logistics Zone was announced. It aims to draw $2 billion in funding to develop a 4 square km zone at the new King Salman International Airport in Riyadh, wth the goal of bringing in Chinese firms involved in logistics, light manufacturing and reexports into Saudi Arabia to serve the wider Middle East, Africa and Europe.
In Morocco, China’s Railway Shanhaiguan Bridge and Germany’s Vossloh Cogifer have won contracts worth $56.2 million to supply critical components for Morocco’s high-speed rail expansion. Also in Morocco, Sentury, a Chinese tire manufacturer, started production at its new plant in Morocco.
In Oman, Vale and Jinnan Iron & Steel Group announced a joint partnership to establish an iron ore concentration plant in Sohar Port and Freezone in Oman. Jinnan planning to invest approximately $400 million to build, own and operate the plant.
Culture, Education and Tourism
Think tank cooperation has become a trend to watch. There’s been a lot of movement in China and the Arab world to develop home-grown think tanks and they’ve increasingly been talking with each other, developing joint programs and establishing partnerships. At the end of September a conference was held in Shanghai to build upon this.
The first conference of the China-Arab Think Tank Alliance was held in Shanghai Municipality on Friday, discussing issues such as China-Arab high-quality development, high-standard opening-up cooperation and the Palestinian question.
Chinese Vice Foreign Minister Deng Li said that the alliance is the result of deepening traditional friendly relations and political mutual trust between China and Arab nations. He emphasized that it serves as an important measure for jointly meeting challenges and creating a better future.
The alliance is expected to focus on five key goals including serving development, supporting cooperation, promoting peace, calling for justice and expanding exchanges, said Deng.
TRENDS, a policy research think tank from the UAE, joined a network in support of China’s Global Development Initiative in early October.
TRENDS Research & Advisory announced that it has now formally joined the GDI-PartNIR network. The announcement was made at the BRICS Forum held in Xiamen, China.
TRENDS is the first think tank from the Middle East to join this global network, which accepted 23 new members in 2024.
In education, Algeria’s University of Algiers II announced the establishment of the country’s first Chinese language department.
There were several tourism agreements and announcements over the month. Bahrain announced its intention to become a destination for Chinese travelers, aiming for 5 million by 2030. Egypt announced a 60% increase in tourism from China. And Saudi Arabia’s Minister of Tourism led a delegation to China, aimed “to enhance the country's position on the global tourism map and showcase the readiness of Saudi tourism destinations to welcome visitors from China.”
In other cultural/heritage cooperation, Saudi had a big month. The two governments announced that 2025 will be the China-Saudi Arabia Year of Culture. At the same event, the Saudis announced that its commission of museums and heritage signed a series of MoUs with Chinese counterparts to for long-term loans of each others’ art and archaeological collections. Another interesting development was the announcement of the Prince Mohammed bin Salman Prize for Saudi-Chinese Cultural Cooperation, which will give its inaugural award in 2025.
All in all, a very busy month with a lot of interesting developments in China-MENA relations. Thank you for supporting the Newsletter, and I hope you’ll consider upgrading to a paid subscription for November.