China is steadily expanding its economic and political influence in the Middle East and North Africa, challenging American dominance in a region long seen as critical to U.S. power.
Today, MBN is publishing its first-ever Great Powers Index, a months-long effort to quantify China’s rise through five methods of influence: military, economy, diplomacy, soft power and technology.
The Index found that from 2020 to 2025 China had closer connections than the United States with 12 of the 23 countries that make up MENA, up from nine countries during the same six-year period a decade earlier.
From a stadium in Algeria and schools in Iraq to wind farms in Saudi Arabia and 5G networks in Egypt, Beijing has built a broad commercial presence across MENA through its manufacturing prowess, infrastructure expertise and no-questions-asked foreign policy.
Trade between China and MENA nations exceeded $510 billion in 2025, two-and-a-half times the U.S. total.
In the economic and technological realms, you’ve seen a huge explosion of Chinese influence in the region,” said Aaron Glasserman, a fellow at the Weatherhead East Asian Institute at Columbia University. “A lot of the region, certainly those countries that historically have had most of their economy based on hydrocarbons, are looking to diversify their economies, and China is the critical partner for doing that.
But while the United States has lost economic ground, it retains enormous advantages in military power, security relationships and, to a lesser extent, high-end technology.
Washington has defense agreements with Saudi Arabia, Qatar, the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain, Jordan, Kuwait and Israel that it can leverage to promote not only geopolitical objectives but American businesses.
The picture that emerges then is less about Beijing moving to replace Washington in the region. China’s rise instead has given MENA something it had much less of a generation ago, namely, a choice. Many of the leaders of the countries are taking advantage, cultivating ties with both superpowers and extracting benefits from each.
“In the economic and technological realms, you’ve seen a huge explosion of Chinese influence in the region.”
Aaron Glasserman, Weatherhead East
Asian Institute at Columbia University
American ally on China’s side of ledger
Iraq illustrates how much the region’s geopolitical landscape has changed.
The United States invaded the country in 2003, toppling dictator Saddam Hussein, and later returned to help Iraqi forces fight the terrorist group ISIS.
But as American companies largely retreated amid years of political instability, Chinese firms moved in.
“China has been the force for its reconstruction,” Glasserman said.
The Great Powers Index identified 59 Chinese-led projects launched in Iraq during the past six years, including a hospital in Nasiriyah, an apartment complex in Baghdad and 23 oil and natural gas projects.
These economic links moved Iraq from the U.S. side to China’s, according to the Great Powers Index. The other two countries that switched were Morocco and Egypt.
Yet Iraq also demonstrates the limits of measuring influence through economics alone. China may be Iraq’s dominant economic partner, but Washington continues to wield enormous leverage through its military relationships and the global financial system.
Iraq’s oil revenues — generated in large part through sales to China — flow through the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, giving Washington a powerful financial lever. After the Trump administration threatened financial consequences if Nouri al-Maliki returned as prime minister, he withdrew his candidacy.
“When Iraq needs those dollars, we can withhold those dollars,” said Howard Shatz, a senior economist with RAND Corp. whose work has focused on Iraq. “We can stop them from getting gas from Iran with much firmer sanctions, and if they don’t get gas from Iran, then they have trouble generating electricity, and that’s especially bad in the summer heat.”
Those financial ties, combined with longstanding relationships between the U.S. military and leaders of Iraq’s armed forces, help explain why Ali al-Zaidi’s first international trip as prime minister was to Washington to meet President Trump.
The lesson, repeated throughout the Index, is that economic and strategic influence are not always the same thing.
Wind farms, anyone?
Infrastructure projects under China’s Belt and Road Initiative remain one of Beijing’s most visible tools of influence. The index counted 468 Chinese-led projects across MENA by the end of 2025; of those, 158 are based in UAE and Saudi Arabia, which along with Israel, make up the largest MENA economies.
“China’s low-strings-attached financing, the megaproject experience of its companies, made it a very attractive proposition,” said Mohamed El Dahshan, chief economist at the Bourse & Bazaar Foundation, a London-based think tank.
Renewable energy has emerged as a particularly important part of that expansion. The Index identified 72 renewable-energy projects, the largest single category in a region synonymous with petroleum.
The projects include a 500MW solar field in Egypt, a 200MW wind farm in Oman and a 700MW solar array in Dubai. The decades Beijing spent subsidizing its green-energy sources are beginning to pay dividends. China is also finding a rapidly growing market for electric and hybrid vehicles.
In 2021, China sold more than 16,800 hybrid or fully electric vehicles to MENA countries. By 2025, that figure had risen to more than 628,000 cars and trucks.
Total trade between China and MENA countries exceeded 2.5 times the U.S. total in 2025
Infrastructure remains one of Beijing’s most visible tools of influence
Welcome to Huawei country
Technology is following a similar trajectory.
Total tech trade between China and MENA nations rose more than 65%, from $12.7 billion in 2020 to $21.1 billion in 2025. U.S. tech trade grew even faster, but remained far smaller in absolute terms: totalling $7.8 billion in 2025, up from $3.8 billion.
Chinese technology investment in MENA also doubled between 2020 and 2025, from $2.4 billion to $4.8 billion, with the biggest gains in Turkey, Egypt, Oman and Saudi Arabia.
Chinese companies such as Huawei, restricted in the United States and parts of Europe over national security concerns, have encountered a much friendlier market in MENA. Its equipment has helped build telecommunications networks across the region, giving China another base to support future economic growth.
China offers governments something few countries can match: financing, construction expertise, telecommunications equipment, renewable energy technology and consumer goods, without the political conditions that can accompany Western investment.
American companies are also making inroads. UAE tech-giant G42 reportedly cut ties to Chinese companies under U.S. pressure and signed agreements on AI and data centers with OpenAI and Microsoft.
The Trump administration, meanwhile, pledged last year to share nuclear and AI technologies with Saudi Arabia in return for investments in America.
Softly, softly
China’s growing presence is increasingly visible not only in ports, power plants and telecommunications networks, but in classrooms, airports and tourism.
In 2015, there were 161 direct flights per week from China to nations in the Middle East and North Africa. Ten years later, that figure had risen to 314. In the past five years alone, weekly flights from China into the United Arab Emirates, where as many as 370,000 Chinese nationals live, rose to 104, up from 59 in 2020.
Saudi Arabia has also seen a big increase: from five flights per week in 2020 to 20 last year.
Chinese social media platforms promote the new routes with feature videos of families traveling through the Gulf and North Africa.
Beijing has also invested heavily in cultural and educational programs.
Confucius Institutes, which have closed across parts of the United States and Europe over concerns about Chinese government influence, have found friendlier turf in the Middle East and North Africa.
There are 29 institutes spread across the region, including five in Egypt.
Mohamed Sayed studied Chinese at a Confucius Institute at Cairo University, where he graduated with a degree in archaeology. He was required to study a foreign language, and having studied English already in school decided to try something that would increase his chances of getting a job — that made Chinese the obvious choice.
“Speaking Chinese can open opportunities in tourism, trade, manufacturing, import and export, and many other fields,” Sayed said in an interview at his home in Cairo. “Egypt now has many Chinese companies and Chinese investors working across a wide range of sectors. Trade between Egypt and China is substantial, and many products sold in Egypt are manufactured in or imported from China.”
He now works as a tourism guide, helping a growing number of Chinese visitors navigate the city.
Another way China gets the word out is through its state-run media.
The U.S. remains the region’s dominant force, but China has quietly made itself hard to live without.
Wire services like Xinhua offer no- or low-cost subscriptions to local MENA outlets, a direct challenge to pricier options offered by Western groups like the Associated Press and Reuters.
In all, the Index counted 31 media partnerships between Chinese news organizations and MENA-based entities.
America’s not-so secret weapon
There is one arena, however, in which China remains far behind. The United States continues to dominate the region’s security architecture.
Washington maintains more than a dozen military facilities across the Middle East. China operates a single overseas military base in Djibouti, established primarily to support operations including anti-piracy missions in the Gulf of Aden, alongside one of the world’s most important shipping routes.
China is selling more arms, replacing in some areas Russia as a supplier with that country concentrating its weaponry on the war in Ukraine. But Beijing still holds a tiny share of the market, 3.1 percent vs. 1 percent in 2020. The dominant player though remains the U.S.
American forces also conducted more military exercises with regional partners — 41 times from 2020 to 2025, compared with just 19 involving China.
That disparity becomes clearest when regional crises turn violent.
When Houthi attacks disrupted shipping through the Red Sea and battered Suez Canal revenues, it was the United States — not China — that possessed the capability to strike Houthi targets and defend commercial shipping.
America’s use of force in Iran has been far more significant and controversial. As such, it promises to further pressure alliances in the region. Analysts disagree over whether China, with its quiet support and unintrusive foreign policy, gains from the war, or if it loses from a reluctance to enter into alliances or pressure Iran to stop lobbing missiles at its neighbors.
What’s clearer is that Beijing’s economic power has already given MENA nations another source of support. The U.S. remains the region’s dominant force, but China has quietly made itself hard to live without.
— Inaara Gangji contributed to this story.
