China has recently become proactive in the Middle Eastern region by acting as a regional peacemaker. It not only brokered the 2024 Beijing deal between Hamas and Fatah but also facilitated the Saudi-Iran rapprochement in 2023. It also condemned Israel’s attack on Iran in 2025 and offered to mediate, though its efforts failed. Traditionally, China’s principle of non-intervention has kept it away from Middle Eastern politics. However, its growing economic and strategic interests have now pushed it to engage actively in the region.
China’s concept of security is different from the Western security perspective, i.e., the absence of conflict or the means to achieve peace. The Chinese security perspective involves comprehensive and developmental security. It does not provide the traditional military-based security to Middle Eastern states; rather, it redefines how security can be achieved through economic and political stabilization. Therefore, it can be argued that China is not ensuring security in the Middle East but managing insecurity in the region through win-win outcomes that serve its interests along with regional stability.
China depicts itself as a neutral broker, committed to mediating conflicts between rival states, reducing the likelihood of conflict escalation in the region. The 2023 Iran-Saudi rapprochement facilitated by China ended the 7-year diplomatic divide and is considered one of the biggest achievements of China in the Middle Eastern region. But there is much more to know about China’s interests here. China did not broker the deal out of altruism, but it was an act of economic self-preservation. Iran and Saudi Arabia both sit on the opposite side of the Strait of Hormuz—about 45 percent of China’s total oil imports and around 29 percent of China’s liquefied natural gas (LNG) imports come from this chokepoint. So China’s greatest fear was the blockade of this choke point if confrontation took place between the states. It was China’s economic interest driving its role as a facilitator in rapprochement.
The 2024 Beijing Declaration between Fatah and Hamas was another mediation effort by China to ensure regional security. The deal bridged internal divisions between Palestinian factions, which China viewed as the precondition for resolving the conflict with Israel, as internal divisions were adding another layer of complexity to an already complex conflict. China tried to manage the conflict not by providing defense, but by reducing the volatility of the conflict. It also prevented the spread of the conflict, mitigating the probability of Iran’s involvement in backing Hamas.
Likewise, in the 2024 Red Sea crisis, China consistently called on Houthis to put an end to their attacks on civilian vessels. Approximately 90 percent of container ships that travel via the Red Sea were diverted and had to reroute around Africa. China, being the largest trade partner, was adversely affected by this blockade, but China’s response remained consistent with its policy of non-intervention. It did not join the U.S. military operation, Operation Prosperity Guardian (OPG), against the Houthis. China did not want to participate in the operation because, first, China did not want to bolster US hegemony; second, joining the naval military coalition could jeopardize its multi-vector diplomacy with Ansarallah and Iran; and third, the Arab-Islamic world and the rest of the Global South would view it as Chinese support for Israel’s attack on Gaza. Rejecting the OPG mission helped boost China’s regional reputation as a supporter of the Palestinian cause. At the same time, China reached an agreement with the Houthis to allow its vessels to pass undamaged through the Red Sea in exchange for political assistance in international forums.
China advocates for peace through development because economic stability breeds political stability. This approach reinforces the classical liberal argument that economic interdependence lowers down the chances of war between two states. However, this has not been the case in the Middle Eastern region. This is because when conflicts are rooted in ideological and sectarian clashes, economic interdependence collapses under such powerful tensions.
In essence, China is not ensuring security in the classical military sense, and its military influence is limited in the region compared to the United States. It is just trying to manage the insecurity in the region through diplomacy, economic development, and multi-alignment. Its mediation efforts in the Israel-Iran conflict failed because it did not have hard power leverage. China is not providing defense to the states but protecting its own interests while projecting itself as a responsible actor.
