China’s surprising drone sales in the Middle East

By: Bradley Bowman, Maj. Jared Thompson, and Ryan Brobst  

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The Biden administration plans to move forward with $23 billion in weapons sales to the United Arab Emirates, according to press reports published last week. The sales include F-35 aircraft, MQ-9B armed drones and other equipment.

The Biden administration’s decision was likely informed, at least in part, by a new dynamic emerging in the Middle East arms market: Beijing has increasingly exploited Washington’s reticence to sell drones to key Gulf partners. If this trend continues in drones and other arms sales, it will undermine Washington’s leverage and potentially endanger core American interests.

The Stockholm International Peace Research Institute released a report in March noting that global arms transfers from 2016 to 2020 leveled off compared to 2011-2015 — but arms imports in the volatile Middle East grew by 25 percent in the same period. Arms sales to countries in the region included, for example, advanced tanks, aircraft, ships and satellites. The report demonstrates that the Middle East arms market is becoming increasingly crowded, robust and competitive.

But a curious anomaly is tucked away in the SIPRI data: Between 2016 and 2020, China, which historically has not been a major supplier to the Middle East, increased the volume of arms transfers to Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates by 386 percent and 169 percent, respectively, compared to 2011-2015.

Admittedly, the large percentage increases in Chinese weapons sales to these two important American security partners in the region reflect a low starting point, not a large, overall quantity of sales.

The United States is still by far the leading arms supplier to Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates. According to SIPRI data cited by the Congressional Research Service, the United States provided approximately 61 percent and 56 percent of all weapons imported by Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, respectively, from 2000 to 2019.

China did not break the 1 percent mark during that period with either Saudi Arabia or the United Arab Emirates. But it would be a mistake to dismiss China as an irrelevant player in the Middle East arms market. That is because of Beijing’s increasing sales, the nature of those sales and their likely implications for core American interests.

What explains the growth of Chinese sales to the Gulf region? It is Chinese drone sales to U.S. partners.