Newsletter: China-Middle East

China getting ahead in the Gulf

China’s Vice President Han Zheng is visiting Saudi Arabia and Kuwait this week before traveling to Qatar to attend the Second World Summit for Social Development Nov. 3-5.

Rosaleen Carroll
Rosaleen Carroll
Oct 30, 2025

Hi, readers:

This week, Chinese Vice President Han Zheng is embarking on a Gulf tour that includes Saudi Arabia, Kuwait and Qatar. The visit is a reminder of China’s deepening engagement with the Gulf, not just as an energy buyer but also as an infrastructure and development partner.  

As the Gulf adjusts to a new regional order, China is making sure it plays a key role.  

Let’s unpack.

Rosaleen (@roscarroll_)

Sign up for the newsletter here. 

Leading this week

China’s Vice President Han Zheng is visiting Saudi Arabia and Kuwait this week before traveling to Qatar to attend the Second World Summit for Social Development Nov. 3-5. The visit, hosted by Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman and Kuwait’s Crown Prince Sheikh Sabah Al-Khaled Al-Sabah, reflects Beijing’s ongoing effort to strengthen political and economic ties across the Gulf.

During a Monday briefing, China's Foreign Ministry spokesperson Guo Jiakun called the trip an “important high-level interaction between China and countries in the Middle East,” referring to Saudi Arabia as a “comprehensive strategic partner” and to Kuwait and Qatar as “strategic partners.”  

Guo emphasized that since President Xi Jinping’s 2022 visit to Riyadh for the first China-Gulf Cooperation Council and China-Arab States summits, China’s relations with these Gulf states have made “remarkable progress.” 

Saudi Arabia 

Han’s visit this week coincides with the ninth edition of the Future Investment Initiative conference in Riyadh — also known as Davos in the desert — on Oct. 27-30, where he met business leaders and senior officials, as Saudi Arabia promotes major projects under its Vision 2030 agenda and seeks to advance its AI ambitions. 

Han addressed the conference on Tuesday, where he called for bolstering innovation-linked development. 

He also said that China stands ready to collaborate with Saudi Arabia and other countries in the region. According to Chinese state news agency Xinhua, he added that China and Saudi Arabia should speed up efforts “to secure new progress in financial and investment cooperation,” likely referring to a potential free trade agreement between the two, which has been put on the back burner over Saudi concerns over potential domestic impacts.  

According to a Reuters report from May 2024, Riyadh is particularly wary that lower-cost Chinese goods could undercut the emerging manufacturing sectors it hopes to develop under Vision 2030. 

Still, China-Saudi cooperation has strengthened on several fronts in recent years. Last week, the two countries wrapped up their Blue Sword 2025 joint naval special operations exercise, held Oct. 12-23. This marked their third such drill since the series began in 2019 and focused on tactical drones and maritime coordination. 

Despite Saudi hesitance over a free trade agreement, economic cooperation has also accelerated. In August, Saudi Investment Minister Khalid Al-Falih led a senior delegation of officials and business leaders to China for a multiday visit aimed at advancing trade and investment ties. Discussions during the visit centered on expanding collaboration in new energy sectors, industrial supply chains and capital markets. In July, Saudi Arabia’s Diriyah Company awarded a whopping $1 billion contract to China Harbour Engineering Company as part of the kingdom’s flagship Diriyah urban redevelopment project, a cornerstone of Vision 2030.  

According to China’s Foreign Ministry, bilateral trade reached $107.5 billion in 2024, making China Saudi Arabia’s largest trading partner. In contrast, US-Saudi trade in 2024 totaled an estimated $39.5 billion, according to the Office of the US Trade Representative. This does not, however, include US-Saudi defense deals, which reached at least $3.8 billion in 2024, according to the US State Department. In May 2025, President Donald Trump signed a $142 billion arms deal with the kingdom.

Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman receives the Vice President of the People's Republic of China Han Zheng at Al-Yamamah Palace in Riyadh on Wednesday, Oct. 29. Photo published by Saudi Arabia's foreign ministry. 

Kuwait 

Han’s stop in Kuwait will likely try to build on the two countries’ strategic partnership agreement signed in 2018. Kuwait was the first Gulf state to establish diplomatic relations with China in 1971 and was an early joiner of Beijing’s Belt and Road Initiative in 2014. 

Since 2015, China has been Kuwait’s largest trading partner. In 2024, the bilateral trade volume reached over $16 billion, of which China's exports amounted to $4.8 billion. In 2024, China imported more than 15.9 million tons of crude oil from Kuwait, according to the Chinese Foreign Ministry. 

Beyond oil, infrastructure has emerged as a key facet of the relationship. The massive Silk City-linked development near Mubarak Al-Kabeer Port in northern Kuwait is being built under Kuwait’s Vision 2035 plan and features deep Chinese involvement under the BRI. In 2024, a memorandum of understanding between China and Kuwait tied the project explicitly to the BRI. After years of delay, work on the port resumed in March 2025, a month after Kuwait signed a contract with China State Construction and Communications Corporation. 

Qatar 

On his final stop, Han will attend the Second World Summit for Social Development in Doha on Nov. 3-5. China’s relationship with Qatar, like its ties with Kuwait, is largely anchored in energy. 

In 2023, China National Petroleum Corporation joined QatarEnergy on the North Field East natural gas expansion project, securing 4 million tons of LNG annually for 27 years along with a 1.25% equity stake. The year before, Sinopec, a Chinese oil and gas enterprise, signed a similar 27-year agreement to receive 4 million tons of LNG per year starting in 2026. By 2024, China imported over 18 million metric tons of Qatari LNG, roughly 24% of its total LNG imports, according to the Institute for Energy Economics and Financial Analysis.

China’s footprint also extends into Qatar’s shipbuilding sector. In 2024, QatarEnergy finalized contracts worth roughly $6 billion with China State Shipbuilding Corporation to construct 18 ultra-large LNG carriers, scheduled for delivery between 2028 and 2031. Later that year, QatarEnergy expanded this order for four more ships, bringing the deal to about $8 billion. 

In June 2024, Qatar's minister of transport met with his Chinese counterpart in Beijing, where the two discussed how to increase cooperation in transportation, ports and civil aviation, according to a statement from Qatar's Foreign Ministry.

Rosaleen’s take: The Gulf is navigating shifting ground, both politically and economically. Gulf states are pursuing economic diversification, which not only refers to broadening the sectors that drive their growth, but also to expanding the range of international partners they engage with. In this context, China has emerged as a major economic partner, with Chinese companies increasingly involved in infrastructure, energy and industrial projects across the Gulf.

The Gulf remains economically intertwined with the United States — which, until Thursday’s truce, was in the midst of a trade war with China — through oil, defense and investment links. But China's Gulf presence is clearly on the rise.

China‑GCC trade reached approximately $288 billion in 2024, surpassing the combined trade value of the GCC with the United States (roughly $77 billion) and the European Union (roughly $173 billion). For Beijing, the Gulf is offering more than access to oil: It presents an opportunity to embed itself into a changing regional architecture.

Photo of the week

US President Donald Trump (L) and China's President Xi Jinping shake hands as they arrive for talks at the Gimhae Air Base, located next to the Gimhae International Airport in Busan, on Oct. 30, 2025. (Photo by Andrew Caballero-Reynolds/AFP via Getty Images)

Deals and visits ✈️

 

What we are reading​​

  • US and China agree on one-year trade truce after Donald Trump-Xi Jinping talks: Financial Times
  • How the 19th-century opium war shapes Xi’s trade clash with Trump: The New York Times