Oil-rich gulf monarchies are leveraging their wealth to deepen ties with China amid anxiety about the future of their longstanding security partnership with the US. Seven months after President Xi Jinping participated in the first China-Gulf summit in Riyadh, economic exchanges between the world’s second largest economy and nations like Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates...
Chinese Overseas Police Service Stations are known to be present in Israel and the UAE. However, their specific locations, functions, and extent are shrouded in secrecy. China’s footprint in the Middle East has grown significantly over the past two decades. The region has become central to China’s foreign policy within the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI)...
A senior Democratic lawmaker who backed legislation last year asking intelligence agencies to examine and report on the ties between the United Arab Emirates and China says he is alarmed at what he has learned since then. Rep. Raja Krishnamoorthi, D-Ill., is one of several lawmakers with intelligence access sounding alarms about China’s activity in the...
The fabric of America’s strategic ties to the Gulf region is fraying. The leader of its most consequential nation, Saudi Arabia, has essentially told the Biden administration with regard to oil supply, arms sales or nuclear power, “If you want to work with me fine, but if not, there are others who will.” Less visible but hardly...
Sıtkı Ayan, the businessman helping Tehran sell oil, dodged US sanctions for years On March 22 of 2021, several of the world’s most dangerous men descended on Beirut’s historic seaside Summerland Hotel — not to swim in the Mediterranean or explore the sumptuous resort’s “Le Beach Pop Up,” but to talk Turkey. The meeting was...