China's quiet campaign to win over Middle Eastern countries has run into a problem Beijing isn't really ready to deal with

• Until recently, 2023 looked to be a major year for Chinese outreach in the Middle East.
• Beijing has made economic, diplomatic, and even military inroads across the region.

China has made significant inroads in the Middle East in recent years, building up its economic and diplomatic ties by portraying itself as more neutral than the US and more willing to engage all parties.

However, the latest crisis in the volatile region, the fighting between Israel and Hamas, is putting China's multifaceted effort to win over Middle Eastern countries to its most significant test yet.

Until this month, 2023 looked to be a landmark year for China's outreach to the Middle East. Several countries there, including Iran, Syria, Kuwait, and Saudi Arabia, are already part of China's Belt and Road Initiative, and Chinese President Xi Jinping has hosted several Middle Eastern leaders for state visits, including Syrian President Bashar Assad in September.

In March, Beijing brokered a normalization agreement between regional rivals Saudi Arabia and Iran, made possible by its friendly ties with both sides. Given its heavy dependency on Persian Gulf oil, China has an interest in ensuring such rivalries do not create instability.

China also has a 25-year strategic cooperation agreement with Iran and has made large investments in Israel's technology sector, demonstrating how it has sought to maintain substantial economic ties with rivals within the region.

So far this year, China has also had separate joint military exercises with the UAE and Saudi Arabia. They were the first exercises of their kind for China, leading some to believe Beijing's economic inroads in the region will be followed by a military presence.

The war between Israel and Hamas, which began with an unprecedented attack by Hamas inside Israel on October 7, has tested China's overall approach to the region, however.

Beijing has decried the violence and called for a ceasefire, and China's special Middle East envoy, Zhai Jun, has made overtures about helping to resolve the conflict, but Chinese officials have also avoided condemning the attack and Hamas for carrying it out. Foreign Minister Wang Yi has gone so far as to criticize Israel's response.

Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer raised concerns about the initial Chinese statement "directly" with Xi while visiting Beijing, according to Nicholas Burns, the US ambassador to China. "The Chinese subsequently issued a new statement, where they did say that they were very sympathetic to the loss of life in Israel and, of course, did not support terrorism," Burns said at an event on October 11.

China may see criticizing the US and Israeli response and refusing to condemn Hamas as a way to get closer to Arab countries and gain an edge in its competition with Washington, but that is "a risky gambit," according to Michael Singh, managing director at The Washington Institute and a former White House official.

"If the Gaza conflict weakens the Abraham Accords and halts progress toward Israel-Saudi normalization, and/or if it sours ties between the US and its Arab partners in the Middle East, China will have gained strategically, but at the high cost of good relations with Israel," Singh said on October 19.

If that doesn't happen, "China will have trashed its ties [with] Israel and gained only fleeting praise among Israel's critics," Singh said, adding that China's "friends with everyone, allies with none" approach to foreign policy "is incompatible with exploiting global crises to undermine the US."

China may also see Middle Eastern countries' ire over US support for Israel as a chance to increase its arms sales to the region.

In recent years, Beijing has sold armed drones to Saudi Arabia, Egypt, the UAE, Jordan, and Iraq. These sales are minuscule compared to US arms exports to those countries, but they appear to be part of a broader effort to "displace" US influence, according to Lt. Gen. Alexus Grynkewich, commander of US Air Forces in the Middle East.

China, which gets much of its oil and natural gas from the region, is primarily building influence "through economic means," including infrastructure projects, and "in some cases foreign military sales or their equivalent of that," Grynkewich said at a Defense Writers Group event on October 4.

"What I think is a reasonable assertion, though, is that where economic interests start, military interests will follow to protect those economic interests," Grynkewich added.

Grynkewich pointed to areas of concern, including the presence of technology developed by Chinese technology firm Huawei, which officials say could be used to gather intelligence on US military activity. In December 2021, the UAE suspended negotiations for a landmark purchase of 50 F-35s after the US raised concerns about a 5G network that Abu Dhabi was working on with Huawei.

"Our focus is on securing the military dimension of the US relationship with these countries so that that Chinese influence remains displaced," Grynkewich said.

While Chinese officials have expressed interest in helping end the fighting between Hamas and Israel, it's not clear that Beijing is willing and able to use what influence it has to contain or resolve the conflict.

Zhai, China's Middle East envoy, began a tour of the region last week, stopping in Qatar first on October 19. That same day, Xi met with Egypt's prime minister in Beijing, where Xi said the "fundamental way out of" the Israel-Palestine conflict is "implementing the two-state solution and establishing an independent state of Palestine," repeating China's often-stated position.

At the event on October 11, Burns, the US ambassador to China, doubted whether China could be "a true mediator."

Doing so means "you have to speak truth to both sides, you have to look for differences, you have to be actively engaged every day," Burns said. "It's the kind of role we've played for the last half-century in the Middle East. I don't see, really, indications of that" from China.

Paul Iddon is a freelance journalist and columnist who writes about Middle East developments, military affairs, politics, and history. His articles have appeared in a variety of publications focused on the region.