How Biden's Middle East Trip Can Address the China Challenge

How Biden's Middle East Trip Can Address the China Challenge

The key challenge for Biden is to reaffirm a historically rock-solid partnership network at a time of pressing global challenges in Ukraine and the Indo-Pacific.

Next week, President Biden will visit Israel and Saudi Arabia on his first trip as president to the Middle East. His trip comes after multiple worldwide tours to reaffirm alliances and partnerships, including a U.S.-ASEAN Summit, tours of Korea and Japan, a Quad leaders summit, and last week’s annual NATO summit. In contrast to those tours, however, Biden’s upcoming trip comes at a low point in U.S. relations with various Middle Eastern states which have been weakened—rather than strengthened like in previous cases—by China’s rise and Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

Amid bilateral tensions and differences in assessing the “China threat” in the Middle East, Biden has his work cut out for him in reaffirming regional partnerships and charting the future of U.S. policy in the region. First and foremost Biden must combat the pervasive, post-Afghanistan narrative that has challenged perceptions of U.S. regional leadership: that the United States is abandoning the region in favor of competing with China and, to a lesser extent, Russia. How well Biden can reassure traditionally strong Middle Eastern partners—potentially by linking the region to the newfound strategic hotbeds of the Indo-Pacific and Eastern Europe—will illuminate Washington’s capacity to multitask in different regions that implicate U.S. national interests. Nevertheless, it remains clear that the Middle East is Washington’s to lose.

The Middle East Within Shifting a Geopolitical Order

At a critical time of U.S. alliance-strengthening, the Middle East has largely been left to hedge against shifts in U.S. policy. Last year’s withdrawal from Afghanistan and U.S. political messaging on shifting to focus on East Asia have traditional allies in the Middle East, such as Israel, Saudi Arabia, and the United Arab Emirates (UAE), reassessing their role within a shifting geopolitical order. Israel, Saudi Arabia, and the UAE have found themselves caught between U.S.-China competition. Despite the United States’ long history of security and economic cooperation with Israel and Saudi Arabia and Washington’s role in promoting greater cooperation between Israel and its Arab neighbors through the 2020 Abraham Accords, the three countries’ acquiescence to Washington’s approach to China cannot be taken for granted

Today the Middle East represents a stark example of the tradeoffs facing U.S. policymakers. Reinforcing Euro-Atlantic and Indo-Pacific alliances may lead to undesirable consequences, such as increased challenges to cooperation with Israel and the Gulf states. How to minimize the costs of the geostrategic shift in U.S. policy, convey solidarity with traditional allies, and address the “China challenge” in the Middle East will be the central challenge for Biden during his visit. It is vital that Washington conveys reasonable expectations to its Middle Eastern partners amidst U.S.-China competition, which has become the thorniest issue in maintaining strong U.S.-Middle East relations.

How China Exacerbates Wedges in U.S.-Middle East Relations

In the past year, there have been multiple signs of misalignment and tension between the United States and its traditional Middle Eastern partners. This is due to shifts in the geopolitical environment caused by China’s rise and the United States’ hyperfocus on China across all aspects of its foreign policy. Accordingly, regional perceptions of U.S. demands to “choose” between Washington and Beijing have been ill-received. In this way, the China challenge is driving sharp wedges in U.S.-Middle East relations.

Middle Eastern powers are repositioning themselves to glean benefits from both the United States and China, desiring security assistance from the former while profiting from Chinese investment. However, they have not been able to escape U.S. pressure on the China challenge. For example, U.S. media reports last year of a secret Chinese construction project to build a military facility at the port of Khalifa in Abu Dhabi, caused a diplomatic flurry and stalled the much-coveted sale of F-35 stealth fighters to the UAE. Last week, China’s top diplomat Yang Jiechi met Emirati president Mohammed bin Zayed Al Nahyan. The Chinese Foreign Ministry’s meeting readout was very complimentary of the “comprehensive strategic partnership” and announced the UAE’s support for China’s new Global Development Initiative and Global Security Initiative.

Perceptions of U.S. noncommitment, as well as a desire to gain leverage in the F-35 negotiations, have driven the UAE Ministry of Defense to announce the acquisition of a dozen Chinese advanced trainer aircraft. The UAE’s first purchase of non-Western fixed-wing aircraft will mark a dramatic shift in the U.S.-UAE defense cooperation dating back to 1994. The U.S.-UAE relationship has also suffered from the Emirati’s perception of a slow U.S. response to the January 17, 2022 drone and missile attack on Abu Dhabi, as well as Abu Dhabi’s unanswered request to redesignate the Houthis as terrorists.

Meanwhile, Israel, a more established U.S. ally in the Middle East, has had its own differences with recent U.S. policy. Washington expects its allies to limit trade, supply chain, and technology exposure to China. In Israel’s case, misalignment and differing strategies, especially on China and Iran, are less public but equally pertinent. There is a growing concern among Israeli policymakers about eroding bipartisan Congressional support for Israel, the Biden administration’s full-force recommitment to the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), and what is perceived as a zero-sum demand to “pick sides” between China and the United States.

The United States has warned against Israel’s embrace of Chinese infrastructure investment at the port of Haifa and the risks posed by the billions of dollars in Chinese funding in the Israeli technology and agricultural sectors over the past decade. Otherwise strong relations between President Donald Trump and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu were dampened by the United States’ insistence that Israel reject a Chinese bid on the Sorek 2 desalination plant project. Similar frustration occurred after U.S. pressure to block Chinese bids for Tel Aviv’s light rail system. Both these cases have uncovered scars from the early 2000s when the United States pushed Israel to deny its PHALCON and HARPY drone sales to China.

The Russo-Ukrainian War has driven a deeper wedge in U.S.-Middle East relations. The UAE, along with China, abstained from the United Nations Security Council resolution condemning Russia’s invasion. Both Saudi Arabia and the UAE have refused to adhere to the Biden administration’s calls to release crude oil onto the market to temper skyrocketing energy prices. Russia’s participation in OPEC+ poses an additional challenge for Washington when it asks regional partners to adjust their oil production goals.

Solutions to Challenge Perceptions of U.S. “Abandonment”

The key challenge for Biden is to reaffirm a historically rock-solid partnership network at a time of pressing global challenges in Ukraine and the Indo-Pacific. Biden must dispel the widespread notion that Washington’s attention on Ukraine, in the short to medium term, and China and the Indo-Pacific, in the short to long term, will come at the expense of U.S. commitments to its traditional partners in the Middle East.

One meaningful way for Washington to demonstrate its commitment is by linking the Middle East to its Indo-Pacific economic and security frameworks. The recently announced Indo-Pacific Economic Framework (IPEF) presents an opportunity for economic cooperation to include Middle Eastern countries that perceive U.S. retrenchment. A dearth of U.S. competition amid generous and condition-free Chinese financing has left traditional U.S. allies with limited alternatives to financing. While IPEF’s impact remains to be seen, promoting a forum for economic investment can reassure Middle Eastern partners of continued U.S. regional engagement. The flurry of sustainable development plans, such as Saudi Arabia’s Vision 2030, presents the Biden administration with the opportunity to link it with its Build Back Better World (B3W) initiative. Messaging and a demonstration of commitment to the region’s future will be key.

Economic linkage between the Indo-Pacific and the Middle East, including IPEF or I2U2 (Israel, India, UAE, United States), could also offer more secure alternatives to Chinese investment. Amidst other partnerships, technology cooperation forums between the United States, Israel, and the Gulf states could address U.S. technology transfer concerns and introduce productive competition in line with the Biden administration’s “compete, confront, cooperate” China policy formulation. Leveraging Israeli high-tech expertise will not only benefit U.S. national interests but also provide an alternative for a key ally with common regional security interests. A U.S.-Israel high-tech cooperation fund of $500 million to $1 billion could promote joint ventures and stem the tide of high-tech collaboration with a strategic competitor, which the United States has previously warned runs the risk of supporting China’s military modernization via military-civil fusion and technology transfers. With the right incentives, Israel’s technology sector would welcome collaboration. 

Another avenue for Biden to marry the “old and new” areas of U.S. strategic focus is through cooperation on counterterrorism. Recent meetings from both the Quad and NATO emphasized deepened cooperation on the transnational issue. The Biden administration’s approach is squarely focused on combatting “metastasized” terrorism in other regions, some of which directly impact Israel and the Gulf states.

At Washington’s lead, Middle Eastern counterterrorism objectives could be linked to forums like NATO and the Quad to reassure Israel, Saudi Arabia, and the UAE of a continued U.S. commitment while applying decades of experience to combatting transnational terrorist threats. Within the Middle East, each country’s internal security issues and unique bilateral relations with other states make counterterrorism a fruitful domain for linkage. Adjoining Middle Eastern counterterrorism partners to NATO and the Quad could leverage their counterterrorism expertise, apply them to these Euro-Atlantic and Indo-Pacific frameworks, and contribute to the Biden administration’s targeted approach toward combating terrorism.