UAE looks to China’s ‘Belt and Road’ initiative for future endeavors – analysis

The UAE is looking to play a key role in China’s Belt and Road Initiative, according to a new report out of the UAE; the initiative’s summit is taking place this week.

The UAE’s role in China’s global economic footprint is part of a wider trend in the Gulf of countries growing closer to China. In the regional context, it is worth noting that both China and Russia have not condemned the October 7 attack, and it appears that Beijing, Moscow, Tehran, and Ankara are turning increasingly hostile to Israel in their unwillingness to condemn Hamas’s terror.

This could have global and regional impacts because Iran is destabilizing the Middle East. China has helped Iran reconcile with Saudi Arabia and does not seem to have any current interest in reining in Iran’s regional attacks.

According to the Emirates News Agency-WAM, “the United Arab Emirates has emerged as a key player in regional and global development, driven by its visionary leadership, strategic location, and favorable business climate.” The report explained that this helped establish the UAE as “an influential economic force, particularly in supporting major global initiatives such as China’s Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), launched by President Xi Jinping in 2013.” The UAE is hoping to showcase its active participation in the initiative at the summit taking place on Wednesday and Thursday.

The new report points to a rosy picture of UAE-China economic ties. “As a regional economic powerhouse, the UAE continues to make significant contributions to the initiative, with 65 participating countries representing 30 percent of the global gross domestic product (GDP),” the report noted. It further added that the country has “invested US$10 billion in the UAE-China Joint Investment Cooperation Fund to support BRI projects in East Africa and signed 13 memorandums of understanding with China in 2018 to invest in multiple areas within the UAE.”

Overall, the UAE is doing a massive amount of trade with countries that are all linked to China. “The ninth edition of the summit comes as the UAE and China celebrate 40 years of diplomatic relations in 1984, with China being the UAE’s number one trading partner in the world. Recent data released by the Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs showed that during the first half of 2024, the volume of trade exchange between the two countries reached $50.108 billion, including $18.66 billion in UAE exports and $31.448 billion in imports from China,” the report noted.

The UAE, like many countries, has trade with China – but that isn’t a zero-sum game in terms of ties to the West. The UAE is a key ally of the West and it has made important strides in the region in terms of promoting stability and coexistence; the Abraham Accords, signed four years ago, are a key part of this.

However, the trend in global affairs is clear. As China, Russia, Turkey, and Iran seek to challenge the West, there will be more conflicts and global chaos. Russia and other countries are openly seeking a new world order that will be made up of a multi-polar world, different than the world order that emerged after the Cold War.

The US’s role in the Middle East

The US role in the Middle East has immensely benefited the Gulf, with assets like military bases and other key strategic ties in the Gulf. However, the US’s decision to make Qatar a major non-NATO ally now looks like a potentially bad deal, considering the fact Doha hosts Hamas, and Hamas caused the October 7 attack that led to a massive war. It did not condemn October 7; neither has China.

This means that it is worth looking at the role of Beijing in the region as more than just an economic play. Beijing has worked to reconcile Iran and Saudi Arabia, but that reconciliation did not lead to Iran reducing the role of its proxies.Instead, Iran has prodded the Houthis to disrupt global trade in the Red Sea. This is where China’s trade depiction is problematic because Beijing has not worked to reduce tensions in the region in the last year. On the opposite, China hosted Palestinian factions and seemed ready to back Hamas integrating with the Palestinian Authority.

As the region looks to trade with China as an important element of its global policy, it is worth asking why peace and stability have not been flowing along the Belt and Road. If Beijing is seeking a larger regional role, it could start by condemning October 7 and supporting a reduction in extremism in the region.